pouët.net

I'm first to post! =)

It's here!

ah damn, no chance to make it run on parallels then -_- oh well, diskmags suck anyway, can wait a couple more weeks till i get home ;)

instant thumb up.

instant thumb up.

instant thumb up.

Well, hey, you stole me my idea i had for the Titan Artpack 3 GUI!! (Being spheres and stuff linked together with some kind of interaction and so on, well, you got it hehe) We'll still release it, dont yell out for ripoff please :))

Now, where's the web-readable version?

Normally, I would thumb down any Windows-only diskmag released in the 2000s, but being a direct successor to a legendary early-1990s mag turns it into a pig.

very very nice indeed :)

viznut, your comment and your rating sucks.

quite enjoyable, articles are qualitywise comparable to PAiN and the interface looks very neat.

it is here, finally \o/
best mag ever! at least better than hugi!

lalala.. lovely stuff ;) interesting articles, interface that kicks.. keep up the great work!

instant thumb up.

could you please provide an http link ? can't do ftp from here :x

waiting for a (web) readable version. anyway articles seem very nice indeed

Great comeback.....:)

After So many years!!!!

I did manage to read most of them on my Geforce 3, but thirding for the net version too!

haha, first bug report before i even started it \o/

smash, please add 5:4 as aspect ratio for 1280x1024 monitors :)

quality, that's all i have to say.

Fucking hell! What an amazing comeback!

The interface was spectacular, although maybe a bit too flamboyant as it was kinda hard to read at times. The articles were ok, yet there was a load of feeling and spirit in this mag!

Great music all round, and boy, what a title pic! I

I loved reading oldskoolers like Facet and Archmage talk about 2d graphics and I got the feeling that the whole demo scene is going through a rebirth at the moment!

no tEiS d&b .. no interesting for me's ..

next time, tho ;D

Awesome diskmag! Seems to be like proof-read and everything. ;)

a great read so far and the transitions are cool as fuck

A milestone in diskmags!

no

Pretty good. I do however find the navigation system to be quite annoying. While it looks superb, traditional diskmag interfaces are easier and quicker to use.

small beef with the interface first: 5:4 support would be great and so would be kerning (or at least supixel-accurate positioning) of the letters, the uneven spacing makes it kinda hard to read at times.

other than that, the interface rocks though (transitions ftw! :), and more importantly, the content does too. i'm not through the whole thing yet, but the interviews are great (and worlds away from the usual "who-are-you-and-what-do-you-do"-crap), the articles well-written and everything is just beautifully polished. and even better, this issue packs a lot of content without any of it seeming like filler material.

just great.

actually, it seems like it already has subpixel-accurate positioning, but the spacing still feels uneven. no idea.

ok, after reading around a bit (damn work ;): instant thumb up.

Music, transitions, look&feel, articles with actual content FTW.

Why Axel?

welcome back, great articles

Currently halfway though reading this, and just went downstairs to get some more coffee. The "journalism" scene needed a kick up the backside, and this does indeed seem to be it. I'm a bit torn about the interface, it's not as instantly intuitive as some of the older, more traditional mags are - but on the other hand it shows a willingness to try something need, explore new ways of doing things. Contentwise, I'm loving it.

Hope this gets some more groups to wanna do mags, and do GOOD mags. And kudos to Brainstorm for bringing Facet out of retirement for this and their Traction coop demo from Buenzli. That alone makes these downloads worth it. Sorry for the long rant - go read this now. I know I will for most of tonight.

Na ENDLICH :)

Thanks to Brainstorm, thanks to Axel and the ZINE staff ! Definatley a great mag with many new fresh ideas ! Maybe you must get used to the interface a little bit but after checking it some time it is just great...

The musics are brilliant, with one more track of my hero Lizardking hahahaha...

This issue will surley entertain me some days or even more :) So going back to read it....

very nice interface, but I would prefer it a bit more oldskool, as it would be much easier to navigate through and seeing more headlines at once. BUT: excellent idea of showing up articles and characters in various stylish ways, and most important: great and interesting articles. it's also nice to see so many old scene legends contributed.

bug reports (tested on my Intel Core 2 Duo notebook 2GHz, 2GB RAM, GeForce 8600, Vista Premium):
- mouse pointer is moving too slow and jerky (any resolution!)
- can't reproduce this at the moment, but after reading through zine for 1h or so it happened that the selected headlines in the menu weren't highlighted and only the headline appeared under the sphere, but no longer the short descriptions.

Great

Any one has managed to unlock the musics ?

This mag is so great...I have mostly clicked on everything...but with no success..

please....give us some clues...:)

anyone managed to download it ?

No bugs on my system...AMD3200+ 9800XT at 1024*768 4xAA...Runs very smooth on Shaders 2 :)

One thing i wish you to implement :

When you are reading the articles and press space to zoom in, you can not use the mouse so scroll sideways!!!

i can only go up and down...and have to use the cursor keys to move sideways....

Can we have the Mouse enable in zoom mode on Zine 13 ?

Once again...amazing mag :)

Cool

instant thumb up!

(and the articles really rewl)

bug report: Seems to have problems with the ü character. "gargaj of mlat design"...

not bad

good to see it back.

(and yes, i will buy a new computer soon)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerning
:S!

I would have voted for not having all the text justified. What about having an option on the menu to make the text not justified? :P

thumbs up for the effort tho.. Looking forward for an improved 13.

Bloody firewall.

Didn't quite read everything yet, but from what I saw, this was teh bomb! There is of course room for improvement, for example parts of the interface were a bit confusing, but all in all you've done a great job. I'm real glad to see something as classic as Zine revived with quality, instead of just relying on an old name. Looking forward to the next one(s).

hi thumb for zine, piggie for windows only. nevertheless, keep up the good work.

Fantastic effort! Haven't read everything yet, but as far as I can tell the articles are well written and very diverse. Very nice music and the interface just rocks - I found myself navigating through the menus just to watch the transitions and all those shiny ball effects :-) Good job, smash! And congrats to the whole team!

Then why don't you just put Zine 12 by Brainstorm & BitFellas? Instead of making it sound like if it was a weird business or something.

joypad input method, please!

Nice work :) I really enjoyed this! Although the song got a bit too repetitive after reading for a while. Looking forward to #13!

Zeila: There are multiple songs - 15 in total (4 open and 11 hidden songs). Change song in the options menu or by using 1-4 number keys.

+1 for being Zine, -1 for being released only for the incompatible and useless Microsoft system.

+1 for being Zine, +1 for the moronic comment above :)

:)

http mirror for those of you behind firewalls etc:

http://www.accession.org/truck/brs_zine12.zip

One thing of note, it consistently crashes in SLI mode here with nvidia's 6.14.11.6218 driver. Works fine in single-gpu mode.

yuppieee!!!! 1st day of holiday and finally i can read ZINE#12 \o/ you already get my thumb up, will post comments later :)

looks cool... unfortunately i'm too lazy to read it atm... but some interesting articles in there ...

and thx for low end pc support...;) otherwise it's slow mo here

I`m pretty sure people will jump on my head for saying this.. but..

Due to the hardware requirements, this looked awful on my machine. It would only run semi smooth with the lowest possible settings. I`m guessing this damaged the presentation considerably. In my opinion, diskmags should run with the lowest spec pc`s (with the nature of the production, scene news etc). I like the idea of trying something new, but I found it quite annoying navigating through the menu. Although the soothing tones of listening to Scorpik (a massive pleasure!!) relaxed my frustrations a little.

Content was quite hard to read (without zooming, probably due to using 800x600) and unless I missed sections, it did seem a little thin(?).

I do however think this is a step in the right direction for diskmags(presentation wise). I guess the old top/bottom panels are a thing of the past now.

I hope future issues will be more lower end friendly and otherwise, good luck with future issues!

ZINE.!!!
instant Thumb without having fired it up yet.!
It´s back,it´s back.! YAY.! :)
AMIIIIGAAAAAAA.!!!

darkus: when you start zine, there's an option called "low end pc". use it.

...and if that doesn't make it perfect, go to the options and turn off the dof.

Does not run at all on my laptop (blank screen)... but at least I can listen to the great tunes :) Please post a screenshot from Facet's title picture!

Many years ago, I cried tears of grief about zine11

Today, I cried tears of joy for the release of zine 12

You are making an old Amiga-Guy very, very happy! Thank you.

Superb production values: great title picture, great tunes, nice presentation and wipes. For some reason, the font is a bit hard to read on some occasions (on a 1280*1024 monitor). Content wise, i still have to read it so no opinions on that yet.

... no shit.. (sorry, but you don`t deserve a more constructive response with such a lame comment!)

right, there's the low-end-pc-option, but i bought this pc just in 2007 and it the interface acts jerky when i don't click it :D
beside that, it was well worth the wait, this one is filled with quality content. had to get used to the navigation first and i bet i'm not the only one who accidentally quit the mag by hitting the wrong button. =)

is it me or text is clearly unclearly and unreadable at lower resolution than the native one, both windowed or not, with fsaa or not?

Fucking cool über-rooling cyberpunkish shell!!!

Mixed feelings about the interface. While it's so cool idea, it's so slow and unresponsive here even in the lowest detail. And starting on a black screen with no loading bar indication or something, hogging the whole system, even a heavy loading demo wouldn't do that not a diskmag!

But I keep my vote for when I run it in a better system and read some of the articles.

So, it took a lot of time to get the articles ready... what about doing also a .pdf version of the mag so everybody can read them? :D

a bit jumpy, eh? it's just that a lot of people don't notice that option. just trying to help.

What kind of pc are you using ???? you say that this mag is slow???
On my 2003 PC : Athlon 3200+ 1G + 9800XT 256mb is So sooth at 1024*768 with 4XAA!!!

Crystal Clear on My 19" !! And i am using all Settings ON (shader 2 card)

Are you using integrated Graphics ??? intel ones?:)

Sorry, but no. The interface is nice and such, but the menu to the right is just ot usable with the mouse. Often, whe I click the "Main Menu" button, the last option is selected instead.

The buttonbar on top is covering the text at time (and you see its really a bar, not some icons).

The layout of the (too few) articles sucks as well. Headlines at the bottom of the page, the paragraph beginning at the next page? Besides, as already said: Kerning!

Overall: what a waste of good artices. Would have been better off if these were published in PAiN.

Innovative diskmag style, but the GUI are not the most userfriendly.

Anyway, some quality articles, nice music and clean style.

And i will never find the secret part (to impatient) :)

Mystra: Haha :D Thanks! /slap to me for not figuring out :P Oh, and I liked the interface btw :)

ah damn! managed to get this working on the emulator after all! looking nice ^^ cool to see more decent mags around again :)

i second Delax

the thumb down is for the BAD code
not for the content

They didn't really invent anything new here (hi Axel :D), it is still "just" a diskmag in my opinion. But a pretty good one it is! The interface is nice (yet I agree with everyone saying that traditional mag interfaces are easier to use), the tunes are totally nice (and at least one hidden tune was very easy to find ;D) and the content rocks as well. Specially the interviews are very nice and entertaining to read. It's a worthy Zine #11 successor and I'm looking forward to reading the next issue.

such a stunning interface, kudos to smash & others!

random crashes here, ughly interface and "krankenhaus" gfx...

for the people complaining about the interface's usability... you HAVE recognized that you can simply click into the menu instead of the spheres and that all the keys you would expect to work in a certain way do exactly that, haven't you?

But speaking of usability, please fix that windowed mode that's pretty useless except for screaming out "we just reused our old demo system". It brings every computer I tried to its knees, the mouse pointer doesn't do what you would like it to (invisible in non-client area, strange clipping against used rectangle etc, so please just leave the default cursor on), music doesn't loop if it hasn't got focus, etc.

Still this is the "first" issue, so you've got every chance in the world to iron these kinks out. Keep up the good work :)

sets the new standard for diskmags.

for the content, dident like the layout, but ill try to get use to it Axel, but still a worthy thumb.

the best of its kind

good to see Zine back.

crash after i start the zine_12.exe without an error message... :-/

All right, switching to thumbdown due to totally ridiculous system requirements.

Usability is also about how many times you have to press a key or click a mousebutton in order to get to an article and how much time it takes + the visibility of the articles. That`s why the oldskool diskmag GUI is more userfriendly :)

my laptop could have died but still, it worked once I removed the depth of field in the options.
I wasn't too found of the way some articles have been written but hey, won't complain much as there were nice tunes in the background :)

There are things I like and don't like in the interface, maybe a bit complex or too much arrows I don't know, the 3d when you scroll is cool.

2d gfx is finally dead. fuckings to all lamer ;) zine owns...

a graphics card with shader model 1.1 (introduced in early 2001) and 256mb ram is totally ridiculous? I want to give another thumb to compensate for viznuts endless 8-bit zealotry.

I found the interface pleasent and refreshing. The interface together with the music gives a unique atmosphere and feel to the magazine. Without this the whole diskmag concept doesn't really have much merit. If that means changing the system requirements from ancient to old, then so be it.
When they will even provide an online version for people who don't care about the interface or have incompatible hardware I really don't see the problem here.

"The fact that today's diskmags like Hugi, Jurassic Pack or Pain didn't bring any added value but just continued the formula we (kind of) ran in 1991 kind of scared me." (Axel, Zine #12)

HELLO?? ARROGANCE or IGNORANCE?? (I thought Chester & Orlando were out of the game?!) You really need to check out all the issues of ROM, Upstream ##7 - 10, RAW ##6 - 9 and Generation ##21 - 27. Your standard in articles is definitely below the one of 1994 - 1997. I am not saying Zine #12 is bad, but it is not supreme in a single way. The scene has not stopped at Zine #11 16 years ago whatsoever.

I'm going to summarize my opinions about the diskmag concept in my blog, so wait until then.

Off-topic about the shaders: I don't see any reason why anyone should have a big power-consuming graphics card just to have a feature that he/she never needs for anything.

viznut: big power consuming graphics card? really? the requirement is basically just a computer from this millenium.

Since you're discussing hardware requirements.. The whole thing was real slow on my R9800Pro (latest drivers).. Not something I'd expect from a diskmag, but at least I could read the articles. And I still liked it :)

Mentor, with "computer from this millennium" you probably mean a "pc that is was a high-end gaming machine in this millennium". These usually tend to have big power-consuming graphics cards with lots of features that are not needed in normal use.

And yes, there are even relatively new peecess that don't have shaders. Laptops, desktop peecees custom-built by those who know their actual needs, etc.

So far this thread is just a sad testimony of scene consumerism, but apparently without the hardware to match it. For me, I think the interface is really cool and brave and makes the diskmag concept relevant for 2007 and beyond. That said, a diskmag should really be reviewed in terms of its articles rather than its interface, but I suspect that many of the nay-sayers here haven’t read any of it. I hope the actual reader’s thumbs start showing up once people have overcome their clumsy struggle with tearing off the wrapper. Otherwise, this is proven to be just another scene exercise in throwing pearls before swine. Even though it might be reward enough for some (i.e. me) to see legendary swapper TMB thumb down because of “bad code”, this does not necessarily have to apply to the makers the next time around.

axel: Ok, so I'm sorry that I misunderstood. But then again, why all the focus on the technical performance? As Archmage said, the emphasis is on the articles, and my opinion is that you will need to improve on them. Instead of putting to front "Smash, Hyde, Pantaloon, Facet, Virgill, Scorpik" you would have made an impression with "Mop, Rokdazone, Lord Helmet, Macno, Wolfman". This is a diskmag, not a demo. But I am really, really looking forward to Zine #12!

zine #13, argh :)

instant thumb up.

viznut: where normal use of course does not cover watching demos from this millennium :). why would you then expect a brand new diskmag to run?

Demos have moved on, why can't diskmags?
If you really and truely don't care for the whole concept of a diskmag as an 'experience' then why care about diskmags in the first place? and if it is only about the articles then why not just wait for the online version?

But then again, one of the (if not *the*) guiding principle in user interface design is that if you don't know how to use it immediatly, it's probably not that good. As far as the interface goes, I think it looks really neat but it could be a lot more intuitive. The things that bother me the most is the small size of the article selection box in the lower right corner and the kerning. But I'm sure those things will be improved for the next issue.

And you know what, even if I was involved in it, I'll thumb it up anyway. Because it rules.

I don´t know if you´ll add extra-Songs-to-be-unlocked-first (Hidden Songs) again in the future-Issues of Zine...but if,pleeZe consider to include a SAVER...so you won´t need to hack in the Words again and again every time you fire ZINE up.! just save it into the config-file if a Hidden-Song got unlocked.! ;)

After having chekked the whole thang out a bit i´m sure... I love it.! :)

not a bomb - but a nice mag with nice articles.

np,Axel...guess which Song i unlocked First.! #14 ;)

Thumb up: Nice to see a ZX Scene article. Nice-ish interface, runs fine on my GF6600gt.

Thumb down: My main problem, and this goes for all diskmags, is that it's a real pain to drag my pc and monitor into the bathroom so I can read it whilst having a crap.

Result: piggy.

Mentor, I do watch demos from this millennium. Some of them I run on the real hardware, some with emulators and some I watch from video captures (e.g. the PC stuff)

My emphasis on the scene is mainly on mature platforms, so perhaps I'm not really even in the target audience of this mag.

Great. I think that it is missing something vital and that is a little IQ test at the very beginning in order to unlock the magazine:

What is next in the sequence:

1,3,5,7,X

Other than that, really nice music ! Kudos to everyone involved especially Axel !

viznut: I guess not. Just wait for the videocapture then :)

lol....so gimme a hint...i really need to listen to "deadline-forever" (Zine #7) while reading that new Issue #12...whats the WORD.? rofl
That Song is sooo-nice while reading about the DemoScene.!

I appreciate the newschool interface. It's bold, shiny, it features spinning vectors, balls, blobs and tubes. You added 3D into text-layout and that's a good move imho.
Oh, and did I mention the articles are good too ?
You've set a new standard, just keep it this way guys, and don't listen to whiners ! :) There's room enough for Pain, Hugi and Zine altogether in our hearts.

Actually yes, I'd like to read the articles online and also see a video capture of the interface :)

i´m a bit retarded-at-own-will right now (the b00ze.!) ..the forever-thingie should have been some sort of fun,but having had in mind it was in Issue #07 is sth that makes me think....rofl...

...anyway...don´t let go that concept...ZINE is fine as is right now...!!

...maybe i should add that same as for unlocked-Songs goes for the Volume....just save the actual Volume-Settings to the config -file (while EXITing) ...

...it´s the first Issue after more than a Dekade...so ppl let em do some tweaks here and there and it´ll get even better with the next Issue.! ;)

In love,yours cOcOOn...rofl

good stuff .. takes a minute to figure out the navigation, but thats kinda the charm about this

msvcr71.dll not found error :(

i download the dll and try again.

could some1 add a Trainer pleeZe.?
Zine#12+11 ;)
...nah,its funny to try and try and try some more...addictive...! FRESH.!

Preacher: the whole wrapper-analogy was meant as a kick to those who have a hard time with getting the hang of this. Navis has another way of saying the same thing. Because it IS intuitive, but then again there are always some people who will have a hard time figuring out which hole they should put their lunch into. Like the guy a couple of entries above me here for instance.

I haven't gone beyond the startup options yet, but have got a comment..

The monitor aspect ratio selection only offers 4:3, 16:9, and 16:10. Like a lot of LCD displays, my native pixel resolution is 1280x1024 with square pixels.. which is a 5:4 aspect ratio. Usually I get around this problem in demos by selecting 1280x960 mode.. but unfortunately it's not available in this list. I wonder if there's a misconception that 1280x1024 is 4:3.

bigcheese: kb gave us feedback on that early in this "thread". but thanks anyway :)

bodo: ...

axel: Ok, Lord Helmet got his style, and you don't like it, nothing to talk about. But you should have a look at Mop's work and learn, or directly ask him to join Zine, you cannot get a better man for your approach. (this is constructive criticism, he)

Can someone refresh me on what was so wrong with Lord Helmets style, and what style was it?

Zplex: I know a scroller that pretty much sums it up.

gloom: t's not my day.
but now, it works ;)

Hmm.. The mouse cursor's a little too laggy, but hopefully could be dealt with in later releases. Some good content articles.

lol,Archmage...Don´t remind ppl too often.! or expect some ppl trying to do sth like that again.! ;)

no offence btw...just jokin´ (as alwayZ.!) :)

I have to comment this, it's rather narrowminded Fishwave. I for myself never liked Mop's articles because they were WAY too long and desprite the excellent english not really interesting to read in my opinion. You might have liked them, I didn't, tastes differ. And I for myself like the articles in Zine, nice to read and most of them are interesting as well. So imho, no Mop needed to improve Zine! :)

Anyway, it`s not RAW that are controversial, so is this mag. I must say i personally vomited when i read Facets article :)

I meant, "it`s not ONLY RAW that ....."

Had to correct this before i get flamed.

Facet's article made me smile actually for obvious reasons I guess :D

Gloom: Well, would u have time for such an article when you have to make tons of Garfield vs Demoscene comic strips for ZINE #13?

He could make a Garfield vs. Scene strip for that article. :P

first time i read an issue of this mag.. the shell is a bit slow i think. both in terms of menu design and execution (a slow mouse pointer is really annoying).

the articles are pretty good: readable and clear english. no laughable shit like from adok, for instance. although none are really in-depth. no tutorials or anything.

all-in-all pretty okay, but not worth watching more than 2 times.

stingray: I accept that, but you must agree with me, that it is damn hard to run a discussion, when at the end of the day the only argument left is a "that's not my taste/opinion, you're wrong/narrowminded". The Amiga scene loved ROM (maybe not you, but the overwhelming majority), and ROM had the same philosophy Zine follows now, so I thought it could be helpful in a way. That's all to it, cheers mate! ;)

Well, I totally understood your point, Fishy. :)
And my first comment ("They didn't really invent anything new") was also reaction to Axels article about how nothing did change in the diskmag scene. :)
What I wanted to point out was that everyone has different opinions about a "good mag". Ask 3 ppl, you will hear 3 different answers. Of course, you may totally like Mop's style but it doesn't necessarily mean it would make Zine any better. :) And well, for me, the best diskmag ever was, is and always will by D-Tect's Hack-Mag anyway. ;)

by = be of course. ;)

I always looked at ROM as being top quality and probably the best mag to grace the Amiga scene. RAW & Seenpoint (hello mr.fish) .. are not far behind.

Scene journalism is probably more difficult nowadays because of sites like this and bitfellas. When booting ROM all those years ago, the news section was actual news to me :)

Surprisingly it runs well on my old good Radeon 9600 pro (with 256MB Ram though. Maybe the 5700 I tried it yesterday didn't have the memory needed for this and that's why it was slow)! Especially if I disable several video option but still looks good in 1024 (though the letters are smaller and I have only 15" monitor here).

Nevertheless, I haven't seen something like this before, the resolution and zoom into screenshots/text is amazing smooth, both the transition and scrolling effects (even if I have them disabled because it's just extra glamour stuff and even without them the mag is highres and cool looking.

Whatever the articles are way cool. It was very interesting to read Navis development course on Lifeforce to see how other coders plan their time and build day after day (Ugh! I wish I was half as productive! My brother says about me "Your plan is Coding, Doom, Doom, Doom, Doom, Pouet, Doom, Doom, Coding, maybe coding, pouet, doom, doom :P"), wondering if there are any other articles like this (with per day progress) in other mags? Haven't read something like that before..
Desert Dreams and 4k coders interview great!!!
Pirx article, great,. makes me wanna code some tiny intro back again..
I like such coder's view articles.
And still reading the rest..

A half thumb up. Interface is unique but there comes the need of optimization too for something so big maybe..

Size and hardware req too hard, design nice, but usability and reading not comfortably. 4 mp3 tracks with not great sound and 40mb... In the interviews haven't photos, this not good. Loading too long.

Right thumb.
Awesome pleased to have this and read some interesting stuff. I guess a lot of work went into editing this as the language in articles is very good. Where did the "state of 4ks" article go - it was advertised on your web site? Did I miss it?

Is thera "list all articles" option, I kinda found it hard to find *if* the 4k article was there. I think I wnet through everything but ...well, I cant be certain.

As for gfx, they are great but killed my x600 1 Gig laptop even with DOF switched off. :-(.

not bad, but on the other side "too much around"
and very slow, at least here...

i liked the REAL ZINE from amiga much more!

Maybe people in the scene are using very old systems....or Linux :)

As i said before runs fine on 2003 PCs 4 years!!!

Amd 3200+ 1G and an 9800XT...with 1024*7684 +4AA!!!

todays computers are much better then 2003!!! no ?

i am a bit disappointed to see that so few people are downloading this...it's a very nice mag...

Am i the only one that likes the new interface ??

PS: sorry the english...i am portuguese...
"Vamos la acabar com o ecoterrorismo ppl...."

Good content. User interface is . . . unique. I don't hate it, so I suppose it works. Music was quite nice. The font was quite bad at 800x600, with no AA and big text off, and that's how I first ran it. At 1024x768 with 6xAA and big text it was better. Loading took a while, for a diskmag. Overall, good.

I really did look forward to see the new Zine, but damn i was disappointed. You might ask, why? Let me tell you. First of all, I think it was a bad idea to try and rebuild the old classic magazine. Namely because, people will compare it the experiences they had with the old issues and especially if you have been active in the scene or actually read the old issues when they were actually released. I admire that you’re trying to reinvent the magazine fame, with a good looking engine, but the engine is a very strong contender to where the magazine fails. The engine is very complex, considering what we have been use to, when it come to magazine reading. First of all I had several engine crashes, I can live with those, but the main control of the engine is good damn annoying. You can see that there have been put some serious time into the engine, to make it as pleasant to use for us readers, but the developers have overlooked a very important fact. Don’t try and invent something that isn’t meant to invented, newspapers is newspapers and can only be done one way, same goes with paper magazines, books and other paper related reading material. You might say, well this is an electronically magazine, sure is, but keep in mind, the major point in a magazine is the reading and when it takes too much time as it does with Zine # 12, to manure around the menu, then I already starting to lose interest in read the articles.

I won’t comment the articles as I haven’t read every article yet, maybe wait for a full review on Zine # 12 in another magazine, if I feel like it. I will comment on one thing and that’s the editorial. It’s like Alex is tired, no motivation or something like that. I mean, if you’re starting a magazine up like this, I would have sounded much more trilled and full of energy that Alex does. It’s like he don’t really care about the magazine, it’s more the fame by rebuilding something so many of us wanted to see rebuild.

Another thing, unlocking pervious modules from all pervious issue, is a nice feature, but why unlock? Why not just make them available from beginning? And why not make the old interface available too in issue 13, it’s much easier to navigate and use, of course not good looking, but after all I did download this to enjoy a good reading while listening to good music. This is the major formular of a magazine with success.

Archmage: a pretty unuseable interface kind of totally destroys the reading experience, so i think code is relevant in a diskmag, thus the thumb -> that the pouet voting system could be more complex is something we all know.

i expect more of zine, and i hope to see that in the next issue(s)...

Again... please someone, post here a screenshot of Facet's title picture! Would be great, thanks...

so... you've waited for this but now you've decided not to read the articles and, instead, wait for a review in another mag? ok...

seriously. you don't know how fucking wrong you are. how about judging the energy and determination by reading the goddamn articles?! jeez... i know gloom is right, i shouldn't care. but this is just too insulting...

Here's for raising the bar on diskmags a tad. Slick look, above average articles.

Now some (constructive, I hope) criticism; the interface. While it's cool to see you try something different, please provide a more effective interface next time... The current solution with the spheres are not only confusing and hard to navigate (too many clicks required for basic navigation), but the transitions also take too long. And as Trace pointed out, the text-layout engine seriously lacks essential features, making the text a bit hard to read. There's also some minor bugs; in some articles scrolling while zooming doesn't y-limit the viewport, in some articles it limits differently, and pressing esc while in the process of exiting re-fades the brainstorm logo.

Another little but somewhat annoying detail about the text engine: if articles only conist of one page please disable the scrolling then as it doesn't make sense and looks strange when the article resets itself. :)

I love my fuxx0red keyboard =) consist of course. =)

Options -> Visual Options -> Large text enabled : Yes

Zplex: If that was answer to me, it didn't fix the problem I mentioned. =) Check for example the credits article and you'll know what I mean. :)

Cool.

Stringray: I think it was meant for someone else that probably runs Zine in a lower resolution so the text is not so readable. I think that option should fix that problem.

Prm Axel Hyde Facet Virgill Pantaloon Critikill Scorpik Radix Smash and Lizardking.... You already have 66 thumbs up, well 67 now ;). Ofcourse some people will say it sux, because they are jealous. Its a great masterpiece and if you guys want to put in so much effort again for a next release. Then im sure it will rock again or even harder, just as the old days. You guys rule =D

@smash
One request; once the transition has finished and nothing is moving, stop rendering! The fan in my laptop was working its nuts off the whole time the mag was loaded. If I had been reading from battery power, it would have drained it quicker than if you suspended rendering until something needed animating.

Otherwise, i thought it was a cool interface.

And dont forget the bitfellas!

It runs fine on my R9800 so I suppose it's a driver problem as usual (I'm using quite an old version of the Omega driver because the new Catalysts are crap imho. :))

great articles. found the interface somewhat annoying though. and calling the render graph article with large text on simply crashes the whole thing.
so: triple thumb up for content, one down for GUI, leaves 2 up ;)

@smash
Another request, for issue #13, how about including a ribbon that wraps itself around the wires connecting the balls, with a garfield picture repeated all the way along it?

don't know if anyone mentioned it already, but it would be nice if the interface saved your settings so you didn't have to choose them every time you open the mag

this sucks! it doesnt work on mah puter! niggahs!

Quality work and an interesting read. I didn't know the Amiga mag, but this definitely is an interesting magazine setting a high standard. The outfit works wihtout problems on my 4 years old 9600pro and isn't hard to handle at all. Also the musical side of the mag is sublime, especially the tune by Virgill kicks ass! :) All in all, well done!

I think it must be mentioned, that the DD article was based on the www.scene.hu interview in Hungarian language. Original questions by Murphy/Exceed.
http://www.scene.hu/news.php?extend.280

Looking forward for the next issue.

What the hell...

To thumb this down is to admit you're a sociopath, really.

A lovely read for a newbie like me. Thanks

Massive rulez

finally a magazine with both revolutionary layout and decent article work.

Run smooth on 7.5 catalyst (best set for this card) on my 9800XT at 1024*768 With 4AA....

Maybe this can help a few ones

Gosh. This outfit is really awful. The music sucks, the layout is awful and all this is 40 mb? After browsing through it hastily I could only see a couple of low-res pictures. Perhaps you should have a look at a real diskmag and just... well... learn. Bad News, Imphobia for instance. If you really have to code some awfully slow and ugly effects then just make a demo or intro. I dont know about the quality of articles. They seem fair... nothing special at first glance. I really wonder that this is issue 12 already. Havent seen a single one before.

Hmm, an account created just to badmouth Zine ... I wonder who is hiding behind the smiley :-)

I must... get used..... to.. new engine...

Congratz to all involved especially Axel on a job welldone! You cant stop progress from happening even on the demoscene and bringingin all those old amiga musicians was a nice touch to!

Is there a way to see the title pic longer? Its gone before you actually have a good peak at it..


Cheers!
Magic

p.s. mop: good you made an account just to comment on Zine#12 :)

Smash: if you have read zine#12 than you would have known diskmags never progressed as they still looked the same since the beginning of the demoscene.. And now they have ;-)

smash: No, the demoscene is about rotating envmapped objects.

it's because nobody is "bringingin" any innovation!!!111

smash: no... the demoscene these days is about progress bars.

oh you nasty images, get out of my mind. now. thank you.

progress ribbons anyone? ^_^

to those who asked: i'll try to get facet's pic online during the day.

Video version please!!! -_- .... . ... ...

It could be amazing but I can't run it on my "oldfashion" PC... I should tumb down it :\

Is was already been discuted any where? the "video version" problem?
Graphic card manufactors changing standards every 6 months :\
Each graphicdemo runs on almost is own birth pc :\ .. blabla...

Well... fantastic try for a new magazine... my personal congratulations to all stuff behind it. It's a bit demanding with hardware but keep on working dudes! (fantastic music crew into the issue!)

I first tried running it under wine, which seemed to work ok except for the fact that there was no visible text, which is kinda crucial for a diskmag :-) Under XP the interface crashed several times and one time it even froze XP itself so it seems the engine still needs some bug-hunting.

Content-wise however this mag rules, this is exactly the kind of stuff I want to read, well written articles with interesting topics.

the title pic by facet can be found here

Please hurry with the online version. I really like to read this and my laptop won't let me. :(

tomaes: if you have total commander, just press ctrl-pgdn on the .exe ;)

is that title picture by the same facet who claims that todays demoscene artists should be ashamed of themselves for their lack of quality and inspiration?

What's the result, open the hex editor? I was actually going through the exe with textpad, but couldn't find sensible article text. (a truckload of "informative" link info though ;)

No, try it out and you'll see. ;)

Notice the dragon in the title pic from Legalise it 2 musicdisk by Anarchy from 1992 :-)

Arff. :)

Sorry, no.

I can't believe that someone, in 2007, dares to release a diskmag which is just ~40 Mb big, takes up only ~375 megs of RAM at the start, so little CPU time, runs so fast and contains so many articles of such a high quality.

Kudos for putting in two pieces by two of my fav scene musicians (Radix and Scorpik), but it's not enough to avoid a good downthumbing.

Next time, please, make it at least 100 Mb big and have it refuse to run on anything less than a quad-core with 2 gigs of RAM and a 30" monitor, because what good is having a PC with enough power to calculate the Answer in seven *minutes* if I can't lavishly and shamelessly waste it just to show some short texts and some small images?

Gotta go: it's getting dark outside, and I have to switch my stadium lights on.

in other words, fogbank is asking for a real "disc" mag, where disc is at least a cdrom.

Ok, investigated the bowels of the exe. Read several informative articles. Neat. Keep 'em coming. And fix this hell of an interface. :)

No, dah-dit-dah-dit-dah-dah (whatever your nick is): cdroms are *so* five years ago. The scene should innovate.
I want at least an hd-dvd, and 99% of its space should be taken up by hyperprofessional samples of a concert grand piano so detailed you can hear the pianist's eyelids flutter.

superb music, the interface rules and quality articels. instant thumb up.

Blasts me off my chair!
Came back from holidays and after a 10 hours ride in my uncomfortable car I feel the urge to read and read again.. Haven't had that for a long time ;)

Thanks Axel and everyone involved for the massive amount of work you put in this great mag!

Cool, nice overall experience! :D

Some good ideas in the interface, but it is too buggy and too difficult.

I was unable to navigate backwards in the hierarchy by clicking on the balls - I would suggest to keep a "string" to the parent ball visible, clicking on that leading back up.

Because of a mouse position bug I found it very difficult using the lower right menu. The bug is not there in low resolutions, but in 1920x1200, the mouse pointer is highlighting a point quite a distance above it:



Here, it is still the "Report" that is hightlighted even though the mouse pointer is almost at the bottom of the entry below. Because of this I was unable to click the "Main" button - therefore having to use my keyboard in order to get back up the hierarchy.

I also missed some more consistent transitions when pressing arrow keys on the key board. Also the scattered distances between the menu items (see picture above) looks random and buggy - even though it is probably intentional.

Of course the ball animations are great, but all in all interface appears pretty unfinished.

But, articles are great, and ofcourse you get a thumb up for the effort and ideas!
Especially I like the articles about non-sceners' impressions of the scene.

http://www.bitfellas.org/e107_plugins/content/content.php?cat.314

Here you can read the articles online. However, it's NOT the final online edition, just the content.

http://www.bitfellas.org/e107_plugins/content/content.php?cat.314

argh..

no, i haven't had the full-fledged ZINE #12 experience yet (lack of time atm). i merely read into some articles via the bitfellas online edition. so i couldn't care less for the interface and all for now. but my instant thumb goes for editorial quality. i read some of the articles and am excited especially by the efforts! axel's professional background definitely shows, i give him that :) . what he achieved with articles like the one about preacher and kb is not only providing interesting, intimate reads, but actually portraying two intriguing individuals! bravo! now all i need is some time for real-time thing, damnit ...

hyde you forgot to use irony tags :)

After the title screen I have all screen white with playing music:( no articles, nothing. Please fix it! What the purpuse to make a low-end-pc option if you don't support old videocards?
And Amiga version please:)

Runs dog slow in places, and no sound. My fault for having a shitty video card, and forgetting my headphones though :) Will try it on my mac at home once I have xp installed for a better impression.

Still an easy thumb up now though, the content is great and the presentation of the actual articles is first class. The main UI is nice too, easy enough to use, but different enough to grab attention.

Fantastic looking magazine with great articles. Way to go Zine! =)

Intresting GUI but contentwise low Q. Without Bitfellas this mag isn't much. Try some more variation and enter an Amiga section with active people instead.

good luck for next issue!

Amiga section? :D lol.

Nice articles, music & graphics, but the GUI is just awful.

i gotta be honost here, the articles where very interresting, even facets retarded letter accompanied with the incredible uninspiring photoshop-collage title-pic, the interface totally killed it for me as it lagged, bugged and was really really slow, had more fun reading it online..

but still,

great stuff, not much else to say :)

Bitfellas is a promising demogroup...

Magnificent!

nice read

I also have some problems with the interface. It's modern alright but I don't know.... I guess it just takes some time to get used to it. Also didn't really enjoy any of the background songs.

But luckily the articles are good.

thanks for the online version.
Some good articles and interviews.

The prototype of a new breed of diskmags.
Cool, stylish and professional.

dip: comm'on man that was quite an amusing comment from you. We both know that Im a bit more into the Amiga scene than BRS. Learn the rules of the active platform boy or write me an mail instead of your personal analyse of my pouet comments.

browallia, you're a dick.

I totally hate the UI, it's a real pain in the ass and makes the browsing of the mag totally annoying and slow. It eventually discouraged me to read all the articles I was interested in at the first launch.

Besides that, congrats to everybody involved, quality stuff in there. Looking forward to reading issue #13 with a USABLE UI.

P.S. : Facet could use a nice cup of STFU

@Browallia:Sorry, that's exactly my problem that I have with the current Amiga Scene. Maybe there are not only 5 readers. Let there be 50, maybe 60 or 80 ?? And writers? Well..uhhm... erm..

Ah and I forgot to give my thumb up. You know why, don't you?

@Keops: luckily Facet put a pic of his own in front of the mag. Makes it a lot easier to add grain of salt the size of a fist to his statements about 2d.

well it didn't strike me as the best diskmag in the world... but it's still good

s7ing of Alcatraz: although we were active on Atari at the same period, we had nothing to do with the group Equinox on Amiga, just in case you made the confusion ;)

Liked the content. The interface is a bit perfomance-hungry, but wtf. Great Zine! Looking forward to #13.

was very nice to read super work guys... respect !

Takes 17 minutes precalc on my expanded CD32 (4MB Fast)! Thus, a piggy.

What a HQ diskmag, great work guys, tons of great stuff to read in here!

Fulfilled the prophecy ;)

thx for article about drumnbasse in da scene

no .pdf version then? :S

wow diskmags, seems like a concept with potential!

Bad font...

this thump goes for the content (which imho should mainly be valued at a diskmag production) and the amount of work which has been put into this mag.
anyway, the interface looks and feels quite demo'ish but isn't that useful, many other said this before. the 800x600 reso is nearly useless.

what really makes me think of was the download bar: 10 meg, 20 meg, 30 meg, 40 meg and still progressing. wtf?? did you store all articles as high reso images???? mags with the same amount of content has been done in 5% of that space and less! looks like using a truck to buy a pack of milk.
"und wer die size braucht hat's nicht kapiert". war da nicht mal was??? hope this changes! additionally the specs are a bit too high for this mag but i think it's still ok. anyway for now it should not reflect in downthumping or piggying this big work put in here.

what a comeback :D

good mag.

in the demo review section in the online mag. Could you for future releases link to the productions reviewed, that would be great.

axel: finally you're right - it's a mag, no intro or demo, so you may make it as big as you like it. maybe the quality you did requires that big size, maybe not. you know, i'm an intro coder so i always watch the size of any production. :)
anyway the mag is cool and this is what counts most. thanks for fixing the low-resolution issue till next issue.

YEAH!

I LOVE this diskmag! Keep up the good work!

what kusma said.

Great content and questionable design. I couldn't read it even with low end PC settings (though my gf4200 ti thingy's got ps1.3 you know). I mean why don't you just shut down all the fx for this config, coz even when I managed to break through to needed articles there were horrible glitches and some overlay problems (e.g. zine in the center displayed on top of the text, so one can't read the text under it at all)
Anyways thanks for online version, coz reading your *.article without the images (e.g. for Bonzaj's article) is not as informative as it could be. Export to HTML or whatever would be a could soultion as well (I could only see it at work on 7900 and still can't say I enjoyed the oulook immensely).

love it!

alternatively, a hex viewer with a search function might be helpful.

Why does the zine engine looks the same as the wii news channel on the wii ? ;-)

where to type those unlocking codes in zine#12 ? I tried TBL for example but no change in music..

ah, i finally get where the 40 megs are going into.. lets just store 10 hidden mp3s in there.. O_O

Grubi's white song \o/

smells like an Easter-Egg

Just got round to reading this and I am truly blown away. The interface and visual design is incredible, but a huge respect to Axel for his professional journalism and writing style, which I've not really seen in PC diskmags.

Loved the title pic by Facet too and really enjoyed his graphics column. I'm really hoping this will be a regular feature.

And I also read Navis' journal on the making of Lifeforce. Really interesting read and my respect for Navis has gone through the roof!

Fuck yeah! Zine is the best discmag evah!

Innovative, very well-polished and full of articles. Yay!

I like it! Read something, and it's quite interesting! :)

Good content, though the interface wasn't quite up to par yet.

nice MagaZine

I got goose pimples when I saw this! I liked the idea, the motivation, the effort. You are great dudes! Thank you for doing thet for us... Well even if it is the past now.... Kudos!