Posted By
MIK
on 2013-09-24
04:06:24
 |  Kelok makes an appearance on the front of a magazine.
I bet your wondering what the...
Kelok is the guy you play from Sword of Destiny and he has found his way on the front cover of a UK magazine known as Retro Gamer, Retro Gamer Collection Vol. 7 in fact.
http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/ejaHoQTXwpA/maxresdefault.jpg
They review the game inside and that's it... also has a quick small word on the C16 in the corner of the review and as you would expect they quickly say the normal BS - failed machine.
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Posted By
MMS
on 2013-09-23
16:00:31
 | Re: Kelok makes an appearance on the front of a magazine.
I see, I see! 
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2013-09-23
21:05:43
| Re: Kelok makes an appearance on the front of a magazine.
I spotted him right away too. There's also a Willy from Jet Set Willy, but he's multi-platform. Very nice find though
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Posted By
MIK
on 2013-09-24
04:07:50
| Re: Kelok makes an appearance on the front of a magazine.
Not my picture that link and was about 1 of 3 from a google search. I see it yesterday in a shop and yeah I think a couple of us here have a soft spot for Sword of Destiny so had to share the find.
Price of the magazine/ made in to a sort of book was a bit harsh for a handful of pages that might of interested me.
Of all the things retro out there a C16/Plus4 title made it on the front cover, and this book also has Sonic the Hedgehog and the like inside it haha!
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Posted By
retroscener
on 2013-09-24
06:20:19
 | Re: Kelok makes an appearance on the front of a magazine.
C16's & Plus4's failed machine my eye. They had lots of support for a good number of years which did better than many and still doing pretty good now in the fan scene 
The C128 was imo a bigger disaster (bugs 'n all), sure it may have sold more units but exclusive software support was virtually non-existent. They're really just over-priced C64's, and don't even get me started on the utterly pointless C64GS
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Posted By
George
on 2013-09-24
07:04:25
 | Re: Kelok makes an appearance on the front of a magazine.
@Sixteen the C16/plus4 was origenally intended to be an C116 for 49$ to compete with the Z80. When Jack left, it became our overpriced C16/Plus4. Even in that incarnation, it was never ment to be a game machine, but a small business machine. If you see it that way, its a great success, because we actually play game on it.
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Posted By
MIK
on 2013-09-24
17:52:18
| Re: Kelok makes an appearance on the front of a magazine.
ZX80 is way too early. 
The C16 was aimed at the potential buyers of the ZX Spectrum market and so Commodore could take a slice of that market. The C64 was still £299 when the C16 launched, or rather big bucks.
There were 2 versions of the ZX Spectrum, one with 16K and the other 48k. Now you know why the C116 looks like it does as the ZX Spec 16k was around the same price as a C16 to buy. This is also the reason why the C16 has no hardware sprites and was meant to be a game machine/computer for the masses in the style of the ZX Spectrum but of course the C16 offered a proper typewriter keyboard.
I've always said that if most coders really treated the C16 as if it was a ZX Spectrum back in the day there would of been many more quality games out there for sure but it's sister machine the C64 said differently and most coders opted for the C64 style. If you want to see a ZX Spectrum style game on a C16 then take a look at Video Meanies. I love those monochrome style graphics, lots of detail just like Spiky Harold.
The Commodore 16 never failed as such in the UK I don't believe as a user. I own well over 300+++ original commercial games for it and taking a guess I could easily make that 400+++ as there is still a fair amount I don't have.
The C16 is viewed as a failure by ignorance mostly from my point of view and maybe partly because Commodore may of said it would of liked to of sold more... and it's the later that's stuck in peoples minds I think.
One of the biggest names in the game was Mastertronic and they supported us for 4 years with their biggest selling game of all time being Rockman for the C16, (I think it was) which out numbered titles released for other platforms! Then we had Gremlin Graphics, Anirog / Anco and Tynesoft all like 1st party supporters to us and not forgetting countless of other software labels like Codemasters, Players, Bugbyte and many more. I better say Solar Software for good measure ha!
The Commodore Plus/4 was that business machine you know of and that did fail. As luck would have it the machine took a price drop and because C16 titles also worked on a Plus4 we were saved as users from a commercial point of view! 
If you were a gamer then most of us used the Plus/4 as a C16 much of the time. If Sixteen Plus thinks the C128 had it bad then the Plus/4 was not much better really from a commercial point of view with software. Beyond the commercial games it was the scene in my eyes that made the Plus/4 shine in the way it does now and why Sixteen Plus uses a 64k C16 today, and the odd 64k/32k commercial game.
Some Failed Machines:
Jupiter Ace
Atari Jaguar
3DO
Amstrad GX 4000
Sega Dreamcast - or was it... C16 has more commercial titles than a Dreamcast even though the DC sold more hardware units than us!
Any one brave enough to say the Vic 20 was a failed machine? Does the C16 have more commercial software than a Vic 20 or is it viewed it did ok because it had good cartridge support? Some people on Lemon 64 have been wondering why there is no Vic20 site in the style of Lemon64, honestly they have been asking! C16/Plus4 has done ok in this regard. 
In my opinion the C16 did ok and if you had a Plus/4 then you had the best of both worlds aka Plus/4 World. Our 264's are a niche machine which doesn't help though as to why things may seem quiet at times. Funny thing is that your find more people on Lemon64 that own a C16 or Plus/4 than those of us that are active here... for them C64 takes priority, but yeah we are not alone. 
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Posted By
retroscener
on 2013-09-24
20:16:05
| Re: Kelok makes an appearance on the front of a magazine.
I was in town earlier. Popped into WHSmiths to have a quick gander of the review in Retro Gamer. I couldn't find anything about it being a "failed" machine, but the Sword Of Destiny review was the more prominent one in the section, and they actually gave it a glowing review. I remember first spotting it at a Commodore Show in London, about 1985 at the Gremlin Graphics stand, of course it was one of the the next games I purchased
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Posted By
MIK
on 2013-09-25
05:06:07
| Re: Kelok makes an appearance on the front of a magazine.
lol I'm not wasting £10 on it so we can all see the two pages.
There was a pink/red box on the right hand side of the review, small picture of a real C16 with some text to tell you about it quickly, did you see that? It was here they said the C16 was a failed machine. If you go that way again then look again. 
Yeah the review was fine of the game. :)
It was printed as part of their so called Minority Report, in English that means machines that are not common.
Here is the full content of the mag. https://www.imagineshop.co.uk/bookazines/videogames-and-retro/retro-gamer-collection-vol-7.html
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2013-09-25
13:00:07
| Re: Kelok makes an appearance on the front of a magazine.
Yeah, £10 is too much for so little content. Though for the sake of completeness, we should add this to our list of publications. MIK / SixteenPlus, do you guys want to take a crack at it?
The other thing I/we should do eventually is type up the little intro blurb from the cassette. As it is, you don't get a hit for the right game if you do a search for "Kelok".
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Posted By
MIK
on 2013-09-29
07:32:22
| Re: Kelok makes an appearance on the front of a magazine.
I was having a little joke when I said the guys name. I don't think any of us have used his name before. I just knew he had a name from the cover and had to look it up to see what it was haha!
I've added the part from the back cover as the intro so that's 2 new words. Kelok & Xorphas.
I could be wrong, but these type of books are normally pages taken straight out of old issues of the magazine so not officially new. More of a best of type thing from the past and the paper these books are printed on is the same as the magazine, they just add paperback style covers.
EDIT:
Thanks to a friend I've been able to have a good long proper read of the review here at home and one thing that really stands out was the fact they said the game has 100 screens! What? I've looked at Csabo's map a number of times over the many years since he made it and I always thought the game was a little on the small side even though I have never finished it, but no it's 100 screens alright! Crazy when to think Tom Thumb is around 180 odd screens and looks like it goes on forever. :)
Always was a nice looking game Sword of Destiny and has an atmosphere all of it's own. Top Stuff!
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2013-09-29
10:25:39
| Re: Kelok makes an appearance on the front of a magazine.
If anyone's interested, go to New Stuff, and look under publications
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Posted By
MIK
on 2013-09-29
16:20:27
| Re: Kelok makes an appearance on the front of a magazine.
Cool.
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