Video Game Trader Magazine New Release Games for your Lynx!! Lynx Video Game of the Month – Gauntlet Third Encounter Lynx Tips & Tricks for your favorite games Interview with Carl Forhan Full Atari Lynx FAQ Retro Lynx Advertising Gallery Includes the Video Game Trader Price Guide w/ prices for the Nintendo NES, Sega Master System, Atari 7800, Nintendo Game Boy Classic, Atari Lynx & Sega Game Gear $1.99 US Volume 2 Issue 1 Classic 8-bit Edition Published by www.VideoGameTrader.com To volunteer please email [email protected]. Video Game Trader Magazine Classic 8-bit Edition From the Editor What’s inside this A new year, a new look. Well, after only one issue, I have decided to make month? a major change to this project. I am changing the format from simple price guide, to a magazine. ATARI LYNX SPECIAL ISSUE NEW RELEASE GAMES Why this change? Above all else, I want the magazine to be valuable to FOR YOUR ATARI LYNX – people. After some feedback ( I use the word loosely) from the classic New games are still being developed. Find out what community, it is apparent that, simply a price guide is not valuable. they are and where to get Therefore the format is changed. Another change is to make the magazine them 3 a monthly publication, instead of a quarterly publication. Because of this INTERVIEW WITH CARL FORHAN 4 change, I will need all of your help. The magazine will need articles, FULL ATARI LYNX FAQ- reviews, historical documents. Anyone that wishes to volunteer his or her Everything you never wanted time is welcome to contact me. There are no experience requirements at to know about the Atari Lynx, all. including its history 5 RETRO LYNX Also, if you run a website that contains interviews, articles, pictures. I ADVERTISING & would like to be able to use them. Any article or picture that I use will be PUBLICATION GALLERY 9 linked to the original. For any printed version of the Magazine, the author will receive free advertising. VIDEO GAME OF THE MONTH – So, what other changes are in the future? I am not sure, but welcome your Atari Lynx Gauntlet: Third Encounter comments. If you feel we have missed a title or think the prices are 10 incorrect in the guide, please send us an email. Or if you just have a question or suggestion. We will print the letters and answers. Our address TIPS & TRICKS FOR YOUR is [email protected]. Please put PRICE GUIDE on the subject line. The one FAVORITE GAMES 11 change we are considering is to make the magazine a completely FREE publication, funded by advertising. VIDEO GAME TRADER PRICE GUIDE – Full checklist and prices for If you enjoy our magazine and want it to continue, I asked you join our Nintendo NES, Sega Master System, Google group. Even if you don’t participate in discussions, you will be Atari 7800, Nintendo Game Boy Classic, Atari Lynx & Sega Game showing your support by just joining. This will give us an idea as to how Gear many people are reading . Please visit us online and participate in our online discussion group @ Want us to spotlight a particular title? www.VideoGameTrader.com Have an idea for an article? Send us an email @ [email protected]. Put All contents of this magazine are copyright VideoGameTrader.com and/or their respected VIDEO GAME MAGAZINE in the subject line. copyright holders. Please do not duplicate without permission. Published monthly. Page 2 the next challenger. This game is based on the Ultra New Release Games for Vortex fighting game which was shelved by Beyond Games several years ago. your Atari Lynx Features: Multiple characters, incredible animation, By Thomas Sansone special moves, dead-on controls, layered backgrounds & Even though Atari abandoned the Lynx in 1993, there is comlynx support for two players. still a thriving Lynx community today. Fans and collectors still play and discuss the system, and developers, such Watch for more updates on these incredible new games as those highlighted in this article, are releasing new coming soon for the Atari Lynx! games as well as completing unfinished games from Atari’s past. Songbird Productions is located at www.SongBird- Productions.com, and their games are very reasonably One such developer is Songbird Productions. According priced at around $30-$50. to their website, Songbird Productions was founded in 1999 by well-known Atari fan and hobby developer Carl Below is a picture gallery of some of Songbird’s other Forhan to develop and publish for Atari consoles, games. primarily the Lynx and Jaguar. Songbird has released many games for the Atari Lynx. Such as: Alpine Games, Championship Rally, Crystal Mines II – Buried Treasure (also includes and expansion CD), Cybervirus, Lexis, Othello, Ponx & Pokermania. However, Songbird is not done. Two new games are on the horizon. And even though no release date is published on their site, the games look very promising. The first is Distant Lands. What lies just beyond the fading sunset? Will your next step lead to great riches or terrible foe? Discover your destiny in a world of chaos in the epic fantasy adventure Distant Lands. Collect mundane tools and cryptic artifacts, fend off hordes of enemies, travel to exotic locations, and stave off the fall of kingdom! What more could you want in a portable game? The game features a real-time combat system, straightforward inventory management, player/non- player interaction, a huge map, and more! The next game is Ultravore. If you are a developer or author of video games for any orphaned system, please send us a note, we would like to interview you and feature you in a future issue. It’s one-on-one combat like you’ve never seen on the Send you email to [email protected] and place NEW Atari Lynx! In Ultravore, only the strongest an survive to DEVELOPER in the subject line. Page 3 project? The level editor sounds great! Does the Buried [Archive] Interview with Carl Treasure expansion require the original Crystal Mines II for operation, or does it function as it's own product? Forhan It is a very exciting product, and one that Lynx fans will enjoy. You need your own Crystal Mines II cart and a Lynx, Compiled by Thomas Sansone plus the CM2:BT expansion disc, and a Lynx/PC serial cable. Over the years many people have interviewed Carl Forhan You can then create, edit, trade, and download brand new (Founder of SongBird Productions). We have compiled a CM2 levels onto your very own Lynx. The levels are list of questions from various sources (all listed at the end downloaded into RAM, so naturally they disappear when the of the interview. Enjoy. Lynx is turned off. But getting to make new levels for this game has been a lot of fun. Carl, you've been in the Atari scene for quite some time, how did Songbird form and become involved in Jaguar & Lynx publishing? What inspired you to start creating new titles? So Crystal Mines II: Buried Treasure isn't a cartridge, it's the It had been years since I had worked on a video game (back on expansion disc itself? the TI-99/4A), but I got the urge to mess around with a game on That's correct. a semi-current platform. I found out several years ago that there were several active Lynx hackers, and one was working on a port of a C compiler for the Lynx. I write C/C++ code for a Does the CM2:BT expansion disc come packaged with a living, so it sounded right up my alley. Lynx/PC serial cable? If not, where does one purchase or create such a cable? My first effort was a really dinky Pong clone with no sound and You can purchase a cable direct from Songbird Productions. no options. (It's still floating around on the web as freeware.) This same cable also acts as a "developer's cable" for a BLL Next I started hacking my own audio tool called SFX. By the or SIMIS cartridge on the Lynx. In fact, I use one myself time I was done with it, I realized more people than just me when doing Lynx development. might be interested in such a program, so I started taking pre- orders for new Lynx games. Ponx was also originally an exercise in "how to" for the Lynx, but the end result was such a nice, Which game that you've published or about to, have you attractive, fun program that I knew it would be worthwhile to worked the hardest on and believe it's the best game you've publish. Ponx has been the most popular Lynx title to date with released? Lynx customers. Remnant is the most impressive game I've done in terms of In the meantime, I started investigating various leads to see what graphics and scaling and audio. The code is better organized, it would take to publish "orphaned" games for the Lynx and and the engine is fairly flexible. Ponx is probably the most Jaguar. After several months of work and negotiations, I had enjoyable game I've done on the Lynx; there's something quite a nice list of titles I could work with -- Lexis, Skyhammer, about a quick high-speed game that's a lot of fun, even after Protector, and so on. some years have passed. Where did you get the ideas for the games you create? Do you believe there is a future for the Lynx, regarding sales Ponx really started out as a simple programming exercise to and future titles? learn the Lynx, but as time passed I added more and more features until it really became a blast to play.