Meeting 6

Using an A4000T (Kindly bought along by Andrew Elia) We saw the game (although still in development) the ideas and the in-depth options that the game has got means that it could be an absolute stormer. Personally the Amiga has never had a game that look and feels as good as this. Howeever the proof will be in the pudding, or at least until final release.

Dark Millennia is a mixture of Command and Conquer, Warcraft and Settlers 2 It takes the best elements of all three and improves on them quite nicely thank you. The game will require at minimum level an 030 8mb fast ram, CD-ROM and AGA. Andrew Reed has since stated that he hopes to have a playable demo available by mid September.

The full game itself is scheduled for a pre-christmas 1999 release.
BETA/PLAY TESTERS

Crystal Interactive Software are on the look out for people to play test Dark Millenia and other projects, if you are interested, in beta/play testing games then please email games@crystalsoftware.com.

More screenshots available from the Amiga Flame Website.

We moved meetings to Sunday to allow everyone the chance to attend.
However, despite all the hype and advanced publicity given to this event, we only had a turnout of 8 people. - This really didn't look too good to an Amiga games Developer/Publisher. Hence why Crystal Interactive Software are at the moment only committing themselves to releasing Dark Millennia, as the poor attendance didn't do thier confidence in the Amiga market much good. Londoners it seems are a really lazy bunch.
Lets hope that the sales of Dark Millennia will change their minds.

For those of you who didn't turn up, wow! Did you miss out, Eat your heart out!
First of all, we had a demonstration of the upcoming Photogenics 4.0 program.- Believe me it's gonna kick ass!

Then we had a tour of Directory Opus Megallan II Which was recently released. If you haven't got this, you are seriously losing out. Configure as much you want when you want if you want, this program has it all. Once you have it running you'll wonder how you did without it.

For an Encore we had a demonstration of Draw Studio 2 which is really quite staggering. A lot has been said about his structured drawing program, all of it positive. If you have ever used Microsoft's (spit) Power Point then you'll be glad to know that the Amiga has a very, very, good answer to Power point. It's easier, does nearly all that Powerpoint does, (presentations, slides, web graphics, etc,) and it doesn't break the bank.
Draw Studio Will sadly pass onto the Amiga's history as one of those killer apps that due to lack of proper marketing I say disappeared from the Amiga Scene. as, sadly, Draw Studio is no longer being worked on. Do you remember at the last WoA when Amiga Inc did their entire presentation on PowerPoint? Do you remember that they said they couldn't find anything suitable on the Amiga that was as "Quick and easy to use"? Well obviously no one had told them about this Gem of an App. If Draw studio had evolved into version 3. Amiga Inc would have had severe egg on thier faces. Sadly unless someone else pick up the code, one of the Amiga's greatest all time package will disappear forever.
If you belong to a usergroup (and if you don't why not?) ask around and see if someone there uses it and will be willing to "demo" it. You will not regret it.

The fact that it's not being worked upon or even supported is nothing short of criminal. 9.5/10

There are a few copies of Draw Studio left around some Amiga Dealers in the world. Get one before it's too late.

Finally We had a quick tour of YAM (Yet another Mailer) an email program. Blimey another great program. Much better than MS Outlook and certainly one of the better Amiga mailers.

People say that there are no "killer apps" on the Amiga. That is a falicy. There are, you just have to ask someone who has them to show you what they can do.

Many Thanks to Andrew Elia Who bought his awesome A4000T in to show us all these programs. Thanks.

Next meeting: how to crouchet using a Microsoft manual. :)