Review: Shine #3
Month of release: November'98
RAR-packed size: 1,062,505 bytes
Language(s): English
Related URL: http://www.shine.scene.org
Main editor: baloo/replay
Code: baloo
Design: off/pulpe, baloo, goofy/replay
Music: adromeda/noice, loonie/groove
Text: psychic symphony, groggy, makke, cousman, flex,
goofy, alexander, zangle, einstein, baloo
General Information
One year after Shine #2, Shine #3 finally got released! It was originally planned to come out shortly after Assembly '98, but the guys did not stick to the release date, either because of lack of articles or due to lack of time or motivation. However, the votes were already counted in June, which is why the charts are not up-to-date in this issue. On the other hand, Shine has developed from a chartsmag to a real diskmag and offers more than charts, namely articles. Not much of them, tough: 460 kbyte. But that's still enough to be entertained for some days.
This will probably be the last issue of Shine. Baloo explains in the editorial: "Lack of interest, from us, and other people. We didn't really get the support we wanted." It's sad to see another diskmag vanish. But let's enjoy this final issue, which was made in two days, by the way - apart from the articles.
Interface, Design
Shine uses Indoor Music System 0.5 and requires vbe2 to switch into the 640x480x16bpp mode. If you do not have vbe2, you will get back to DOS prompt with a loud alarm sample. If you have vbe2, you will reach the title screen.
Music plays, the screen trembles, until you press a key, which leads on to the main menu. That is one of the weirdest main menus I have ever seen in diskmags. The buttons for the individual sections (charts, news, adverts, messages, articles, editorial) are scattered on the whole screen and are written in different directions. In the background there is a rotating wire-frame object, and there are several logos and weird texts in colours with little contrast. You can disable the 3d effect with TAB and change the music using the keyboard, too.
With the mouse you select the sections and get into submenus. The charts section submenu has a different background picture, but it basically works the same way as the articles submenu: you select articles from a list of headlines with the cursor keys and mouse, and on the bottom are scroll arrows. The text viewer looks like the article submenus; however, the background is not a picture, but just plain grey. The keyboard control is a bit fiddly because if a key is pressed for a longer time, the mag does not stop scrolling. You can easily get the keyboard beeping. Not good. But apart from that, it's a nice interface.
Content
460 kbyte of articles, divided into 6 sections. Here's the exact table of content.
Editorial
Charts
Most Popular Demo Groups
Most Popular Demos
Most Popular 64k Intros
Most Popular Coders
Most Popular Musicians
Most Popular Graphicians
Most Popular Diskmags
Most Popular Countries
Most Popular Swappers
Combined Chart
Voters list
News
Adverts
Messages
Articles
Shine Awards
A Story!
A New Demo Compo
Good and bad demos
Project development
Explaining demos to non-demosceners
Land of explorers
How music have fun with your mood.
5 hours demo marathon
The MIDI syndrome - Why Midi sucks!
Quest for MIRC! And some stuff on coding also...
Nostalgia! Don't we all?
It's not the SIZE that matters
Where did she go
From and for the demoscene
Being a freshman
The world and the demoscene
Scene IS Anarchy!
Artcafe 2 Review
Distorted Musicpack - Preview
Beginners vs. Lamers
Slkkro2 Musicpack - Preview
The beginning of the end
What is the world coming to
To limbo and beyond!
Compusphere 9 report
Compusphere 9 report
Icing 98 report
Assembly 98 demo review
Wired 98 report
Icing 98 demo review
The Party 7 report
Volcanic IV short report
Swedish Scene Report
Interview with Bj0rn Lynne
Interview with Raven / tpolm, pimp
Interview with Virne / Coma
Interview with Wog / Orange
Interview with Diskhawk
Bush Party 98 Results
Euskal 6 Results
Icing 98 Results
LCP 98 Results
Party Remedy 98 Results
Compusphere 10 Preliminary Results
Dreamhack 10 Preliminary Results
As I've already summarized most of the editorial in the introductionary part of this review, let's begin with the charts : There were 76 voters. As I said, the votes were counted in June 1998 (that is before the release of Hugi #11). So the charts are quite old, which applies to the adverts, messages, and most of the news, too. Most voters come from Sweden and Poland. Nothing surprising in these charts: Ignoring the new productions, it looks pretty much like the Hornet Charts or those found in most other diskmags. From each section, the 10 best entries are listed, except for demo groups, where there are 20 entries. The diskmag section contains some Polish mags, too. The combined charts, which also includes the charts of Shine #1 and #2, are lead by Pulse with 8174 points, while Orange has place 2 with 4292 points.
Most articles come from Psychic Symphony. I already know them because he sent them to me as a birthday present. I do not want to talk about them here. Psychic wrote most of them in the first half of 1998 and, as he says, they mostly contain old points of views of him and rambling about some topics. Even so some of them might still be interesting to read, for example "Explaining demos to non-demosceners".
The Shine awards article looks like the following: "The second Shine award is given away to Yitzhaq & Jaws for bringing joy and happiness to Swedish demoparties. See you at bushparty?" That's all.
Groggy/total writes in "How music have fun with your mood" about his experiences sitting on a train on his way home from Remedy and listening to some music by scene musicians. He writes what his thoughts on listening to the individual tunes were and draws the conclusion that they affected him "in a very unhealthy way".
"The MIDI syndrome - Why Midi sucks!" and "It's not the SIZE that matters" are two music-related articles by our Makke/Comic Pirates/Hugi. First he explains what the benefits of mods are compared midi, and then he argues that "it's not the size of the MOD that makes it good, it's the quality compared with the size that makes it good!".
Cousman reviewed (not previewed) the music disks Artcafe 2, Distorted Musicpack and Slkkro2 Musicpack. He wrote a paragraph about each tune and concluded with its duration and result (i.e rating). Consequently, the complete reviews end with the total duration and the total result.
"The beginning of the end" is another article from Cousman. He lists several things that in his opinion will lead to the beginning of the end of the scene. Coolest examples: "The beginning of the end is, if the most popular diskmag needs more then a year to release issue no.13.." and "The beginning of the end is, if the amount of how-to-vote articles in a diskmag is higher than the amout of voters.."
Next are some party reports, along with very concise reviews of the corresponding demos and intros, and of course their results. Yes, you have read correctly, there are two reports about Compusphere 9, one by Goofy, the other by his groupmate Flex.
Finally, there is a "Swedish Scene Report" with some info on the Swedish demo groups and a list of the Swedish parties, written by Goofy and Baloo.
Grammar and spelling? Oh, let's better not babble about that here.
Overall Impression
This mag has a nice interface, nice gfx, good music, some articles, among them even a few good ones, and strange controls. And yes, it works on my PC without any problems.
It's just a pity that Goofy and Baloo want to give up the mag only after three issues. Why not give it another go?
- adok^hugi