A tiny bit of Putty Squad "news"...

[Riempie]

Hi guys,

since you guys (and me too off cource) want to see a freeware release of Putty Squad, I asked an english friend of mine to give Studio 3 a call. He did and he told me the following (a bit dissapointing):

The guy he talked to said that my english mate possibly could not get hold of the game, but after a little more conversation the guy said that if people show a lot of interest then they might put all their classic games online.

The guy also said that a while ago they already had some of their classic games online. They have taken them off the site again because they said there was too little interest. This seems strange to me, because if they had put the amiga-version of Putty Squad online, then I'm sure there would be enough interest. Somehow I doubt if they had something online...

Anyway, he said that if there really was a lot of interest then people should write e-mails to their main e-mail address (whatever that may be?). I doubt if this will have any effect because I know a lot of people already have sent e-mail to Studio 3 to show their interest in the game and they never got a reply.

My english mate also found out that the programmer of Putty Squad (John Twiddy) still works for Studio 3. He's making some PS2 games now. My mate told me that I might get lucky if I send an e-mail to fakeemail@emailaddress.com or fakeemail@emailaddress.com
I've sent an e-mail to both addresses and only the fakeemail address bounced, so fakeemail@emailaddress.com must be his e-mail address. So far I haven't got a reply yet (seems familliar), but I've sent the mail 3 hours ago, so I hope I get a reaction some day.

Maybe if we all send this Twiddy guy an e-mail, then maybe we have more chance.
I think more phone calls would be more effective, so if you are living in the UK, you might give it a try. The phone number is on their website ( www.studio3.co.uk ). Maybe they will get sick of all those calls and put the game online just to keep us silent.

Let's hope we get any response (although I'm a bit scpetive... )

Riempie

[Peanutuk]

here's hoping!

[Twistin'Ghost]

I'll certainly do my part! Thanks for a great report, Riempie!

I've sent an email also, I have been playing this game on the snes but it doesn't feel quite right using a converted psx controller, would be be much better with my old quickshot.

[Drake1009]

I have a large problems sending a mail. Mainly because I wouldn't know what to write? What would be good to write in that mail?

[Ian]

Something like this, give 'em some bull****

------------------------------------------------------------

Dear sir,

Censored

Drake1009 (Or your real name)

-------------------------------------------------------------------

That should be ok

[RetroMan]

Ok, I did "COPY & PASTE" and send seven E-Mails to them Uppps, they now got seven E-Mails from Drake1009 :laugh

[Drake1009]

*Slaps forehead* Well that eliminates my chances of sending one as Drake1009. There has to be a limit of how many Drake1009's there are in existance

[RCK]

In your future email, point them the existence of our Amiga community (EAB), so they will see that we are not dead yet !

[Riempie]

Thanks for your replies guys

In my e-mail to Studio 3 I also copied some links to EAB threads about Putty Squad. I hope they'll read them....

[MethodGit]

I sent an email to Twiddy, as well.

Of course, being the lazy bastard I am , I simply copied-'n'-pasted Ian's speech and replaced Drake's name with my handle name, and entered for the mail title "Putty Squad Amiga version" (obvious).

Was that a bad thing to do, Ian?

[RCK]

spamming them with the same message won't help us...
try to produce your own personnal message for better result.

[7-Zark-7]

Just a thought,
Isn't all this business of contacting Studio 3,(& John Twiddy), about possibly releasing the Amiga version as freeware, the sort of territory that the guys a Back to the Roots, have been performing with considerable success for some time now?

Although Bobic & co. must be busy having done their recent changeover & updating of their server stuff, they've had a very good track record in convincing programmers/teams to release old software to ADF, can anyone contact them with this latest information & see if they would have any luck??

[Peanutuk]

.......but it was blank!?!? Just the message title 'Re:' - ed wiht nothing actually in the mail.

Mmmmmmmmm, wonder what this means?

[Drake1009]

Hmm strange way of replying I'd say.

[TikTok]

Perhaps he hit the send button by accident . Everyone must have done this at one time or another .

[Bobic]

To all: Please stop sending such e-mails to Studio 3 and/or John Twiddy. What a stupid and childish idea in sending the same e-mail hundreds of times to them (or one person who sends such an e-mail seven times!). This is called SPAM! Do you like finding adverts for porn stuff or other things in your mailbox each day? This is also called SPAM and it's the same what you're doing at the moment.

All what you'll achieve is that they'll get annoyed in receiving those e-mails and will never listen to such requests again. Maybe John Twiddy will change his e-mail addy because he gets tired, while reading the same e-mail so often.

The guy on the phone has said that it would be interesting to know how many people would be interested in downloading the game, because he probably hoped to never hear from you again and you're happy with his answer.

I don't think Studio 3 will make their old games available anywhere for free. As many other people they'll probably convert their old games to Game Boy Advance and will earn money again with classic games. That's business. They already released IK for GBC.

Also we from Back2roots.org never could convince Studio 3 to release their classic Amiga games to the public for free.


Some info about Putty Squad: Studio 3 (System 3) never released this game officially for Amiga. The game was in development, but never reached the stores.
In 1999 a guy called Steven Flowers officially released Putty Squad for Amiga under the label of his company Alive Mediasoft. Alive Mediasoft became very "famous", because they ripped off nearly all developers which produced games for them. Most of them never saw one cent for their work. Also Alive Mediasoft re-released many classic Amiga games (e.g. Turrican, Ambermoon, Kick Off, Inherit the earth, all games from Neo Software etc.) illegally! They never purchased the rights for all these games and I'm 100% sure it's the same with Putty Squad.
After this story became public Steven Flowers left the Amiga community.

[RCK]

What did I said you guys ? ... spamming won't help us.
Totally agree with Bobic.

Note: Studio3 also released "International Karate Advanced" for GBA.

[MethodGit]

NOW you tell us??!! Now I fear we've all blown our chances of seeing this game come to light.

[Peanutuk]

............and if it was a bad idea to start with then............?

[Riempie]

Spamming Studio 3 with the same e-mail over and over again might be a bit annoying for Studio 3. But I think if everybody would send a personal e-mail, then that will not harm Studio 3. It only shows how much interest there is.

But if you (Bobic) already tried to convince Studio 3, then I guess we should stop sending them e-mails etc. We'll just have to wait and see...

But Bobic, you had contact with Studio 3? Mail or phone?

[Riempie]

Ok, guys..

Here's the reply of Mr. Twiddy himself:

"Sorry for the delay in replying but things are a little hectic at the moment in the run up to Christmas.

We have been thinking about the idea of putting Putty Squad up on the Studio 3 website for a while now. I still have all the source files and data files from the final master but I don't think we have a copy of the final disk. Therefore the only hurdle is how to re-master the disk. This shouldn't be too much of a problem because I believe we do have the relevant hardware and software somewhere but it is just a matter of finding it.

I am not likely to have time to sort these things out this side of Christmas but in the New Year I will look into it. In the meantime, if you have any information regarding formats of how to convert and upload Amiga files it would be much appreciated."

Does anybody know how to help Mr. Twiddy with how to convert and upload Amiga files, then I guess you should mail me, then I can mail it to Mr. Twiddy again. I think Mr. Twiddy should not get e-mail from everybody.

Obviously, you guys can stop e-mailing him too asking about a Putty Squad release.

To the administrator: Can you delete the e-mail address of Mr. Twiddy from my first post, because I don't want other people to send him massive requests again. Thanks in advance...

[P-J]

That's good news methinks.

Can he modify the source slightly and add 'Digitally Re-Mastered for the EAB'? )

[Twistin'Ghost]

That's fantastic news!

I went ahead and 'censored' the email addys in question. And I vote Codetapper to be the contact person, since he is the neccesary guru here, plus this has been his baby from day one, anyhow.

[P-J]

Next time you post right after me, I'm gonna have to come at you with a hammer

[Twistin'Ghost]

(ducking from hammer, and carrying Ibuprofen bottle just in case!)

An even better fix was executed by the masked marauder...

[Riempie]

I know Codetapper very well and he certainly is the man which I think can help Mr. Twiddy. I'll e-mail Mr. Twiddy about this...

[Peanutuk]

HURRAH!

[Codetapper]

I have offered my help to John Twiddy in an email to Riempie which he has forwarded onto him. This is surely the most likely way to get a response rather than another unknown person "spamming" him more mail...

I also told him that I HD patched the 8 level demo and that it was well coded so hopefully that will get me into the good books

Cross your fingers people!

[7-Zark-7]

I have to admit, I was v. concerned that people could be spamming a programming legend like John Twiddy,(Those who loved the early Last Ninja games on C64 will know what I mean), & annoy him but Riempie well done for perservering! (But in a nice fashion!).

Just one request, make sure at least one version is the plain,old & simple ADF format for conversion's please!!

[MethodGit]

This is utterly fantastic news! Looks as if we are finally coming close to the end of this famous "Hunt for Putty Squad" chapter that has been going on and on for countless years. That "Hunt for Omar & Bin Laden" thing can wait, this is the conclusion we have finally been waiting for!

Maybe I should send an apology e-mail to Twiddy for sending him an unecessary identical (to other people) e-mail. Do you reckon this is a good idea?

Good on you Twist for censoring the e-mail addys, we don't want one more anonymous cyberuser to send the guy to breaking point and reconsider the deal now, do we?

Although I have to ask something about the game...

Originally posted by Riempie
I still have all the source files and data files from the final master but I don't think we have a copy of the final disk. Therefore the only hurdle is how to re-master the disk.

Is he trying to say that the game fits on a single disk??? Not sure how that would be possible - the original Putty came on 3 disks after all...

[Riempie]

Maybe Putty Squad was about to be a CD-release only?

Oh, and Marz, don't send him an apology mail. I already apologized for possible spamming in the e-mail Codetapper talks about.

[7-Zark-7]

Marz-As was stated previously-Please,don't send another e-mail, even one well-intentioned in being an apology.
It's important EVERYONE not immediately connected with what (hopefully),might happen with John Twiddy & Co., back off & let Codetapper etc. be the sole people be in contact with them,okay?

I'd doubt Putty Squad is on one disk Marz, I think he might mean the original final master disk has gone missing. He's still got all the relevant game-code, but it probably sounds like it's needs to be re-organized & assembled for that section.

[Akira]

Twiddy is a great person!!!!! This is amazing news!!!

Everybody let Rimpie and Codetapper handle this... But PLEASE, Codetapper, I know telling you this is not necessary, but I would like to have a version I can play on a REAL AMIGA, and not be forced to use a bloody emulator. I knwo you'd do a WHD Install, but that would leave owners of stock A1200 out of the fun, and thsi game is supposed to run on a stock A1200...

They are not going to distribute the game, so I suppose they could build an UNPROTECTED master, can't tehy? That would be enough for it to run on stock A1200s

[Drake1009]

Yeah I'd like to be able to play this on my A1200 as well.

[TikTok]

They are not going to distribute the game, so I suppose they could build an UNPROTECTED master, can't tehy? That would be enough for it to run on stock A1200s

Since they will presumably distribute it on the internet, I think they can only do an unprotected version can't they? Whether its an LHA archive, a dms file, or an adf, am I right in thinking it can't be protected because you can't write back the protection on a normal Amiga (real or emulated). I think the only thing that will stop people using it on real Amigas is if they distribute one of those extended ADFs like Factor 5 did with the Turrican series.

[Twistin'Ghost]

The protection usually comes from external sources, like Rob Northen, and he works on the mastered disk(s). I can't imagine that the re-mastered version would be sent to be copy-protected - especially since they are talking about freely distributing it.

[Codetapper]

Twistin' is right, in the early days (and some later ones) the programmer didn't see the protection at all and sent the final game out which had the protection added. Not all games of course but a large percentage of the earlier ones.

When I asked Stuart Campbell (ex Amiga Power) about the game I got the impression it was about 3-4 disks - that was a while ago and I maybe wrong on that point.

Akira: If the original is in the same format as the 8 level demo on one disk they distributed (Non-Dos, Rob Northen loader) then making a standard ADF version shouldn't be a problem.

Maybe one of John's questions about formats is that he has all the information ready to go out in ADF format but was wondering how Amiga users will use it. If it's currently in ADF format and since it's an A1200 game then nothing might need to be done on it anyway! Some guys had a directory listing and a util which dumped the files onto the disk in ADF format, hopefully this is the case with Putty Squad!

If it's a tonne of files all in one directory then that might be a bit trickier. I eagerly wait for a reply from John via Riempie!

[stainy]

I have a 4 disk version of Putty Squad?

[Twistin'Ghost]

No way. Upload it, man!!!!!