Personal Letter from Julian Rignall - Plus More

[Fiery Phoenix]

Going through my room still - massive clear out, sorting out my hundreds and bloody hundreds of computer magazines and thousands of games. Not to mention comics, annuals - too much stuff - don't want to be a hoarder and be buried under the stuff.

I probably have chucked out loads - had literally hundreds of posters too - original promotional ones you found in computer shops, not the freebies in magazines, but chucked em, lost em and sold em over the years.

Sure I had more promotional items too, can only really find the Ocean yearly advert annuals, Thing Bounces Back and a Gremlin note-pad.

However you may be interested to see some great retro stuff

1. Letter from Julian Rignall after I won the C&VG competition to Disney World in Florida. Mates at school would not believe me that I won and was going to holiday with Mr Rignall himself! So he wrote a decent letter to confirm it. Should still have some Xmas cards he sent me after too (remember sent me a few C64 games like Op Wolf but was the same year I got my Amiga - with Op Wolf on there!) plus photos, etc. maybe even some camcorder footage



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2. Letter from Zzap inviting me to the Zzap! readers challenge (Kick Off on the Amiga - I was robbed!) plus nice letter from Phil King afterwards



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3. Compo award letters from Zero, CU Amiga and Gremlin



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4. Promotional magazines from Ocean about upcoming releases (used to have loads of these but can't find more)





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5. Thing Bounces Back promotional cardboard logo and Gremlin memo-pad. I did have promotional Tom & Jerry figures too, but can't find them

[Foebane]

You lucky, lucky bastard!

[Pyromania]

Nice finds!

[Fiery Phoenix]

Have to admit - in the summer holidays I was a bit of a geek.

Used to phone a shed load of software houses - just from the ad's in the magazines - and say I was doing a school project - could you send me anything that may help. Was exciting in the Summer holidays seeing if the postman had delivered a package and what was in it!

Virtually all sent stuff US Gold, Ocean, Gremlin, Elite, etc - all the big ones of the time (seem to remember not getting much from Psygnosis - Scousers!) Mainly was posters, but did get a lot of the promotional stuff too. Posted a pic of old bedroom in another thread - should have other pics too as I go through stuff

Even popped into the Ocean offices in Manchester with my Mum once and got stuff! Strange, don't think I would have the balls to do that now at any company at 44!

Also requested a free subscription to the now defunct trade magazine CTW. Used to get free stuff there - plus demo's, etc.

Somehow cannot imagine todays big corporate companies being so generous and sending stuff out.

Happy innocent days!

Plus like everyone else on here - still playing (and talking about) Amiga games 30+ years later!

[RichL]

Jesus wept, I’ve never won anything in my life - probably because you kept winning all the time

[Fiery Phoenix]

Strange thing as I used to enter loads of compos back in the day....now I rarely even do the lotto.

Did win a Sega Master System too in Zero and a few other stuff in magazines.

The days of sending a postcard off to enter a compo!

The excitement of seeing if you were in a list of winner when they were published in the magazine's!

Can't remember the issue but had a letter of the month on The One and sure Amiga Power too.

Remember when Amiga Power did an ultimate list of Amiga games released, but there were loads missed out and they invited people to send in their own mini reviews and published them?

Submitted a few there and got a shout out....strange thing can only remember submitting Clown-O-Mania, but did loads.

Innocent times!

[ElectroBlaster]

I have some stuff hidden away that needs to be fished out.

I also have some cool things that were included in peoples old collections, back in the early 2000's when so many people decided to jump over to PC's and consoles I would be the go-to guy for them to get shot of this stuff. I never turned any of it away! Once an Amiga nut always an amiga nut I guess lol

We are going to be moving before the end of the year so I need to tackle my storage.

[alexh]

I won a years supply of all Sinclair Spectrum Mastertronic games in a Your Sinclair competition, just at the time that they stopped making games for the Spectrum. I think they must have felt sorry for me because after the first 6 months with little or no games they sent me the entire Mastertronic back catalog for Spectrum. It still takes up a lot of room in my Attic today

I think they got bought by Virgin Interactive entertainment? Because later games are Virgin games.

[Fiery Phoenix]

Yes Virgin took over Mastertronic - think they were called Virgin Mastertronic for a bit - that is a top prize!

Strange thing, some prizes I always remember - like the Renegade arcade game in a silver case, was a prize in an old Zzap. That looked sooooo freaking cool!

[RichL]

Actually. I won a copy of Bubble Bobble in Zzap one time - but they never ever printed the winners so I never ever saw my name in the mag. Bastards.

[Gilbert]

Julian is great guy for writing that letter. I heard him on the Retro Hour recently. Seems like a good bloke

I only have a couple of issues of C&VG left but in one he gave Datastorm (Defender style game) for the Amiga a huge mark. I know Julian is/was a big Amiga and Defender fan

I wrote to a load of game companies once and only 2 people replied - Peter Irvin who wrote Exile (he was amazing, sent this long letter answering all my questions including some about Amiga hardware scrolling, and then gave me his email address to follow up if I wanted to) and Peter Molyneux - who sent me a signed photo and a free game (Fable the Lost Chapters on Xbox). Both top men!

[Fiery Phoenix]

Didn't JR hold the World Record for Defender?

Sure there is a pic of him in an early C&VG (before he became a Zzap reviewer) of him getting the WR certificate.

Yep, nice for him to take the time and do that letter and also to send me xmas presents (C64 games) too.

Always respected Peter Molyneux too, but that game left a sour taste in the mouth (that compo to win royalties for his next game) and the lad who won got diddled basically

[lmimmfn]

I got my name in Amiga format so im happy with that
I loved reading JRs reviews back in the day but when the Amiga became popular he was focusing more on consoles unfortunately.

[Gilbert]

Originally Posted by Fiery Phoenix

Didn't JR hold the World Record for Defender?

Sure there is a pic of him in an early C&VG (before he became a Zzap reviewer) of him getting the WR certificate.

Yep, nice for him to take the time and do that letter and also to send me xmas presents (C64 games) too.

Always respected Peter Molyneux too, but that game left a sour taste in the mouth (that compo to win royalties for his next game) and the lad who won got diddled basically

He said he beat the WR (of the time). But I don't think he held it officially. But maybe he did?

He did win a Defender arcade competition and I *think* won the the arcade cabinet. That might be why he was in C & VG

I don't know about that competition with Peter Molyneux. Most people seem to angry at him for over-promising on games. I do remember him saying in recent interviews that Bullfrog made-up the idea that they designed Populous using Lego. He said they built that model afterwards and made-up the story because they hoped to get a licencing deal and/or sponsorship from Lego.

Originally Posted by lmimmfn

I got my name in Amiga format so im happy with that
I loved reading JRs reviews back in the day but when the Amiga became popular he was focusing more on consoles unfortunately.

That's because he was an arcade guy so he "jumped ship" when the PC Engine and 16 bit consoles came out.

[Fiery Phoenix]

Defo rings a bell about that Defender arcade machine - may try and dig out the copy (under my bed somewhere)

Peter Molyneux (MBE now!) game was Curiousity - Whats Inside the Cube - from Wiki:

On 26 May 2013, 22cans and Peter Molyneux announced via Twitter that the last layer had been removed and the Cube had been opened, revealing the prize video to the winning player that had removed the final layer.[13][14] The winner was identified as Edinburgh resident Bryan Henderson, who was given the option to either keep the contents of the cube to himself or share it with the public.[15][16] Molyneux announced that Henderson opted to share the prize.[17]

According to the video that Henderson saw and 22Cans posted on YouTube the day that the experiment ended, the contents inside of the cube included the ability to be the sole, all-powerful, digital god within 22cans' upcoming release of Godus and to reap a small portion of all of the incoming revenue that is brought in by the game.[18] However, as of January 2015, Henderson has received little to no contact with 22Cans, and in light of recent departures from the studio along with lasting issues with multiplayer, Henderson likely won't be able to collect any portion of the game at all, and once he does, it will only be for six months, or even less if another player overthrows him, who then will take a portion of profits.[19][20] Speaking to The Guardian, Molyneux explained that the person in charge of keeping in contact with Henderson left the company and no one was ever reassigned the position, an act which Molyneux called "inexcusable".

[Gilbert]

Originally Posted by Fiery Phoenix

Defo rings a bell about that Defender arcade machine - may try and dig out the copy (under my bed somewhere)

Peter Molyneux (MBE now!) game was Curiousity - Whats Inside the Cube - from Wiki:

That's really messed up. It's a rubbish prize too. I would have expected a small gold statue or something similar - like that jeweled gold Hare you could win in the 80s. I never played that Cube game but it sounded like purgatory - chipping away at a cube.

Would have been great if the prize was a signed photo of Peter Molyneux. For everyone else it would be funny - but not for the guy who won it!