Cracker's Map: Poland
Welcome back to the final segment of the long running series known as Cracker's Map. This journey has taken us around the globe, focusing on the major scene country cracking groups and their members. How they started, what they did and why they are remembered.
In this segment, the journey concludes in Poland. I can't help remembering some guys, drunk, climbing flag poles and stealing two Polish flags and mailing them to me back in the day. Anyway, mind melt aside, I hope to have covered discoverable detail on each major group, in some cases directly from the people involved, as well as some interesting trivia dug up from the depths of time.
Disclaimer: notice missing detail? something wrong or want to leave some feedback? Send me a mail.
The Pride Of Poland!
Founded by Mekong in 1992. They released around 100 cracks including the likes of Sceptre of Baghdad+3, Detonators+7, Bee 52+6H, Galactic Chaos+5M, Frogger '93+6 and Methodos+5. The cracks were mostly performed by Mekong. The group went inactive sometime in 1997.
Members:
D-Tect, Dain, Genius, Ghoul, Impaler, Mekong, Leonardo, Pixel, Saigon, Shango, Spit, Whiskas.
Founded by Cactus & Ares on 25 October 1997.
On the 25th of October, 1997 Cactus/Adequate and Ares/Ironic conceived an idea of merging their two groups: Adequate and Ironic. After a transitional period of a couple of months when the new group functioned under a temporary name of Adequate+Ironic, all their plans got eventually finalised on the 11th of January, 1998. On that day Axelerate was officially established.
Before the final decision was made for choosing the right name for a new group, Cactus came up with the following list of suggestions: Absolute, Abstain, Abstract, Accelerate, Accept, Access, Accuracy, Acquaint, Adhesine, Admission, Advence, Affect, Amphibia, Ant Hill, Associate, Saddness Crew, Tiddlywinks.
In the first days of their activity they had quite a lot of members coming from a merger of two previously separate crews... It turned out however many of them were simply inactive. A definitive member status clean up took place then and many members got kicked out by Cactus under the cover of group reorganisation.
Should it be interesting for you to know, who was a member of the group in its initial days, this was the complete member status before the reorganisation took place: Angelboy, Apollo, Ares, Asterix, Azgar, Beton, Cactus, Clayster, DJ Sharp, Imaic, Inver, Kopieja, Legion, Panda, Phobos, Rat, Razor, Renegade, Richie, Scarabush, Zeker, Zeus. As of March 1998, once the new group settled down there were just 10 active members: Angelboy, Cactus, Clayster, Copieya, DJ Sharp, Legion, Panda, Phobos, Scarab, TSD. At the beginning their primary focus area was cracking, no surprise most of their 1998 release are just cracks released by their most active member TSD. His work laid the foundations to establish the position of a recognized C64 scene group and to strengthen the group name amongst an entire C64 community. Axelerate was continuously shifting their release priorities towards legal scene, releasing one demo, one music collection and a few tools already in 1998. In the year 1999 their second demo was released (which turned out to be their last), another collection, a bunch of SID tunes, pictures, and of course more cracks.
The group was eventually dissolved on the 26th of February, 2001 but have done some releases for fun even up to 2018 (undead!).
Members:
A3giS, Amazon, Angelboy, Apollo, Ares, Asterix, Azgar, Beton, Black, Bladee, Bolek, Cactus, Clayster, Cobra, Copieya, Data, DJ Sharp, Firebee, Imaic, Inver, JSL, Kevlar, Klax, Legion, Luc, Panda, Phobos, Rat, Razor, Red Redby, Renegade, Richie, Ruz-T, Scarab, Stix, The Grey Ghost, Thornchild, TSD, Viper, Welli, Yogibear, Zapotek, Zeker, Zeus.
The doors of perception...
The group was founded in the middle of 1991 and was founded by Dezert and Clerk. Their first products were "Night demo" and "Paranoia" - a demo containing simple scroll and rasterbear effects. At that time, Compod (music, swap) joined the group. Around February 1993, Stone (gfx), Cleve (music) and Wozio (mega swap) came to the group. Cronos also submitted an offer to join Sir Art (code) and Jackal (code) (both from the Diamond group), which was accepted. Owing to the dynamic activities of Wozia and Titanic (swap), they were able to start their activity in the cracker scene. The Blitzkrieg and Centurion (crack) (who are brothers), which is a new face in the group, took care of breaking the acquired originals. Thanks to the speed and, above all, the quality of cracked releases, they gained recognition of high position (mostly in the top three in Poland and twenty in the world) in ratings and good reviews of individual crack in the magazine "Gamer's Guide".
In 1994, Centurion and Titanic give up their cooperation with the group. The cracker responsibility was taken over by Bald and the main supplier of originals was to become Suzuki (he was thrown out for statements that do not match the group's line).
Finally, in the second half of 1995, Charged breaks down. Cronos, Cleve, Pepe leave the C64 stage, Compod works in Fatum and in the Amorphis music group he created, Stone helps Agony, and Sir Art and Jackal do not resume their contacts. The last chapter in the history of the Charged group began in July 1999 when, as a result of a temporary whim of Sir Art, the group was reactivated under the name Charged Designs (this nickname was never used) in the two-man line-up of Sir Art and Jackal. They released a demo called Amber Cow. After its release, the group's activity was suspended. The year 2000 brought another product of the Charged group: Charged's intros collection. It is a kind of summary of the entire group's activity.
Members:
Akadem, AMC, Andromeda, Bald, Blitzkrieg, Centurion, Clerk, Cleve, Compod, Cronos, Dezert, Dictator, Fireball, Hawk, Hedgehog, Jackal, Libra, Nameless, Pepe, Ramon, Robber, Sailor, Sir Art, Stone, Suzuki, Titanic, Wozio.
Founded by Hain, Biondi & Brush on 10 January 1992. Mostly known as a demo group, they did venture into the world of cracking, particularly in 1993 with releases such as Fly Harder+3, Nobby the Aardvark+3, McDonaldLand+2 and Wrath of the Demon+, mostly done by Hain.
The Elysium DeeZine group is still alive today as a demo crew with almost 200 releases under its flag.
Members:
Biondi, Brush, Carrion, Cresh, Cruise, Digger, Duxe, Gaston, Gryf, Hain, Jetboy, Jok, Jumbo, Latifah, Longhair, Luke, Maja, Morris, Mr Wegi, psych858o, Randall, Sage, Scow, Shogoon, Spark, Therion, Touldie, Valsary, Victor, Wizard, Wozio, YTM, Zephyr, Zielok, Zore.
BBS:
Palace of Doomness
United in the Name of Darkness
Founded by Axon in 1992. They are mostly known as a demo crew but also did some cracking up until the mid-nineties with mentionable releases Mayhem in Monsterland+5, Blue Baron+4P, Parsec+4, Suburban Commando+5 and Arc Doors+3P with cracking mainly performed by Moonchild who later went on to work under Fairlight.
The group has over 250 releases and is still functioning as a legal group today.
Members:
242, Acid, Ania, Ariel, Axon, Baldhead, Bax, Compod, Daf, eLBAN, Exen, Eyeris, Fazee, Grabba, Ira, Iron, Jobo, Kayleigh, Kordiaukis, Lancer, Leming, Lemming, Lucky Luke, Marc Keenen, Marco, Margareth, Moonchild, Mr Wegi, Nazgul, Nephelim, Ninja, No True, Pablo, Phoenix, Praiser, Psychik, Randy, Rastayeti, Roder, Rura, Sacio, Sanity, Shaggy, Skosny, Smaller, Talbot, Techno, The Wizard of Oz, Tiamat, TMG, Wedlock, Wiatr.
BBS:
Invalid Environment
Founded by Maniac sometime in 1988, they released around 50 cracks up until their time of departure in late 1989 when they merged with ABC Soft and Scorpion Soft to create World Cracking Federation.
Members:
Apa-Soft, Fiction, Maniac.
The best do not need any slogans!
Founded by TG JSL and Sky in November 1990 having almost 100 releases before they died at the very end of 1992.
Some of their cracks include Smash TV+3, Katapult+2 100%, Rugby the World Cup and Plural+2 with most of the heavy lifting performed by Hain. The group was known mainly for their imports of other groups cracks from Western Europe into Poland. They were also in cooperation briefly with BIP, having only one release, the 4th edition of the disk magazine Highlife.
Members:
Brush, Chris, Cresh, Duxe, Famous, Hain, Jadoone, Jarri, Jetboy, Jumbo, Kej Bi, Longhair, Picasso, Rekin, Sky, TG JSL, Zak.
Founded by Polonus, Jemasoft, Hi-Man and Mr.Raf in June 1988. These guys were one of the first big groups ever in Poland on the C64, they also ventured onto the Amiga too (with their founding member including Duddie). Their cracks are mainly from 1988 before they became more of a legal group. Despite their departure from the C64 world in 1990, they surprised everyone with some unreleased code in 2015 with their demo "Siurpryza" released at the RetroKomp/LOAD ERROR 2015 event in Gdansk.
Members:
Duddie, Ged, Hi-Man, Jemasoft, Mr.Raf, Polonus.
The Power of Chain !!!
Founded in 1991 and departing our beloved Commie in 1991, these guys performed around 80 cracks, particularly in 1990 with titles such as Back to the Future II+3 and Dan Dare III +7. In 1991, together with Deuter and Cruel Soldiers, they created the demo group Asphyxia. The group was also in cooperation with Gamma Studio for a short while as well as producing some cooperative work with the World Cracking Federation.
Members:
Cyrano, Greg, Kruger, Lord D, Mosquito.
Miscellaneous:
* Robert King released plenty of cracks between 1988 and 1991, but most of them were games frozen using Action Replay. Every frozen game was signed for example by KR'89. Moreover, he was adding his "KR" name into the filenames of different western cracks. Actually his "cracks" were made to sell on the market. Robert was also selling self-made tapes with frozen games.
* Fiction (aka Zombie, aka Maniac), also did a lot of work under Fiction Software Service and World Cracking Federation.
* Maximum Cracker did a lot of early work in the Polish scene releasing titles in 1985 up until 1987.
* Skyrider was a late comer to the scene joining the oldie-cracking group Nostalgia in the late nineties, producing around 30 top cracks.
We will continue to research this country and add information to preserve.