Interviews

V)
Hi, please introduce yourself to our readers!

D)
The name is Jani Hirvo, also known as D'ARC and I do scene things in this group called 'TOPAZ BEERLINE'. I’m 19 years old (young?), I have blue eyes and dark brown hair. I look to the ground from the height of about 165CM and feet carry a load of 60 kilos. I code, paint, swap, lead TOPAZ (along with SCAPEGOAT) and write text for FRESH N’ STICKY.


V)
How long have you been in TOPAZ?

D)
TOPAZ has been alive now 3 years. First it was only a subgroup of MOTION but later on became an own group. I joined TOPAZ after they had been alive for half a year. During that time HTD brought a L'AMIGA and kinda decided to quit the 64 scene. I was left alone. I asked my second contact(!) ZARDAX of ORIGO if he knew any groups who would need a coder. TOPAZ wanted me so I joined. So when you count the years I find the answer of 2 and a half years.


V)
What do you think about the scene nowadays?

D)
The scene is cool. great demos are being released, maybe not so often but they are. games are somehow lame, but when you see a new game, not one of those THINK HOW YOU COULD MOVE THIS PIECE BESIDE THAT ONE GAMES, you feel a bit happy (for example GREYSTORM, NICK FALDO GOLF,LEMMINGS). its true that the scene is dying, but new groups from the eastern countries (think about TABOO) really makes the scene live a few decades more. The Australian scene is getting stronger all the time, but they lack spreaders in Europe. The Australian stuff doesn't get spread that much (well... I had that problem until I got one send every week from a dude over there, VENGEANCE/BODYCOUNT)

V)
Who are your best friends and contacts in the scene?

D)
Well...what to say? I have been lazy for a really long time and I don't know who still keeps me as their contacts. Anyway I say that my best friends in the scene (in no order) are all the TOPAZERS, WINGO/TRIAD, SMILE/CLQ, UNIFER/FLASH INC, EXTEND, FELLOWS, ANS of SPIRIT, VENGEANCE/BODYCOUNT and also STORMLORD/WOW.


V)
Explain a bit about this stealing crap you were accused of at that party?

D)
Hmm...this is kinda old these days, at the LIGHT/PHENOMENA party there were some stealing done(give me a party there aren't). The rumour was something like this: the police were there and they checked our (EXTEND+TOPAZ) minibus and found stolen goods inside it and took me to the police station for a little talk. Everyone interested in the matter of course believed this bullshit. Actually I heard from EXTEND FELLOWS that there were some suspicious dudes around our minibus. They checked it out later and someone (a scene dude) came and asked me about this. I didn't know a thing about it. Then I heard that some of the stolen goods were found in the car (minibus) next to ours. I myself don't know what is true and what isn't, but that is sure that I didn't steal anything and if someone still after a long year, has something to add to this, please contact me.

V)
What are your jobs in TOPAZ?

D)
I somehow answered this in the first question, but let’s do it once more and a bit more detailed. Most of my work is coding and especially demo code. I did code everything straight to memory with a monitor but these days I use the turbo assembler version... was it, 6, don't remember(ok... ok... an old version but it doesn't say a tilt anytime). I also code a bit utilities (do you remember AFLI-editor?) and try to do some game-code (I have a great idea, gfx and level editors for it but no game code). I just don't have time. My second job is graffix as all the gfxers know, it’s much harder to paint a picture than a logo, so most of my gfx are logos (ED - check the new BCT logo my D'ARC kick'n or what!). I like 2 draw big pictures, but they take a hell lot of time (a day or 2 to finish) and guess how much code you can do in that time. I use a BITMAP EDITOR done by SAGA/DOLPHINS for pictures and logos and for fonts or sprites the editors done by FACES and of course for HIRES and AFLI pictures the newest version of AFLI (hey… that sounds like a commercial). I never do gfx in FLI! Also I lead TOPAZ with SCAPEGOAT and try to write some text for FRESH and STICKY.


V)
What do you think of VANDALISM NEWS, how could it be improved?

D)
If we are exact, I think the outfit isn't that bad (well...there are some mags that look great and have 3 lines of text). In my opinion the basic idea of a mag is to give people a little entertainment with text. Of course the outfit is somehow important and a mag which is lame coded is terrible to read (as it usually bugs and so on). How would I improve VANDALISM NEWS? Well I'd make it work. I mean the outfit works but the screen is grey and this is becoz of my machine: commodore 128 diesel. The $d030 spot in memory controls the 1mhz and the 2mhz options. Please put a zero in that spot. I think this problem has been fixed for the new outfit. All in all it’s a good magazine.

V)
If you were to leave TOPAZ for some unknown reason who would you ask to join and why?

D)
Okay let’s suppose that every group in the world were active and released a demo a month (impossible). My answer would be PANORAMIC DESIGN. I kind of respect those guys and really like their style to make demos.


V)
Any last words?

D)
Aaah its done! to my former contacts (those who got our demo from me) I say: please recontact and please don't mind about my last delay. I'll improve! And also check out the upcoming releases from TOPAZ BEERLINE like the newest issue of FRESH 'N' STICKY and the new upcoming demo GRAVEYARD BLUES 3 (no dates... no dates).


V)
Thanks for the interview my friend.

D)
That's all...

Yours,

D'ARC/TOPAZ BEERLINE.