GP32:Zine Issue 1 released!


Rico

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Hot on the heels of Slander :) is the brand new first issue of GP32:Zine. Get it right here: zine.gp32.org - it's 27 pages in PDF format :)

If you have any other time please fill out the poll too...
 
The only thing I have a complaint on is it only covers the emulation aspect of the GP32, I want to read about the commercial games out for it, and some reviews and previews for commercial games. Other than that I loved it, very impressive. I was also wondering why Mario was everywhere :p Oh yeah I loved the NES head to head section. Very good article.
 
SephirothIce posted on Jul 24 2003 said:
The only thing I have a complaint on is it only covers the emulation aspect of the GP32, I want to read about the commercial games out for it, and some reviews and previews for commercial games. Other than that I loved it, very impressive. I was also wondering why Mario was everywhere :p Oh yeah I loved the NES head to head section. Very good article.
Well I've got good news for you. We've made a deal with JoyGP, and they will sponsor mileages and other things to us, so expect full coverage on all the commercial games on the scene.

Any other ideas/suggestions for the magazine?

P.S. Mario owns :D
 
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Extremely well done to the lot of you! Good quality mag which should get a good number of downloads/reads, as it is well worth the time. I agree, a little heavy on the Mario to begin with, but hey, they are good games (even though I hate myself for saying that!). :D
 
I don't really know what else you could add besides, previews and reviews. Maybe an IGN Sucks section for the bad reviews they have given GP32. The only thing that it seems to be lacking to have that video game magazine feel, is walk through's and perhaps a letter section, which could be email in this case. The only problem is that the fan base is probably small right now so a letter section would be pointless. You could always add a cheat section, and walkthrough section just for looks though :p Anyway if you need a writer for a rpg game section I would be happy to write for it lol.
 
You could have a rom of the month for each system, with a short description of why its unmissable. One thing that does need sorting out though is, what's going in slander and what's going in GP32:Zine.
 
GP32 User Choice Awards? Like vote on the best games for each emulator, and the best game for each video game category. Another thing could be a top 10 list and other stuff. I think anything interactive like polls and stuff are really good for magazines because it makes the reader feel involved.
 
Great ideas all of you. We would like more user input. A Mailbox is definately going to be there, with posts on the forum, and mails from users. This will allow users to easily reach a huge amount of people, just by one post.

Rom of the month is also going to be there. Although it will properly be named 'Game of the month' for legal issues :)

GP32 User Choice Awards is a great idea as well, we will run polls on our website, and we can get a huge amount of user input from there. So go on and post on our forums, make some debate, create tension and a community. That way you're helping out GP32:zine in the best way possible.
 
The 'best emu' / 'best commercial game' / etc. is definately on the cards ... some sort of awards are badly needed. We will probably hype this in issue 2 and add some polls up for it.

The most important thing for us to do, is keep going. Issue 1 was done by zimba and myself, and it was troubling work - we welcome any help. Just post to the staff forum at http://zine.gp32.org/ if you're interested in helping out, however little.

Thanks for all the kind comments and tips.

- Rico
 
SephirothIce posted on Jul 24 2003 said:
GP32 User Choice Awards? Like vote on the best games for each emulator, and the best game for each video game category. Another thing could be a top 10 list and other stuff. I think anything interactive like polls and stuff are really good for magazines because it makes the reader feel involved.
There are quite a few websites (and threads on this board) that deal with the top roms. What would be unique and useful is a list of top homebrew games. I know there are a lot out there, but except for Break the Brick Block and Bob the Amazing Lemon (both quite good), I haven't had a chance to check them out. If they were sitting on a top 5 list or something, I'd give them a shot.
 
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Top mag guys, and a good layout on the site. Not sure about the GP being 20x faster than the GP, that might confuse newbies, it's only 8x faster, with little other hardware to assist the CPU. Great interviews, very profesional. Keep up the good work :)
 
SephirothIce posted on Jul 26 2003 said:
I clicked the link today and it was gone? What happened to it?
Taras was fixing something on his server, so the link was down for some time. Also rico was fixing auto-login, thanks man!
 
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Here's some friendly suggestions.

I thought the first fifteen pages or so were boring. Basically, they were rehashed news stories from gp32x and gp32emu -- meaning, I'd already read all those news stories twice, and this made a third time. I guess you could argue that some people may not read those sites, but the majority of people who found the magazine found it via gp32x or gp32emu, so I'm guessing the majority of people had already read the news twice before like I had.

I thought the ROM reviews were kind of pointless. As I'm reading a diskmag or a zine, I'm reading to find out new information. The audience is GP32 owners. The majority of GP32 owners are (a) into emulation and (B) former console owners. Who really needs a review of Super Mario Brothers 3? Mario and Megaman are some of the biggest Nintendo franchises EVER, so I'm not sure they need reviewing. Someone else mentioned a ROM of the month, and that might be much more interesting to read about, especially if it's a bit more obscure ROM or system.

The interviews were okay. In general I thought they were pretty generic. After a couple they kind of got boring. I thought the questions might have been taylored a little more toward the subject.

Now for the good news.

I thought the Nintendo emulator comparison was awesome. THAT'S the kind of stuff I want to read about. Someone actually did some WORK on that article. They took six roms, tried them on three emulators, and posted the results. PLUS, it's an article I HAVEN'T read on any of the gp32 websites. Well written and well done.

Also, I must mention as someone with a degree in journalism, that the layout was excellent. It showed some nice design work and you can tell a lot of work and thought went into it. For those who haven't printed out the issue, you really should just to see how great the layouts look.

In the future, I'd like to see more articles, deeper, more thoughtful interviews, maybe a monthly "coding column", more things that AREN'T already on the website and less rehashed filler.

Note 1: Mentioning the PayPal address three times (on the website link, at the beginning of the mag and at the end) seemed a little cheap for me. Maybe that's the "new" style or whatever, but back in the day, zines and mags were free because they were part of the scene. While I appreciate the work and effort that goes into these things, the day it goes pay is the day I quit reading it.

Note 2: Just to nip this argument in the bud before it starts ... if anyone says, "those are some great ideas, you should try writing a zine if you think you're so smart, etc" ... I do. Besides all the other stuff I write, I am the senior editor of WhiteTrashDevil.com (approx 60,000 hits a month), was a founding member/senior editor of Soulz At Zero, founded SiTH (Sick in The Head E-Zine), wrote for Anada, wrote DVD reviews for IGN, have been published in 2600 Magazine, and ran my own print music magazine (In-Tune) for about a year. So the reason I am offering this advice is not to cut down or bash, but rather to add some constructive criticism and advice to make the zine a better read for everyone.
 
those are some great ideas, you should try writing a zine if you think you're so smart :lol:

Anyway, seriously there is some controversy in the forums about public and private testing, and open and closed source. Is it better for the community or is it worse. You could write and article on that. That is if you aren't afraid of offending some people with the article lol.
 
I downloaded the PDF, and I loved your magazine! Sure, the "On the scene news" were things most of us already have read, but the reviews of the NES emulators was awsome! More things like this! For a newbee (like me) it's great to read a good review to get to know which emulators are the best.

I'm looking forward to the next issue!

//emil
 
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