Before winning last year's assembly, this group was rather unknown, so we think they can be described as one of the most successful newcomers of 1997. Until now they weren't able to release a successor, but a big demo is planned for The Gathering. A music-disk with modules mainly by Ganja and the intro for Showtime #9 are also in progress, while the second issue of their magazine Pressue will be delayed due to several reasons.
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Network
With their magazine Trashcan they gained attention in 1997 and have contributed a lot to the popularity of the Spanish scene. Issue 4 of the mag will soon be released. Nork left Massive and Osmose, but he's still in Darkage. Phornee and Lantium joined as double-members. (See Essence. -Ed) ("After Goblins died we still wanted to be in a Spanish group, and as we were already good friends with Network it was the best choice!") They're working on a big demo entitled "Synthesis".X
Nuance
As predicted in the first issue of Insomnia, this group was very active during the last months. With X-Files they were able to gain recognizion as the producers of the most popular news-mag in the scene. They even plan to present the new design for X-Files soon, aswell as their scene-mag Wild, at this year's Symposium. And though their Swedish coder HBe quit the scene, we will see more quality productions from this group in 1998. (See interview with Raven in this magazine for more details on this subject. -Ed)X
Skarla
After a lot of confusion around the former members of this group (Jamie, Norm, Marvin and Horus. -Ed.) and whether they are members of Essence or Mystic or none of the above, they simply decided to rebuild their old group. ("We are all in Skarla and no other group!") At the same time they have announced that we cannot expect any productions by them in the near future. ("We are all lazy"), Furthermore Jamie started to work for a PC game company, though it unfortunately looks like another bunch of highly talented Amiga sceners has left the building...
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Scoopex
After their success at TP7, winning both intro and demo competition, Scoopex has almost reached a level they had years ago! With SeenPoint, whose 7th issue has recently been released, they have a famous magazine and Lazur, who published his slide-show "5977" in Aars, is the most popular graphician right now! Furthermore, Vention, former member of Kefrens and Polka Brothers, teamed up with them, aswell as Kidlove, who came second at TP7 graphics competition, but is still a member of Haujobb (We got the news flash - Kidlove just joined Scoopex, making Haujobb really angry for that! Also Bay Tremore (The other HJB graphician that was also involved in their "My Kingdom" demo) applied to join Scoopex team -Ed.). For further details on their cooperation demo, see Haujobb!
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The Black Lotus
Looks like this flower is finally wilting! Though Scout joined them after leaving Artwork ("I've become good friends with the Swedish TBL'ers since TG96, while it was hard to keep up communication with Artwork in Germany, so I thought that I might aswell join TBL! Especially since I will live in the same apartment like Offa and Equalizer and we will all work for Digital Illusions.") We were told not to expect any further demos ("You could always hope for Darkside 3 from Rubber + Dig-it club!") and though most members of TBL produce games nowadays, we still haven't given up all hope!