Hello FLOP fans,
it is the middle of summer 2024, which I personally feel consists of a series of rainy and very hot days, which is sort of from extreme to extreme and certainly not good for agriculture, however, it doesn't make up for the delay in release of issue 68.
Yes, indeed, there was no issue in 2023, which is certainly sad. And no, it wasn't the intentional because of the two-disc number 67 in 2022 that we might feel like we've already kind of done it in advance.
There simply wasn't any pile of usable contributions, you could also say it went from extreme excess to extreme shortage, like that weather.
And yes, of course, there was also a lot of work effort needed to obtain them missing, which could have helped to some extent, and also in their processing, because the FLOP issue is not made by itself from a heap of contributions, however large.
We hoped in publishing this year in the spring on the occasion of our annual event in Olomouc, then at the next one in České Budějovice, but it didn't work out.
At the moment I have a problem with the composition of things on the B side, there are either too few or too many, they just don't fit together in the defined space. I'll probably proceed with the compression. We definitely want to issue a new number as soon as possible, although given the current date, it is probably more appropriate to say the least late.
Well, we will certainly include The Train Dispatcher, which I want to point out because it's a gem. Sure, this simulation game is nothing new, but it's really good as a simulation, and mind you, I think it's the only foreign commercial product for which we have permission from the owners to publish it.
This agreement was arranged and the exhaustive manual was written by a big fan of trains Bohdan, although due to the existence of his two small children, he does not have the time to fully engage with FLOP now as before.
That's why this year I'm trying to compile it myself, again after several years or issues, now with better tools, so it's not as overwhelming work for me as it was my previous time with issue 61 of year 2018.
Otherwise, the active group of contributors, linguists, testers and other technical support is practically the same as in the last issue two years ago, in which Bohdan neatly listed them in the editorial. Honor, undying glory, admiration and all that kind of stuff to these enthusiasts working absolutely for free for this magazine read apparently only by a rather small part of the humanoid population.
I refer to their previous list and do not name them myself for fear of what a terrible embarrassment it would be on my head if I forgot someone, brr!
Well, everyone, have a good time and possibly consider making a contribution of your own, albeit a very modest one, to the next issues, so that they can continue to be published regularly and not with such an outrageous delay as this issue.
The hot summer is gone, and here we have a cloudy, sometimes quite cold, autumn; the sun shines for much shorter periods, and watch out, the content of this issue has already been decided for some time, which is good.
Our efforts are therefore focused on eliminating the identified shortcomings in the included contributions, which unfortunately does not mean that we will be able to completely eliminate all existing errors, as natural laws prevent achieving the dream of a perfect state.
This work is currently culminating at the Bytefest meeting in Prague, where we were unable to bring issue 68 completely finished as we had wished; however, we would very much like to leave with a fully completed issue. Quite a few of us from the magazine crew have gathered here, and amidst the lively events, we are dedicating ourselves to it.
Regarding the event here, it is truly nice, with great attendance and an interesting program. For the next issue 69, I am considering including some description of it, but I fear it may be impossible to truly capture its atmosphere in text.
For example, the organizer is currently serving dinner; he prepared goulash for those interested, which led to a line of hungry people. So even in such an environment, FLOP can emerge — not just in the silence and solitude of home.
In summary, if we declare this issue finished in the near future, we will announce this joyful fact publicly here tomorrow, that is, on Sunday, and prepare it for download from the FLOP Internet Archive shortly thereafter.
With this thought, I'm ending the writing of this editorial here at the event and hope for success.
The plan to have FLOP finished at Bytefest didn't work out. More and more errors still keep appearing continuously.
Zdeněk