Sacred Armour of Antiriad - any questions for the devs?

[Antiriad2097]

Is it not pronounced as written? Ant-i-riad ?

Well, for those of us who can read and speak English (possibly even both at the same time), yes, but other than gamers who know the game I've yet to meet anyone who doesn't stumble over it.

[necronom]

How exactly do you pronounce Antiriad? As its my username here I've heard so many (wrong) variations on it (most commonly Antiraid...

I had to read that about five times and compare the versions you typed and I was almost convinced you'd typed the same thing twice. Then I finally noticed that the I and A were the other way round

I don't know the game at all, but in all the years I've seen it written (mostly in your username), I've always read it as Antiraid

[markopoloman]

Anyway, Auntyraid was a cracking game. Trying to think of some good questions - but most have been asked already. Antriririririririririad

Antiriad - only one real way to say it - how can there be so much confusion

[DigitalDuck]

Antiriad - only one real way to say it - how can there be so much confusion

Because the letter I is easily missed, and since "anti-" is a common English prefix, an English-speaking person's brain tries to interpret the rest of the word as an English word too. If they miss the second I, they read "rad". If they see it, they read "raid", since the ordering of the letters in the middle of a word doesn't matter as much - as the famous 'joke' demonstrates:

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a tatol mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.

If they'd picked a real word instead of a made-up one, there wouldn't be any confusion.


On a related note, I've only just spotted that Lorfarius isn't spelt Lofarius.

[Antiriad2097]

Why does the guy I share an office with call it Antrad then? That's far too close to Amstrad for comfort.

[DigitalDuck]

Why does the guy I share an office with call it Antrad then?

Because the letter I is easily missed

[Szczepaniak]

I pronounce the second half, after anti, as "Riyadh" as in the place.

But I have asked, so we should have the definitive answer (hopefully). Actually, I also did a phone interview with Richard Leinfellner, but it's not easy to type how it was pronounced. "An-tiryad" might be a close approximation. There was more connection between the "ti" and "riad" than the "an" and "ti". The "an" was ever so slightly on its own (maybe?). If I weren't so damned lazy I'd put it on youtube.

[Antiriad2097]

I can't believe you actually asked the question. I was just mucking about, I didn't expect a huge debate!

They ok about me having the URL?

[Szczepaniak]

Not heard back on that, but will let you know when I do.

[ivarf]

Why does the guy I share an office with call it Antrad then? That's far too close to Amstrad for comfort.

Because the Amstrad has the best version!

[Metr]

The Amstrad version looks pretty good, but is it really that stuttery to play? or is that just the video?
To be honest, I think it looks pretty good on all 3 formats.

Is it not pronounced as written? Ant-i-riad ?

I'm the one that uploaded the spanish Amstrad version video posted here. The Amstrad version just get a bit slower when there are 3 enemies or more in the screen (or 2 monster+1 bullet), usually happens in a lot of games specially the ones ported fast from a zx spectrum version, usually due to the rush of releasing all the versions at the same time and programmers having no time to fix those kind of issues on the Amstrad. I haven't checked if it's the case but seems that! The emulator I used for recording that one usually display better than others but has some audio problems, so the music is way better than the one in the video.
Like in all games, they usually run and display better in a real Amstrad, but I'm afraid it plays so close to the video. It doesn't have the speed of c64 and spectrum but I think is for that issue. Anyways I prefer this version just for the amazing graphics, the enemies in the other versions look a bit like painted on the screen, in this one seems they are treated with more care
So for me, it's the best one also !

If I had the chance to ask any question to Dan Malone or the rest of the team it would be if there's any way to pick the implosion mine and come back to the armour (in my video is in 8:20) without doing the wall trick or die ? And also thank them for doing one of my favourites games ever!

[JetSetWilly]

I've a question: how the hell do you play it

[Nemesis]

I love the Amstrad, but I'm all too aware of its faults. There aren't many times when I'd argue that a version is better, but this along with Renegade and Gryzor is just no contest.

Having owned both versions (Spectrum & Amstrad) I would say that the CPC version is the most aesthetically pleasing but the Spectrum is slightly quicker & your character is slightly more responsive. Therefore, a tie for me.

[Antiriad2097]

Have you tried the C64 version?

[Nemesis]

Have you tried the C64 version?

No, never owned a C64 but did see a long play of it on You Tube. Looks good to be fair but having not played it I cannot say whether it beats both the Spectrum & CPC versions of the game.