Today is a good day!
Does anyone else remember F.O.F.T? Federation of Free Traders?
It tried VERY hard to be Elite. Elite had been out for a while and was in need of a 16-bit revamp, and Gremlin jumped in with this effort.
Sadly, it wasn't Elite. What it was was very buggy. Many gave up on it (it was pretty hard to get into, without the bugs) but at least the Amiga version had a working SAVE routine - poor Atarians..!
Anyway, I didn't give up and this is my story...
I was working as a school laboratory technician at the time. The previous year I had passed my BTEC Diploma in Science and this was my first science-based job. It was good, as coming from college, I was quite used to shorter working days, long holidays and plenty of drinking, ahem, socializing!
As the school would only support one full-time senior lab tech, I had come in as the junior help. So my days were only 1 hour longer than the school day (only 1/2 hour on Fridays!) and I had the same long hols (although, in turn, I was not paid for them either..). As many of my college friends had either gone off to Uni or got full time jobs, my socializing somewhat turned to gaming...
Since Elite (both on the Spectrum and Amiga) I had not found a game I could get lost in to the same extent. So FOFT was exactly what I was looking for. Like I said, I quickly found that it wasn't really on a par and the bugs grated a little (who remembers "You don't own a gauss gun"?!) but what kept me going was 2 things - 1) I had NEVER reached Elite in any of the versions I'd played (always Dangerous or Deadly...) and 2) they offered a certificate and a "Pinbadge of Office" to all those that reached the rank of Admiral. I was away....!
Took me, I think, around 4 months in the end (yes, I WAS going to get that cert/badge!).
...and then the evening came...
I was given the rank of Admiral and immediately presented with the password you had to submit on the included card (see pic). I froze - then panicked! What do I do if this crashes?? I wasn't ready - where's my pen???!!! My kingdom for some scrap paper!!!!!!!!!
I looked, read, looked again, re-read.... Wrote it down. Read it again, re-read it again, checked what I had written, probably 10 times, before I came off that screen (there was NO WAY BACK TO IT once it was gone...).
So, now I had my password written on my card and I sent it off (worrying all the time whether it would be lost in the post (this was 1990!) and what about if my coveted prize was then lost on the way to me??!!).
Life of course goes on, and you do forget (I did have a job after all and, eventhough it started at 9, it was in the next town and I couldn't afford a car, so had to walk to my local bus station to get a ride at around 7:30...
After what seemed an age (I think I'd given up hope of it coming...) it arrived! I wore it - lots. I always wore a cheap suit jacket out on weekends - just to have a lapel to pin it to!! Everyone thought I was weird. I didn't care and they got used to it - even asked me about what I had to do to get it on occasion.
I had my golden label pin and cert.
...and now I have just re-found it, in a tie-pin box in the garage. I knew I still had it somewhere, but I have moved several times since then, so I was always worried I'd lost it, and kinda didn't want to look, just in case I had... I was out searching for my JetStrike CD32 disk.
I never found the disk............
But hey, I have my FOFT pin!
Now to search for my cert...........
Good times, people! Only Amiga makes it possible...
Does anyone else remember F.O.F.T? Federation of Free Traders?
It tried VERY hard to be Elite. Elite had been out for a while and was in need of a 16-bit revamp, and Gremlin jumped in with this effort.
Sadly, it wasn't Elite. What it was was very buggy. Many gave up on it (it was pretty hard to get into, without the bugs) but at least the Amiga version had a working SAVE routine - poor Atarians..!
Anyway, I didn't give up and this is my story...
I was working as a school laboratory technician at the time. The previous year I had passed my BTEC Diploma in Science and this was my first science-based job. It was good, as coming from college, I was quite used to shorter working days, long holidays and plenty of drinking, ahem, socializing!
As the school would only support one full-time senior lab tech, I had come in as the junior help. So my days were only 1 hour longer than the school day (only 1/2 hour on Fridays!) and I had the same long hols (although, in turn, I was not paid for them either..). As many of my college friends had either gone off to Uni or got full time jobs, my socializing somewhat turned to gaming...
Since Elite (both on the Spectrum and Amiga) I had not found a game I could get lost in to the same extent. So FOFT was exactly what I was looking for. Like I said, I quickly found that it wasn't really on a par and the bugs grated a little (who remembers "You don't own a gauss gun"?!) but what kept me going was 2 things - 1) I had NEVER reached Elite in any of the versions I'd played (always Dangerous or Deadly...) and 2) they offered a certificate and a "Pinbadge of Office" to all those that reached the rank of Admiral. I was away....!
Took me, I think, around 4 months in the end (yes, I WAS going to get that cert/badge!).
...and then the evening came...
I was given the rank of Admiral and immediately presented with the password you had to submit on the included card (see pic). I froze - then panicked! What do I do if this crashes?? I wasn't ready - where's my pen???!!! My kingdom for some scrap paper!!!!!!!!!
I looked, read, looked again, re-read.... Wrote it down. Read it again, re-read it again, checked what I had written, probably 10 times, before I came off that screen (there was NO WAY BACK TO IT once it was gone...).
So, now I had my password written on my card and I sent it off (worrying all the time whether it would be lost in the post (this was 1990!) and what about if my coveted prize was then lost on the way to me??!!).
Life of course goes on, and you do forget (I did have a job after all and, eventhough it started at 9, it was in the next town and I couldn't afford a car, so had to walk to my local bus station to get a ride at around 7:30...
After what seemed an age (I think I'd given up hope of it coming...) it arrived! I wore it - lots. I always wore a cheap suit jacket out on weekends - just to have a lapel to pin it to!! Everyone thought I was weird. I didn't care and they got used to it - even asked me about what I had to do to get it on occasion.
I had my golden label pin and cert.
...and now I have just re-found it, in a tie-pin box in the garage. I knew I still had it somewhere, but I have moved several times since then, so I was always worried I'd lost it, and kinda didn't want to look, just in case I had... I was out searching for my JetStrike CD32 disk.
I never found the disk............
But hey, I have my FOFT pin!
Now to search for my cert...........
Good times, people! Only Amiga makes it possible...
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