OLIVER Being a pixel guy – the tools were remarkable. We did not have devkit like the Katakis tools or something specified for creating game graphics. I used the editor that came with the Shoot ‘Em Up Construction Kit for sprites, which turned out extremely practical. The Ronny-sprite was created with an C64 editor called Mob-Profi, which provided overlayed hires and multicolour-sprites. The pictures in the intro and end sequence were pixeled in Koala Painter with a joystick, but everything else was more like hacking. I edited the charset with a font editor. The level backgrounds were tile-based maps, so a friend of mine coded one tool for combining 2×2 chars to tiles including the colour – and a second tool for assembling the levelmap like a puzzle game. As setup I had a C128 and Amiga 500 side by side. By the way – there was a TV and a monitor connected to the C128 at the same time, because of the the different video quality and I wanted to be sure that the graphics  looked right on both display types. With our modern mouse or stylus driven tools and those workflow-trimmed programs it is hard to believe that we got things done at all back in the day when we were even lacking fundamentals such as UNDO functionality. However, I have to say that you had full control over the technical specs of the graphics and as a graphic designer you started to think like a coder.

Otherwise, I hardly remember details of the project. At least for the first month, Mario and I were working alongside each other. The intro and the end sequence were finished first. Then it was very intense and determined by crunchtime, the process was sort of first-in-first-out. The progress in code was tied to incoming graphics. Markus composed the new tunes at home far away and we had some issues with the delivery. Nevertheless the whole soundtrack reached us in time and its implementation went smoothly. Still there was no free time at all. In the final weeks weeks it became a kind of competition – like, who needs the least sleep! I also remember that the editing of the levels was pretty chaotic. Three of us worked in shifts and it took much longer than planned.

Oh I almost forgot about the  communication with Virgin. That was the horror for me because I hardly spoke any English back then. David Bishop and I talked English and German mixed, which worked surprisingly well.

Fresh was founded April 22, 1989 on the Crazy & RCS Party 1989 by Iceman/ISI Soft, Graphics-Boy, Project B, Shake (subgroup) and Welfare Software Boys (subgroup). 2 months later Krush joined in as main cracker. The first Fresh Intro gained a lot of attaention in the Swiss scene: it was coded Mat and the music was exclusively composed by Tim of Modern Arts, one of the most progressive demo groups back then.

After the Crazy Stardom Copy-Party 1989 (August) in Le Locle the 2 Swiss demogroups Future Vision Switzerland and Trap joined Fresh. 

Mainly in 1990, a war with Computer Freaks Association was ongoing. Both groups were competing for being Switzerland's #1. Computer Freaks Association released a small anti-demo called Fresh on Top. The war was officially ended at the Swiss Pirates Reunion 2002 (nowadays there are many friendship boundaries between the former 2 opponents).

Was in co-op with Century for short while in February/March 90. The co-op was stopped due to a lack of Century cracks.

After the Fresh Party 1990 (April) Krush, Ogygene and Mirage left to built up a new Swiss group together with The Sexton/G*P called Abstract, which later then joined forces with the ashes from the Swiss demogroup Future Concepts and renamed into Crusade.

Also in April 1990 a small but neat Austrian section was built by Awesome & Beast. They have produced some one file demos and due to the good connections to Lotus, Awesome has supplied a couple of hot originals. 

In May 1990 some Fresh members have been working on a project to join forces with The Ancient Temple. Both group got to know eachother at the Fresh Party 1990. Project names were SAPPHIRE or LIFE IS A BEACH. There was no agreement on the name, so the project never was realised. 

In June/July 1990 a German section in Cologne was built around Spy, Trax & Scoundrel. After their lame release Lost in Time , they have been kicked out.

Was in co-op with Holocaust from August 1990 to October 1990. The coop started with Fresh's first release of Back to the Future II 5. The co-op later was stopped due to a lack of Fresh cracks in that period (main cracker Graphics Boy had left the group to join Crazy).

Fresh died in late 1990 when Freestyle and Dave joined Talent.