Fantasy Party 06
Or last year's releases put into a slightly fictional alternative historical
context for the hell of it!
With yet another set of idle moments passing by in the delayed wait for this
issue and any other Atariscene activity, this leads me to contemplating some
'what if' speculation. For example, how about if we put all of last year's
releases into one big party instead of them appearing all over the place as
actually happened. I went a bit further to imagine some other in-party
happenings. Nothing described here varies too far from what took place in
reality.
For my choice of imaginary party '06, I'll go for an Easter trip, probably
another edition of Outline, making use of an alternative reality version of
Havoc, who isn't quite ready to commit to Breakpoint just yet. We will also
assume that the bigger venue at De Panoven is available as well, with a less
prattish management than was actually the case. This party is pre-announced
some time before, so people have plenty of time to get their productions
ready for Easter, and no excuses! Amazingly (we are still in fantasy land,
after all!) the majority of people who pre-promise themselves actually turn
up.
The invites are issued as for our timeline, with a really cool invitro from
DHS on the '060 , and also a nice intro demandling less total hardware
committment from Lineout. These intro's are exactly the same as the ones we
got. Expectations are raised very high with the release of both of these,
within a fortnight of each other in early March.
The party itself lives up to expectations, with a relaxed atmosphere, and a
strongly Atarian presence. There are no pc people just yet, this is planned
for a new summer version of Outline, but that won't be until next year. It
is still too early in the year to suggest using the indian style teepees as
sleeping accomodation, and we all reflect on a lucky escape there!
The four days are brilliantly fun, but it is the compo's we are waiting for,
the true indicator of the state of health and commitment level of the
Atariscene. We are not to be disappointed!
After a graphics and music competition which reflects more or less how the
real Outline '06 went, we are into the first major demo compo, the 4ktro
category. This is most notable for a two-way standup fight between gwEm's
4K made for all systems from ST upward, and a quick '060 4K made by Evil at
the party. (Yes, in this reality, some more Swedes made a road-trip!)
Although quickly done, it is very good and indicative of the overall quality
coming from DHS. As Evil subsequently dominates the 96k and big demo
categories, the final vote narrowly goes gwEm's way. In this compo, there is
also a Defjam quick 4Ktro, identical to the one he made for the real Outline
'06, which still attracts some happy noises from the audience.
The Bootsector intro competition is run as for our Outline '06, and proves
to be a popular category for time-strapped coders, the entries and results
are identical to the original Outline '06.
The 96ktro compo is the next big effort. This is dominated by DHS with
'Genocidal' for the '060 fanatics, with Paradox and their '96 Shades of
Grey' intro following closely, and the two other Outline 06 entries
'Freshtro' and 'Lavalamp' bringing up the rear. This compo would also be
identical to the real-life version, but with a non-absentee Evil watching
with interest.
Where we get a major digression from reality is with the big demo
competition. This actually has the entries which were released piecemeal at
different locations last year all in one venue. There are two '060 entries
from Evolution and DHS going head to head. The demos known as 'Supernatural'
and 'Derealisation'. After some agonizing on their part, the organisers
decide to merge the competition with the only standard F030 demo which is
ready in time, 'Menace' from Mystic Bytes. Yes, as as well as some Swedes,
some other Eastern European people made the trip too! Thoughts turn to a
vodka-induced hangover after an interesting Friday night spent for far too
long in their company! There were preview screens on view at the party of a
new Lineout F030 demo, but in the end, there was nothing ready to go into a
competition just yet.
After rather less agonizing, the Dildo Fatwa fake demo does not go in the
big demo competition. The end-voting is split accordingly between the 060
and F030 camps for their favourite. It is too close to call for a time, but
'Derealization' comes out the eventual winner. 'Menace' gets a deserved
second place, and 'Supernatural' third, but there really aren't too many
points between them.
The wild competition is mostly as for the real Outline '06, including
Defjam's conversion of Acid Burn for the Game Boy Advance, gwEm's FGPA
project, the Cyclone Alive music disk, and Dildo Fatwa's "attempt" at a real
demo called 'We Dreme of Atari'. I'd also throw in a hypothetical extra fake
demo from MJJ Productions made in-party, and the addition of the Chosneck
'Supplement' mag, which manages to get Mystic Bytes into two competitions
with the same production! (I remember originally that there was a lot of
work to get it to a release state for the party, but there were still some
articles missing, and the actual release was not until some weeks after
Easter.) The results are more or less as before, with the fake demo's
fighting for joint bottom place, and Chosneck placed quite highly.
In other news...
The game competitions are as for the original Outline party Atarian entries,
including the Reservoir Gods 'Atariscene Card Battle' game, but also with
the addition of a nicely done release from Paradize Computing called 'Znax".
PHF do turn up to this party and manage to win the competition with a rather
non-Atari but retro-themed 'GlobotWars', which is identical to the real
Outline '06. Away from the competitions, Mikro is also showing off an early
version of his Quake '060 port, and is talking about porting Duke Nukem to
the CT60 as well.
Also seen at the party, Defjam and Dune/Sector One are all working on some
new and interesting ST stuff. Again there is nothing ready to show in
competition, so this will have to wait for the future. There is also an
advanced preview of the YM-RockerZ latest music disk being shown, or rather
heard a lot, but this isn't finished and properly released until the summer.
As for other party happenings, we don't get many of the pc people (Limp
Ninja etc) here, nor the envigorating presence of BeerTBP, but there was
plenty of hardcore accoustic guitar action from the likes of Chuck and
Manou!
Well I hope you all enjoyed this trip to an alternative Outline '06, and one
which is plausible and not too far removed from reality, notwithstanding one
or two small tweaks in the timelines and additions to the competition
entries! Or to put it another way, looking back at 2006 like that, it really
wasn't too bad a year last year.
CiH, for Alive Mag, April '07.
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