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:::/ / \:::/ /____/::/ / /:/ /:/ /____/::/ /__/ /:/ / /::
/ /____/ / /___ / / / / / / /___ / / / / / /___/
/ / \ / /___/ / / / / / / /___/ / / / / / /_ \
/___/\ \ /___/______ /___/ / /___/ /___/______ /___/ / /___/ /
\____\ \_______\ \____/ ::: \_______\ \______/ /______/
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Sleepless by Mind Design (A STNICCC 2000 Release) [Falcon030]
It was some time ago, when Deez of Mind Design, the swedes with
style, moved to the UK to start working for a video-game producer,
that Deez announced officially that he will now take a step back
from the demos department and stay passive for a while ...
... and has been active a lot more than ever before.
For the STNICCC 2000, a party that Deez didn't even visit, he
prepared this little demo, ct2 and ct1 speeder friendly, FastRAM
compatible, RGB and VGA capable and finally (and according to some
people on the net most importantly) 4 MB compatible.
The demo starts with an mp2-soundtrack prepared by Viking with
some odd, rotating brown/gold pattern slowly fading up.
When the music kicks in fully, so do the effects with the slogans
"code: Deez", "music: Viking" etc. moving rapidly from the right
to the left on screen and back again, transparent and only illu-
minating the background.
When the credits are done, blue, probably transparent dots explode
from the middle of the screen to the outer regions, fading down
during the movement.
After this quite hectic intro things slow down with a nice female
face appearing on screen with a Mind Design logo besides it that
fades up and down according to the music.
Finally, the picture fades completely to make room for the pretty
neat looking gold/brown pattern to rotate slowly on screen again,
this time overlaid with another, glowing but transparent pattern,
and this time a sparkling set of blue dots move over the scenery
in large loops, leaving a trail of blue sparks (why else would it
be called blueprint ?).
The music changes theme for the last time and the blue dots are
being replaced by white ones, forming a sphere that moves away
from the viewer into infinity, being followed by another sphere
from a different position and another one, until the music dies
away.
This demo will probably not cause many sleepless nights, but
it is a nice one though.
The music is - as usual - excellent and is the best proof that
using mp2-music in demos is sensible indeed. Viking is one of the
best musicians that could contribute to a demo so give us more of
that, Johan !
As usual for Mind Design, the demo is well timed on the music and
triggers most effects as well as change of effects to the music.
Speaking of design, the choice of colours and patterns is a pretty
well choice, again, everything staying mild and calm and fitting
perfectly into each other - Except for maybe the blue dots. Blue
and gold/brown does not match too well, but the way this combination
is being used here is not bad.
If you search this demo for overkilling effects, you're not going to
find any really. Illuminating effects, glowing patterns, rotating
patterns, fading effects, dots and dotspheres - Hardly anything yet
unknown to the Atari community.
On the other hand, all these effects are being used wisely here and
somehow bear that "Mind Design-bonus due to the context they are
being used here.
In other words: Sleepless is a nice sign of life from Mind Design
that rather lives on the excellent music than on stunning effects,
but it is something to watch and to enjoy for a while.
I just hope for a more enduring Mind Design sometime soon. :-)
G F X : 72 %
S N D : 81 %
E F X : 54 %
O V R : 69 %
the paranoid
paranoia
lunatic asylum
think you can handle it ?!
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