SUMMER ONLINE
COMPO
MEGADEMO
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Here comes at last the demo that collects all entries presented at DHS latest
online compos, meaning 16 colors gfx, chiptunes and ST demoscreens. All in one
the compo managed to draw 27 entries which is a really nice score ! After he
gave (realtime!) results, Evil assembled all these screens only adding an
intro as well as an endpart. Since all entries were shown as is, Evil couldn't
modify them even tho they needed improvements or transitions. In other words
the demo quality mainly depends on their authors :) Thanks again to you Anders
who organizing such vivid compo, as you says, the best in many years !
Due to the many entries, I cannot review them individually. It would take too
much time (the demo is 10 minutes long !) and therefore I'll try to focus on a
on the best ones, in my humble opinion :)
People involved in this demo are :
Coding : Defjam/checkpoint, No/Escape, Evil/DHS, Blind Io, Gizmo/DHS, Ray/tSCc
Zerkman/Sector One, Bod/Stax and Spex/Escape.
Gfx : Edo/Sector One, STS/Loud!, Exocet/Pyjama, Wee(r)do, Marss, Spiny/Torment
Hylst and Saulot.
Msx : Tao/Cream, Frequence/Ephidrena, 505/Checkpoint, MC Laser/tSCc, Milhouse
and D-Force/FUN.
I hope I didn't skip a name :)
The demo starts with a first screen that vertically scrolls the names of all
the people who entered the compos, while poetic words (surely) by MC Laser
invade us, overlapping the scrolling credits. A nice chip is hear all along.
Tho a bit too long, this part perfectly captures the Atari spirit I think.
Hard to put words on feelings but I'm sure you'll see what I mean when you'll
enjoy this demo ! Then we move to real business.
All screens are accompanied by pictures and a peculiar soundchip. As for gfx I
noticed a clear separation between the piccies that ranked first to fourth and
the rest of it that were clearly done by newcomers and unexperienced artists.
Still in spite of some minuses (erm sorry but Hylst's gfx is unbearable) all
gfx are really enjoyable. As for msx, being mainly used as background they
perfectly feel the air with happy sounds of great quality. Let's see what each
screen is up to now that we know Defjam made it by one point before No :)
* Blind'Io screen : it looks nice tho clearly old school, starting with some
text and a greyscaled scanned photo of poor quality. Then various types of
rasters filled screens whill give room to each other. It could have been
smoother I believe and the colors are plain red, green or blue. Not on the
high end, but nice screen anyway.
* Zerkman' screen : while a vertical SECTOR ONE logo slides up on the left
side of the screen, flaming bobs zoom in, forming shapes such as a sphere or
an Atari logo. It really looks nice ! Too bad it's a bit short :(
* Bod's screen is quite plain showing a picture with reddish orange palette
while a circle moves around unveiling another picture hidden behind the first
one. The circle goes endlessly from left to right, nothing more to see.
* Evil's screen : while some text in a stylish white font is displayed on the
left, an environment mapped torus goes rotating, occasionnally growing spikes
which reminds me of HMM by Escape. Next screen shows several flares floating
around and mixing thus creating brighter zones.
* Spex screen : some really slow text displayer gives us the screen name and
credits and later on greetings while a chessboard motive spins around, taking
most of the screen. Not easy to say what it looks like but I like it ! Too bad
it is a bit slow and worse... that the text displayer goes as fast as a snail.
That flaw tends to spoil a lot of the screen quality :(
* Gizmo's screen : the second entry by DHS starts with a text screen with a
320*200 distorting picture showing a pumpkin head in the background. The the
real screen comes with a DHS logo made of particles. From what Evil told me it
features 240 particles and uses nice colors. Only bad thing in my opinion is
that the rotating logo never reads DHS (since letters can be displayed out of
screen) but clearly read SHD... Stupid detail Gizmo didn't care about :(
Another point that surely wasn't in favour of that screen is that the first
part is so long that some people didn't find out there was something much
better in the second part :(
* Ray's screen : it's another too short screen with Bod's entry :( This time
it shows a bitmap rotator with a colourful picture showing a woman's face and
god knows what :) Looks nice but too short :(
* No's screen : this time No took us all by surprise ! First because he wasn't
known to be an ST coder as well and secondly because his "dithering screen"
really kicks ass ! No used a very original technique showing many small
squares filling the whole screen. Then these squares are filled with dithered
colors, creating patterns that spawn effects such as bobs, a huge logo, motion
blur... Quite incredible and the most original ST screen over the last years !
* Defjam's screen : it starts with white lines so tight that they look like a
filled cube. They change shape to a wireframed CHECKPOINT logo that suddenly
zooms in. Next screen gives us the memberlist of CP, spelling names letter
after letter (quite big ones) still using white lines. The 16c logo already
seen in Modulation2 appears in a flash and disappears right away. Now a motion
blurred rotozoomer (much alike the one seen in Suretrip :) is displayed. Fast
greetings rush on screen with a one plan font. Very good feeling from the
start and we go on with a 16c bitmap rotative scroller that really looks
awesome ! Just too bad it's that long :( Final screen will give us credits.
The endpart of this megademo shows the dragon I entered at the Sillyventure
2000 gfx compo while a one plan font scrolls up with the many names of the ppl
involved as well as some interesting stories (I'm thinking of Setok here :)
Bottom line : this megademo rocks ! First it's the most inovative megademo
ever seen. Who ever thought of organizing a compo to have such material ? Who
expected so much feedback ? Besides the overall quality of all entries is
really great ! So ladies and gentlemen, stand up and show your respects to the
many authors of this unique ST megademo ! And maybe there could be another
compo for Xmas ? We'll see about that :)
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