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Alive 11

                       I got a pocket full of quarters
                         and I'm headed to the arcade
                         I don't have a lot of money
                      but I'm bringing everything I made
                         I got a callous on my finger
                        and my shoulder's hurting too
                           I'm gonna eat 'em all up
                        just as soon as they turn blue

                                   CHORUS:

                          'Cause I got Pac-Man Fever
                               (Pac-Man Fever)
                            It's driving me crazy
                              (driving me crazy)
                             I got Pac-Man Fever
                               (Pac-Man Fever)
                           I'm going out of my mind
                            (going out of my mind)
                             I got Pac-Man Fever
                               (Pac-Man Fever)
                           I'm going out of my mind
                            (going out of my mind)

                         I got all the patterns down
                            up until the ninth key
                           I got Speedy on my tail
                       and I know it's either him or me
                         So I'm heading out the back
                           going in the other side
                          Gonna eat the cherries up
                         and take 'em all for a ride

                                    CHORUS

                          I'm gonna bank to the left
                            then move to the right
                           'Cause Pokey's too slow
                           and Blinky's outta sight

                        Now I've got 'em on the run
                     and I'm looking for the high score
                       So it's once around the block
                     and I slide back out the side door
                           I'm really cooking now
                         eating everything in sight
                            All my money's gone
                       so I'll be back tomorrow night

                                    CHORUS

                                                     Buckner and Garcia
                                                        "Pac-Man Fever"
                                                                                
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      Note: This is just a personal sight, so please don't take it too 
            serious.

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Deadly Sins in
Demo-Design
        While having some kind of retrospective of the recent Atari demo
        releases at EVOKE I wondered why people are still stuck to
        ancient traditions when it comes to design. When I showed some
        Falcon demos to StingRay/Scarab^Scoopex he also mentioned that
        he wonders why we are still using black screens as backgrounds
        in the year 2005? In the Amiga scene this is totally forbidden
        nowadays. Now I can already hear the critics "What? Amiga? We
        are not Amiga? Who the fuck cares what they are doing?".

        Well, I care. If you are looking back to the early days, the
        Atari scene always cared what the Amiga scene was doing. Atari
        crews where often converting Amiga screens and also the other
        way round. Designing a demo isn't as easy as it might look. A
        general problem in the Atari demoscene is that we are massively
        lacking of graphic artists and designers.


        o Coders can't design

        Ok, ok you can't generalize on that point but it's a fact that
        most coders can't do design nor choose some nice colours. So
        don't let your coder do the design for your production! ;)

        o Black screens

        One of the main reasons why people are still using black screens
        as background for their effects is the one above "coders can't
        design"! They choose black in believing that they can't do
        anything wrong with that one. Well, it's not really wrong to use
        black as background colour but it doesn't look very stylish
        nowadays. I'll quote modmate/tscc in 1997 on that: "Don't use
        black screens".

        o Waiting

        If you have some parts in your demo where you need to load some
        data or for example the next part then please avoid to use such
        words like "loading, decrunching, initializing, please wait".
        Just leave the screen blank, show some nice pixel graphics or
        try to find some nice alternatives like "explore the inner
        machinery". Another nice thing could be some animation instead
        of words.

        o Ending

        Well, I often recognized the saying "the end" in demos lately
        and I have to tell you that it's not very stylish to use it in
        the year 2005. Some alternative slogans would be very
        appreciated and far more original than "the end".

        o Sources

        In my opinion its not the very best thing to release source-
        codes because every lamer can rip out code easily (without the
        learning effect that some pro-open-source-advocates always come
        up with) and declare that it's his code. Another point is that
        there will never be a newer (better/faster) routine if everybody
        is using the one released with a source library. I know this is
        a very controversial point and there might be some discussion
        coming up about this in the future again.

        Alright, I hope that have I managed to give you guys a little
        imagination about what could be changed or on which points we
        need to work on to GET MORE STYLE.

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        Lotek Style / tSCc for Alive, 2005-10-09
Alive 11