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
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