Acidic Tears 4k
A Summer 4ktro for faster Atari's..
Here, we look back on something which disgracefully got missed out from
previous editions of Alive. We are bearing in mind that this goes back to
the summer of 2005. Sorry guys, this review is a tad late!
Acidic Tears is a great little intro from a generally barren period, summer
2005, released at the Little Computer People party by the Dead Hackers
Society. This is a 4ktro, seemingly in a similar vein to the 'Episode 666'
intro, released at Outline '05, but this one features a more careful and
less rushed approach to the design than the earlier intro did.
We start in a positive fashion with a neat gwEm Maxymizer tune. This is one
of those miracle tunes which lives in as little space as possible, as we're
talking of a 4ktro of course! Onscreen, we're chasing dots across the
screen, which doesn't give too much of the essential '060-ness away,
However, these thicken out into a jellyfish like object consisting of
hundreds of blurry vectorballs, which would need something a little more
heavweight than a standard '030.
What a lot of Balls!
Incidentally, this intro, like 'Episode 666' isn't restricted to running on
a CT60 or CT63. You could even run it on a standard 16mhz '030 Falcon, but
prepare to enter slideshow hell if you choose this insane course of action!
It doesn't run too badly on a CT2, which cranks up the power by a factor of
three, and it is also one of a select band of demos and intro's which choose
to co-operate with Aranym.
So it's back to the demo now, and the vectorballs switch abruptly to
tendrils of plasma reaching and flowing from the middle of the screen, just
to keep the marine life theme going!
We're into something elegant now, as it goes on to become an awesome solid
golden seashell, set against a finely detailed moving background. This
really puts the artistic limits of a typical 4ktro to the test. A typical
poly count would be something like 1000 faces, according to the readme, well
that is nice!
DHS go on a virtual summer holiday!
Then it is the return of plasma tendrils, but now they are blue.
Then we go back to the beginning, sort of, where the blurry vectorballs form
into a seashell shape.
And finally, there is the welcome return of the solid seashell, which colour
cycles between blue and gold in a grand finale type thing.
This was a welcome breath of activity in the middle of a very bleak period
for the Atari scene, and the CT60 in particular. (When I say "Bleak", just
check out the Pouet listings for that period, count the number of TBC
intro's, tear your hair out and weep!)
We only had to wait until this year, to see what could be really done with
an '060, but this intro was pretty good going when people were just drawing
breath.
Pro's..
Another sublime DHS 4ktro..
More like a dentro than an intro..
Great gwEm tune stuffed in..
Conspicuous '060-pucker factor included!
Very portable, runs on lots of non '060 platforms.
Con's..
None, apart from it being a lonely island of activity in a generally barren
period!
CiH, for Alive Mag, July '06..
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