Evoke 2006 - Party report
I came back home from work late on Friday, and hurried to pack
up my stuff for evoke. This time I took a slightly accelerated
Falcon which was once put into a 19" rack case plus some network
stuff. In addition to that I grabbed a Notebook that has been
equipped with the latest files for Alive and anything else I
might need at the party. I also took a wormbag and some other
stuff since I didn't plan to be back before Sunday. After a bit
more than an hour on the German Autobahn I arrived at 9:14 PM.
Since the press-trick stated by some guy on pouet didn't work, I
decided to pay the entrance fee - not without getting some
sarcastic comments about the Falcon I was carrying. I returned
the favour and made some comments about the ugly bordeaux red
evoke shits before I quickly sneaked into the main hall to learn
that all tables had already been occupied.
This year's motto was train oriented. So the announcements were
designed like train service indicators. The big screen showed a
textmode special which looked rather cool.
Thanks to havoc's "lighthouse qualities" I easily spotted the
Dutchies in the crowd. It seems they had no luck with tables
either, so together we asked some guys to rearrange their stuff,
which freed barely enough table-space at the far end of the main
hall. When I started to set up my equipment, I noticed that I
accidentially left my PS/2 keyboard at home.
The odyssey for the forgotten keyboard had begun. I guess it's
not necessary to mention that nobody seems to use PS/2 keyboards
anymore. After hours of wading through USB keyboards I almost
gave up, when I found a C64 coder who had a PS/2 keyboard
connected to his machine. Thanks to him Alive 13 could be
finished at Evoke.
After the keyboard issues were sorted out I began to wonder
where we should seat the t.S.C.c. guys which announced their
arrival a bit earlier. I started looking for additional tables.
Needless to say that I was less successful than with the search
for the keyboard. Despite the fact that several guys went by
carrying tables, I never managed to get hold of one.
However, when lotek arrived, we saw a lonely table at the
orgodesk and grabbed it before someone else spotted it. Now
earx, the Dutchies and t.S.C.c. were set.
Lotek started putting a huge pile of CD-cases beside his
computer, after getting a closer look I recognized it was
actually Floppy cases, which looked like CD crystal cases. The
pile consisted of the brand new YM Rockerz release "warptYMe"
and Lotek Style was kind enough to give them away for free. I
guess it's superfluous to say that the YM Rockerz disk was
awesome. Ultra's Intro was absolutely stunning and there were so
many cool traxx inside...
Like every year some guy from metalvotze was trying to sell us
the "metalvotze calendar" however we turned him down, since
there was not a single 16 bit Atari computer shown on any of the
pictures.
Unlike previous times, the Party network network was already up
and running, so I started working on the Alive shell and removed
some unneeded pictures and started working on the new cover.
After last year's brainfucker "Hallo! Was?" we were treated with
an even more annoying "Gude Laune Leude!", arf.
After a short chat with the guy who lend me the keyboard it was
clear that he was going to need it the other day, so I called
Shockwave and told him to bring a replacement keyboard when he
arrived tomorrow.
Around 11 pm it got really loud inside the main hall since .mo
and sudio were showing some demostuff on the big screen
accompanied by live music. Everybody else seemed quite relaxed,
while I was trying to work on Alive.
After hours of pixeling and a few thousand replays of "Gude
Laune" I got a bit tired and went to the parking lot to spend
the night in the car. I am not sure if it was the beer but I had
the most strange experience. In the parking lot was a guy
bumping into the cars while vomiting violently with almost any
step. He was barely able to walk and continued running into cars
like the ball in a pinball machine. So - while I tugged myself
in - the pinball guy took care of the entertainment. I really
wished I had brought my video camera, this would have been a
perfect entry to the wild compo :)
After a short but nonetheless refreshing night of sleep in the
car I got up around 9:30 and we went to the baker with kRadD to
get something to eat and a cup for the free coffee from the orgo
desk. Anyway when we came back the coffee was out. Just great.
Half an hour later kRadD started checking out his articles while
I was dragged out of the main hall by Gina - a student who
seems obsessed with interviewing demo sceners. At the info desk
I was interviewed for ages, it seemed. In fact it was pretty hard
to stay focussed because of all the demos which were shown on
the big screen right behind her. So I guess I told her lots of
crap and unconnected stories :).
In the meantime there was another Intel seminar going on in the
main hall, so I guess I didn't miss that much ;).
Around noon I talked with Selectanovel about the Celal interview
and which pictures to include into Jurrasic Pack. While talking
we couldn't avoid to be put on video tape by a camera team from
a German TV station. The report was later shown in "Neues" on
German TV. I believe it's also available on the web :)
Around 4 pm Shockwave 3 showed up with the promised keyboard and
a defective DSL modem. A big thank you to Shockwave for helping
me out. Shortly afterwards the compos began. First of all the 4k
compo was on, but I can't say there were any outstanding
productions this year.
Beside the official compos there seemed to be a secret compo
going on. When the crowd noticed that non available characters
caused the train announcement interface to continuously rotate
letters, more and more production descriptions turned up that
featured such characters resulting in weird information displays
which didn't came to a rest :)
The animation compo was ruled by "Classics on the Run" by Moods
Plateau. It was the funniest entry of all, however I am not so
sure if it is a long lasting success. But at the party it was
quite cool, especially since all the "actors" were putting up a
live show dressed up like video game characters. Ghandy was
especially memorable with his green "Lemmings wig".
Sometime before midnight the 64k compo demonstrated again that
"Rob is jarig" accompanied by the usual dance act in front of
the big screen. It seems old habits die hard and I bet there
will be a similar event at evoke 2007.
I wasn't paying too close attention since I was pretty busy
preparing the release of Alive 13, the wild demo compo caught my
attention since the YM-Rockerz demo was shown there. The whole
hall was dancing to Atari chipmusic, awesome. In the end
"WarptYMe" became 5th place.
Just after the wild compo Alive 13 was packed and finished and I
uploaded it onto the organizers FTP server and to dhs. Finally
it was time to party and to chill!
After some endless delays the main event - the demo compo -
started, there were some prods, but nothing outstanding apart
from a Linux production called "Die Ewigkeit schmerzt" by neuro
which made the 1st place. It was mainly a rotozooming text which
featured a unique style and looked pretty cool on the big
screen. However back home I found it somehow less impressive on
my TFT.
I cannot avoid to mention that evoke 2006 was a little bit
disappointing when it came to releases. In 2005 there were a
lot more productions. Let's hope next year will be back on
track. Anyway shortly after the demo compo I left the party so
I guess there is not much more to tell.
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