Adventurer #14 30 июня 2003

Демо

Reviews - 2002 year demo review: Alter Ego, Reject, Laya, Lovemaker, Harm, Abyss Of Madness, Losing Victoria, Inbetween, Summermilk, demo21, Black&White, Traffic Of Death, Invasion, The Loop.

Demo Review             

elph/CPU                

elph> Lately, I began to feel the
lack of professionalism when rea-
ding some party stuff reviews.
It's about demos in particular. It
is either funny and frivolous, or
just unprofessional. Anyway, such
reviews make me think, that someo-
ne should do only what they are
competent in, or learn for more on
practice as those, whom I've invi-
ted to review the 2002 year's de-
mos and who are still perceiving
the knowledge of the making. As
for me, they are experts in each
sphere of the art they are presen-
ting and, an important thing, un-
derstand. So, it is always interes-
ting and instructively to know opi-
nions expressed by Miguel, Diver
and Flying.

Alter Ego

Miguel>  Dicks-dicks  here,
dicks-dicks there, everywhere
dicks-dicks... It becomes quite
clear from the very start of the
programm that this is a Hooy Prog-
ramm release. I wont say anything
about the content of this megademo
but the music is the thing that I
should pay attention to. It is far
from ordinary european oldscool
spectrum music that I've heard. I
don't know what was the reason for
putting this unusual music into a
demo made in europe, but I like it
as a varied and full of ideas
track. I think that the author is
self-confident and he made exactly
what he wanted to :) But there are
some defects in this tune. As in
the majority of western modules
samples are slightly distorted,
that makes'em to sound not so good
as possible. And the logic of com-
bining the track is a little diffe-
rent from that I used to call
'high technics'.

Diver> Hm, it's a good idea to use
Yerzmyey's graphics along with
standart chunks, because it can be
applied just fine. If you haven't
paid attention to Yerzmyey's crazy
visions you can see them here, be-
cause the second part of the demo
contains the old works and some
new. As for me, Yerzmyey's style
looks funny - expression, crazy
smiles and quite qualitative con-
tours.

Flying> Another work of the group,
which is known for it's original
style and sense of humour. It se-
ems that the main purpose of demo-
making for HPRG is fun, nothing
matters in means of getting into
this condition, while others try
to concentrate on powerful program-
ming. And this demo is not an ex-
ception from this rule.

Technically, the most diffucuilt
effect in a whole demo is a spin-
ning 3D dick-styled sausage with
gouraud shading. And the main prob-
lem here is that polygons must be
sorted because the object is not a
convex one. Besides this, I should
mention about precise calculations
used here, the edges of the object
don't shiver, as it could be using
8-bit mathematics.

The other effects are usual: a
chunk plasma, the attribute analo-
gue of which was made by
Baca/DMS in Brain Surgery in
1997; sinusoids, which RST7 used
in 1995... But that plasma used as
a background for amasing
Yerzmyey gfx (coloured dog is real-
ly cool) looks good indeed.

Of course, this demo isn't a mas-
terpiece, but this fact seem to be
not very important for HPRG. The
Demo has it's own style and that
is the main thing.

Reject

Miguel> No comments.

Diver> Not bad oldschool design,
clear and accurate, but nothing
special at the same time, cos the
author is a musician at first, not
an artist. Probably, the main pur-
pose of this product isn't design
or gfx, but music, jokes and
texts.

Flying> All I can say about this
demo was said by the author in the
final scroll :)

This demo could be called 'a demo
without a coder' as you can remem-
ber Funtasy from Funtop'98 :)
However, the idea and it's realiza-
tion are good enough. 'Originally'
designed greetings for each of 4
platforms made in each platform's
style - it's very cool.

Laya

Miguel> Baze roxx :) Confident and
qualified. I think it's a talant.
Although I'm not a fan of music li-
ke that, but I'm pleased with its
quality.

Diver> Though it contains no
graphics, just a set of converted
b/w images, I cannot leave this de-
mo aside of this review, because
high designed demos in 2002 can be
counted by fingers. And Laya de-
sign can be called 'high quality'
accurate synchronization with
great music, well applied layer
principle, a couple of hi-res fea-
tures, weird slogans :). Anyway,
looks lovely, but I still can't un-
derstand what's described on those
layers -looks like porno, insects
and brains :).

Flying> This small demo continues
the line which Baze has started in
The Loop. The same style -
chunks, one main effect for the
whole demo, very exact music syn-
chronization and a plenty of small
details, which seem to live their
own life and make the whole demo
complete in the same time. It lo-
oks amazing altogether. Of course,
considering only technical stuff,
neither Laya, nor The Loop is
tight in code, it is not neccessa-
ry in both demos. But at the same
time I can't expect 'lame' program-
ming from Baze :) As Baze said:
"I made these work basically for
myself". Nevertheless, many people
can acquire a lot of positive vib-
rations while watching Laya and
The Loop.

Lovemaker

Miguel> In this demo I do apprecia-
te that the main idea really mat-
ters for skreamer. He tried to rea-
lize the feelings he had at that
time, and I think he succeeded.
And he was not interested in what
the scene would tell about it, he
just made the demo about himself.
That roxx! So and music is filled
with that anxiety, so nervous and
irregular, it makes me feel the
same. Very impressive.

Diver> Author says that this is a
pure nocode stuff. Damn, it's bad
when gfx is made not by an artist,
so in addition it becomes a pure
nographics too, though there is so-
mething like gfx: did anybody un-
derstand what's placed on the be-
ginning screen? This is a DOLPHIN
:) However, reviewing this demo
considering just gfx or design
might seem stupid, cos the result
of such review could be rather
strict - 'lame', especially compa-
ring with the next work. And if
Laya is the first example of extre-
me nographics realization, the pie-
ce of the fine design, then Lovema-
ker is another nographics realiza-
tion, it's an expression, sensual
drive, pure emotions.

Flying> Demo (16kb intro, to be
correct) is designed in a easy to
recognize style of skrju. Minima-
lism in gfx, a set of sound ef-
fects instead of a melody in
music, good code, tight synchroni-
zation, psychodelic text, which is
not so easy to understand for most
of people - all this is a result
of a creativity of a couple :) of
young sceners, amazing the scene
with their extraordinary releases
and behaviour. I think, that skrju
is the most outstanding event on
Spectrum scene for last few years,
the people who gave another life
to our Speccy. Almost everything
that they make causes a storm of
opinions, even close to a scandal,
and at the same time makes scene
to react in the right direction -
the direction of creativity.
Hmm... Let's get back to the demo
:) Lovemaker.

I think, that this demo could be
named as "How to tell a story of
an unlucky love using 3 sprites, 1
font, a few samples and a short
text" :)) Maybe it's too long for
a title, but it's close enough to
my opinion about this work. Now,
looking at this intro, one can
see, that skrju understood the
main principle of a good intro ve-
ry well - to make as more as pos-
sible using a very few of ele-
ments. This principle was implemen-
ted at the high quality level, re-
sulted in a few minutes of action
leading the audience into the dee-
pest thoughts. Uneven, original,
ragged music combining with accura-
te synchronization brings the main
demo affection. No need of difficu-
ilt effects here, cos they would
corrupt the whole picture, drawn
using a little piece of code. So,
greeting to skrju, I wish them to
entertain us with such works again
and again.

Harm

Miguel> I wouldn't say that I'm a
Key Jee fan... And how can i judge
the music if it is unfinished? Of
course, Nik-O tried to make it mo-
re complete, but it's not the way,
so... That's all...

Diver> Here is another extreme
piece, probably, the worst compa-
ring with 2 previous works. It se-
ems that authors relied on gfx and
code only, or maybe they just
can't design like Baze and feel li-
ke skreemah. What's about gfx -
it's good. And it is due to pROF
rather than Diver as someone could
have thought, cos Diver is just a
well experienced performer... and
noone have noticed that the final
picture which had been rated very
inadequate on the ascii'02 party
is a pure nocopy, excellently rea-
lized, so many others can envy.

Flying> Serious work, pretending
to be one of the best Speccy demos
in technical aspect from famous
4th Dimension and their talanted
partners - Triebkraft.

Really, CyberJack/TBK made the
whole speccy scene understand,
that not only Placebo and Brainwa-
ve can work with 3D object at
3.5MHz and 128kb memory of our
Speccy. His code is generally re-
cognized as the most optimized and
the fastest for 3D objects which
has ever been used in Speccy
demos. Although, the difficuilty
of 3D scenes, amount of effects
and features used by Placebo in
their demos is much higher, and
Brainwave, showing their abilities
in multicolour still shocking eve-
rybody, but I should say that they
had made their masterpieces not
from the very start of their crea-
tivity. So, technically, Harm is a
high quality demo, and it should
be seen not only from outside, but
from inside too (through monitor)
:) I think, every coder will be
pleased using both ways of observa-
tion :)

One more detail, which I should
mention here - Harm authors sho-
wed us again, that the new effect
is a quite forgotten one. As a
fact -greets are no more than a
combination of horizontal scroll,
blob and environment mapping,
which we could have seen before se-
parately in other demos thru the
past few years. But anyway, this
mixture of well known effects re-
sulted in a new good looking pic-
ture, no matter of it's simplicity
(and maybe due to this). As for
me, I like the effect that authors
call 'double stretch'. It can be
found in many demos on the other
platforms and if realised well is
a very good looking effect, as it
is in Harm. The only drawback, ba-
sically considering the demo ef-
fects, is that they are similar to
Placebo ones. And this is boring.
Actually, who cares how the effect
looks in code when there is the sa-
me action at the screen?

Demo graphics are made well too,
no doubts this time, especially
when you see the credits with
Diver/4D and pROF/4D in the list.

And now music. As for me (though
I'm not a specialist here) it is
poor. The melody is very simple
and unexpressive, and it's not the
single drawback. The main problem
is that starting from the 2/3 of a
demo, synchronization begin to di-
sappear and this process continues
till the end. It seems that
authors just left it on itself (it
is worth of party version, but
unexcusable for final release).
Then, I think, Key Jee had chosen
the wrong tempo for the soundtrack
it is slower than the action on
the screen, an this circumstance
makes the demo look slower and the
CyberJack's optimization - use-
less. You can compare Harm with
Refresh by Extreme - the slower
3D scenes are more spectacular due
to the drive produced by the so-
undtrack made by Visual. So, it wo-
uld be nice to see all of compo-
nents of a good demo compiled to-
gether in the next works of these
groups to bring us a real piece of
art!

Abyss Of Madness

Miguel> Ahim is Ahim, there's
nothing left to say. His style (or
maybe just the only way to do so-
mething in music) is well known,
especially for russian sceners and
users. I only had to clean the
technical drawbacks (they can be
found in every Ahim track) before
sending it to RGI and to help with
fixing after that. And so I did.
But a little later I was shocked
with the result. There is a good
question - what's the use of the
fast track when the demo effects
are too slow not even for music,
but for the whole demo, which
can't be called neither oldschool
nor newschool. It's another
school, I think, the school of AN-
TIdemoism :) And the main task of
this ANTIdemoism is to strike upon
the rest of demomakers, make them
see the other side. But I think
that's good, it's just the example
of what shouldn't be done in any
circumstances. Real abyss.

Diver> Really funny. To repeat a
STOLEN screen for 6 or even 7 ti-
mes saying that it was made by
another 2 dudes... I can not remem-
ber anybody doing like that, it is
very original! I recall some facts
of stealing the fragments of a
screen, recolouring, mixing and no
examples of dealing in such impu-
dent way. It makes me compare this
demo with Lovemaker by skrju.
This is the case when I'm at 200%
agree with Raver saying that
english text fits the demo better
than russian. And if you're taking
gfx made by somebody else it's bet-
ter to ask the author about it's
use beforehand like skreemah did
with bizk's characters used in Lo-
vemaker. What else can I say?
Crap...

Flying> I had a very strange
impression after seing this
demo... On the one hand, it has
nothing special in code - all of
the effects or their modifications
can be found in demos from mid ni-
nety's. Graphics also brings no
pleasure (by the way, almost no
graphics is used). Besides, obvi-
ous faults in code, resulted in a
black screen for 5-10 seconds or
stopping effect (things which are
not accepted in any demo), are ir-
ritating me. The ending is clumsy,
music wraps bluntly and epilogue
appears. The effect that looks
like 'Life' game with it's length
reminds me the last effect of Ex-
cess demo by Zer0 (as you can
remember, it was released at En-
light'97).

However, on the other hand, the
whole demo brings the positive emo-
tions (more positive than Harm,
which was the concurent for Abyss
Of Madness at Ascii'02). I can't
say what exactly makes me feel
so... Maybe lyrics, that produce
the atmosphere of mystery and
heed. Maybe effects that aren't
diffucuilt to make, but they ap-
pear in the right places and in
the right form. Maybe it brings
the freshness among the majority
of demos made in a past few years
leading in one direction - 3D
graphics. And finally, I just lo-
ved greets - very simple and very
beautiful.


Losing Victoria

Miguel> Ordinary european music.
Nothing more.

Diver> Why nobody had such idea to
exhibit his work at Assembly be-
fore? Oldschool demo compo at this
party is held since 2000. But the-
re is a need of a representative
of your work and a real michine to
run it. On the other hand, CC/CAFe
parties are usually held at this
time too. So I can understand why
nobody had competed at Assembly,
although we must not forget about
the possibility of such perfor-
mance. Gasman didn't manage to
join the oldschol compo, 'cos he
had his spectrum dead at that
time, so he performed his work in
wild compo and the results were
not too bad -7th of 13. I could ha-
ve thought that Summermilk is a co-
py of Losing Victoria, but there
was no possibility of such remake
in a short period of time between
Assembly and CAFe, where the
demo by skrju was presented. I
guess both (Gasman and skrju)
authors have the similar way of
thinking. However, Losing Victo-
ria has no outstanding desing or
even gfx, nevertheless, it looks
pretty.

Flying> This demo is remarkable
just because the fact that it is
the only work, made on ZX
Spectrum and presented at the big-
gest  European  demoparty
Assembly'2002. Was it worth of be-
ing there and presenting our plat-
form on a worldwide scene, or the
first effort has failed? Looking
at the results of this party
(Losing Victoria took 7th place
among 12 works in compo) -it may
look not too big achievement. Tho-
ugh considering the fact that this
work had to be presented not in
Oldschool demo compo, but in Wild
compo (because Gasman was late
with registration), it becomes mo-
re impressive.

And even without this fact, Losing
Victoria - is a very nice and
well-made demo. Though there is al-
most no gfx (only one picture) and
no effects :)) (practically, 5 ef-
fects and only one among them is
an independent, the other are sub-
sidiary ones) - demo looks fine
and brings a lot of pleasure. Its
style looks similar to demos from
skrju for me. Although, unlike
skrju with their alternative
works, it's much lighter and free,
as it was made for relaxation and
rest. I think the main reason of
such effect is the melody, though
visual images are bringing their
influence too. The only flaw of
this demo - the ending, it's ab-
sence, to be more correct. Music
just stops and everything disap-
pears. Anyway, Losing Victoria is
a very good work, that's for sure,
and it is worth of notice.

Inbetween

Miguel> A demo from Placebo cau-
ses the deepest emotions to appear
deep inside of me. But time to ti-
me they become weaker and weaker,
from the times of Dogma, I think.
That demo was the finest thing
that Placebo did ever, I think.
One can mention Napalm, which
was a breakthru in demomaking, but
Dogma... As i recall the Chaos
Constructions party in 2000, I put
the vote in my votelist right af-
ter the start of Dogma because I
was surprized with it. Then, next
year, followed with Life Forms,
which was done great, but imho it
is weaker. And then, this year,
everybody became a witness of ina-
bility of Placebo to make so-
mething new, as they did some time
ago. Inbetween uses the same en-
gine, which irritates the majority
of sceners... So, i can make the
conclusion that Inbetween was do-
ne for the party only as a real
chance to win again, 'cos it uses
a still powerful engine.

Musically it has nothing new, the
Sair00s' style is the same. What's
the use of changing style without
changing the rest of the demo? And
now is another interesting ques-
tion - who's gonna make a so-
undtrack for their new demo if
they will make something new? I'm
sure that Sair00s is not capable
to make a new engine and music for
it simultaneously. On the other
side - there's not so much active
musicians in Russia who could make
a real demo track so it could fit
the power of Placebo. Who will be
the chosen one? :))) We'll see...
But I hope Sair00s will try as
hard as he can to make the music
by himself.

Diver> All things can be estimated
in different ways - relatively and
absolutely. Camparing with the
other demoscene releases of 2002
year Inbetween is a hit, along
with Summermilk and Laya, the
hit with its own unique features.
Paracels' gfx this time is neither
worse nor better than last year. I
don't see any breakthru, it's
rather the same level as the last
work, the certain balance, but
it's hard to estimate objectively.
I think it's because of the number
of ideas and the same technique.
As they say about my gfx - it beca-
me worse, as it is no longer worth
of my abilities. But I'm confused
about that -why they think so? May-
be it's because I started to copy
not only scene works, but even tho-
se which are less spectacular, or
maybe it's because of the progress
absence, who knows?

Now back to Paracels... Inbetween
logo is almost shocking, Paracels
is doing everybody in this genre,
imho, including pROF. The
mask-contour animation is just the
piece of fine art. Then - Ragin'
and 2 screens in Atlantis theme
are great, but don't fit the demo
theme as usual with pixel gfx :)))
I especially appreciate Paracels
for Atlantis Of My Dream and the
previous demo picture that I cal-
led just Atlantis - they are made
in interesting way, cos everybody
is tired of the large scaled faces
like Ragin' :), it's quite clear
that faces can be drawn out very
well. I was pleased with techiques
used in these 2 screens, there is
no overtexturing as before. As I
know the last 2 screens - Horizon-
tal Attitude and Watching Far Bey-
ond are copied (i hope not con-
verted) from 'Demoscope' by Cre-
ative Minds (Amiga) and that's why
they are placed in the end of the
demo. These works are balanced
with Paracels' 2 last year's remi-
xes from Lifeforms - Lifeforms
title screen ('Cosme' by Made)
and the Placebo team looking
downwards (from 'Elektroniks' by
Doomsday). I cannot judge objecti-
vely being in the same situation
as Paracels. Scene is what we are
making of this conception, and if
I made scenecopy sometime ago and
now a simple copy then I can't say
that gfx from Inbetween sucks, on-
ly Rion can say this. Design is
the same as usual for a such demo
engine. I'm not a god of code but
as I know it's very hard to achie-
ve better results with effects ha-
ving nothing in common with each
other. The only solution is to use
gfx as it was done in Lifeforms.
Inbetween additional visual ef-
fects are spread quite good, some
of them present in the early begin-
ning of the demo, not only in the
end as Miguel said. And the alloca-
tion of effects and gfx is equal
to the soundtrack, so I can make a
conclusion that Placebo did the
best they could in this situation.

By the way, design seems similar
to Lifeforms which has greetings
style like My Kingdom (Sco-
opex+Haujobb, Amiga), and Inbet-
ween has the beginning that re-
minds me of Haupex (Haujobb+Sco-
opex, Amiga). Of course it's great
that Placebo had chosen these
great examples of design for inspi-
ration, but i think they did it
too evidently.

Flying> With this work Placebo try
to show everybody that Speccy abi-
lities in calculating 3D graphics
revealed in their last demo is not
a limit for 3.5MHz and 128Kb me-
mory. Now objects and 3D scenes be-
come more complicated, additional
effects appear in this demo, anima-
tion applied in this work is used
not only for rotating and moving
the objects, but to the objects it-
self. Sair00s, I think, is the lea-
ding expert in 3D on Speccy nowa-
days, and he could have written a
dissertation titled "The princip-
les of 3D graphics realtime calcu-
lating using strictly limited
machine resourses" :)

In addition to Sair00s' code there
is a brilliant Paracels' gfx and
music by Sair00s (again :)) - all
this made this demo a winner at
CAFe'2002.

I think there's no need of discus-
sing Sair00s' code - I'm not a spe-
ciallist here, also I think not a
single speccy coder have scanned
his code in monitor :) All I can
say, is that I like the effect
which I don't know how to call,
but I've seen it on the other plat-
forms and it's realisation in In-
between look fine. I mean the 3rd
chunk effect with a sphere rota-
ting in a flashing light. Very fa-
bulous thing! Besides, the gree-
tings part is made very origi-
nally, mentioning Digital Reality
doubles my impression! The textu-
res used are carefully selected,
particularly in effect with
plasma.

Finally, I think Placebo are deser-
ving a status of professionals in
each member's occupation. So the
result of their collective work is
worthy of the first place. I hope
it's not the last Placebo work and
we'll see them this year.

Summermilk

Miguel> Great demo! I'm sure that
it is the best demo shown at
CAFe'2002 and maybe even for the
whole 2002 year. That's why i put
the highest point for this demo du-
ring the vote, while the previous
demo, Inbetween, got only 3. I had
made the choice i did because of
wild novelty that presents in this
new demo from skrju. I think it is
the next logical step in their
(skrju) development as the demoma-
kers. They abandoned the ordinary
way of making the demo, ordinary
way of perceiving its main idea.
They don't give a shit whether you
understand it or not, they just ma-
de it the only way they had to rea-
lize it.

Ok, now the music. As they say, it
was written in Pro Tracker using
tempo 2. And because the Pro Trac-
ker player which is linked to com-
piled module is not capable to
play the tunes written in 2nd
tempo, skreemah had to make his
own. Jtn^4D did this work great
for skreemah, but it influenced
the speed of effects used in demo
(one effect and the rest of design
routines). So, that's why I have a
question to D-Juice: is it a big
need of using 2nd tempo causing
the demo work slower? I think that
it's possible to make drum'n'bass
using tempo 4 as the double for
2nd. And then the main high speed
elements of melody (drums in parti-
cular) can be done within samples.
Of course, it's much harder I
think, but it's possible. I wo-
uldn't say anything about that if
I hadn't try. That's all about
technics. Nothing to say about me-
lody for me, I should only mention
it :)

Diver> No comments here. Except
one - screens with a few copies of
the same flower make me a little
sick, their contours seem to be
not very perfect, maybe something
else... the best demo of 2002.

Flying> Call me 'minimalism
lover', but Summermilk is the best
work I've ever seen from skrju
and one of the best demos in such
trend. As usual for skrju -minimum
of code, music adn gfx. Sometimes
it seems, that they don't want to
give all they have and that's why
they share it between the little
pieces :) At the same time, it is
the irreproachable compilation
using the minimum of effects but
resulting in a complex, mani-sided
construction. Moreover, it is ba-
sed on the story of a man with ori-
ginal and extraordinary point of
view and the different sense of
life, realized in a prose rhyme.
Poor granny...

And again I repeat what I've said
in Lovemaker review - skrju are
very original, they are not as
others, they are not ashamed of be-
ing themselves and not afraid of
being misunderstood.

If talking about technical side of
the work, I should say, that eve-
rything is done on a high quality
level. Maybe, synchronization
might have been more accurate, but
it doesn't matter here.

Finally, the black crystall on the
red background, which edges beco-
me chunked when outside the bor-
ders (I hope you know what I'm tal-
king about) - that's really cool!
Right on, guys!


demo21

Miguel> The main track of this de-
mo is made in Sair00s style, it
just pretending to sound like so-
undtracks from Placebo demos.
It's for me... One can disagree,
but anyway, the explanation of
this fact is very simple - people
are trying to make something real-
ly good and powerful, at the same
time they follow (maybe unconscio-
usly) the current leader in demoma-
king -Placebo. So, we get the mu-
sic like that. I don't know what
Sair00s think about this, maybe he
like the fact that he made a trend
in demo music, but I wouldn't like
it if I were the trendmaker :)) Ma-
ybe it happened because of a
little differences in Sair00s' mu-
sic itself... Anyway, I think that
any musician must have his own mu-
sical solutions. Technically, I
should pay attention to samples,
again samples.

Diver> Having no artist or a per-
son able to make more or less qua-
lity gfx is a bad thing. In case
of no credits posted in this demo
I could say that there is no gfx.
But the presence of 'artwork' sec-
tion makes me pay attention to
this fact. What can I say -artwork
is entirely converted from pC,
anyway, this part of 'artwork' was
done very carefully. And they use
it in a right way, as the effect
and messager backgrounds. All ima-
ges are selected in accordance
with the demo theme (which is good
enough), though it would be better
to use handdrawn nocopy gfx to ma-
ke the whole product more outstan-
ding. Design could have been be mo-
re kewl with the messager moving
upon the effects (it is harder to
realize, but looks greater). At
last, it's better to release the
demo complete, maybe with some
drawbacks, then do nothing as we
did because of the very serious at-
tidude to the final result. And fi-
nally, I guess the word 'artwork'
describes something different than
converted pC gfx...

Flying> "Strange demo" - that was
the first thought after seing this
work made by Eye-Q. I suspect the
presence of a theme here, taking
into consideration the text mes-
sages, that suddenly appear from
time to time, but I can't get the
point. Anyway, I could't put them
together with action on the screen
to see the full picture. Of co-
urse, this work shows the progress
that Eye-Q made after their last
work (Absolute Lame at CC'001),
but it looks very poor, especially
for a whole year since previous
party. This demo contains a couple
of good effects, but they can be
hardly seen among the rest of
technically and visually poor ef-
fects.

Also, the set of chunk effects and
converted pictures, interrupted by
suddenly (and in the wrong time)
appearing copper bars, looks very
clumsy. I think that somebody from
Eye-Q had found the old sources
disk and decided to put those old
effects in this demo. But dealing
like this doesn't make a straight
line out of all effects used here.
Besides, two of them (DNA spiral
and something like 2 bitplanes
plasma) are destined to produce an
epileptic seizure :) No good,
guys! :)

On the other hand, I liked the syn-
chronization with music. I sup-
pose, that music was specially
written for this demo and not ta-
ken from some old music disk. Of
course, we all can find the better
examples of such synchronization,
but it's the most positive aspect
in this demo.

In conclusion, I should say that
in the overall progress of Eye-Q
as demomakers this demo is an im-
portant step and I think, that in
future they will amaze us with
another interesting works. But
this demo itself is not adequate
for 2002 year, especially taking
in concideration that it's not the
first Eye-Q work.

Black&White

Miguel> It looks like the author
wanted to make a powerful track,
as in usual newschool demo nowa-
days. But the lack of ideas and
low technical level didn't let him
to do so. And this is not about mu-
sic only - the rest of the demo is
too ordinary and technically unpro-
fessional.

Diver> This demo had the close con-
curancy with the previous one, so
i'll compare them between each
other. There's no artist here as
well. Maybe Black And White (the
name of the demo) was chosen due
to the b/w images used, but I
don't think they are handmade. Ho-
wever, all is done great, all
titles, images, i like its qua-
lity, but, imho, all this stuff
was converted, again, using orde-
red dither this time. It's possib-
le to make more quality handmade
gfx, for example, by using
brightness. Moreover, it has
nothing in common, no theme can be
revealed from this graphical accom-
paniment for me. Design is much we-
aker, we see only the following
strict ordered combination: ef-
fect, image, title and so on.
That's why despite the accurate
b/w gfx B&W looks much weaker
than demo21.

Flying> Honestly, I don't want to
review this demo... The reason is
that it cause no positive emotions
for me. All three effects (attribu-
te or planar analogues) can be fo-
und in many other demos from mid
90's. Poor music bringing no plea-
sure to me, scanned and/or rende-
red gfx used with no need of such.
Can anybody explain, what does the
picture with Eifel tower and a car
in the beginning of the demo mean?
And why after text message saying
"Black stripe -white stripe" we
see a sphere with leaves of a
strange plant "stuck" to it and no
stripes on the screen?

I think these guys found the old
sourses and used them in this demo
with the only reason - to do so-
mething for the compo. What a
pity...

Traffic Of Death

Miguel> At this time CPU refused
to help POS with music. We have
enough of bad feelings about their
own (POS and RGI) demomaking.
So they had found another way out
and asked Nik-O to make a so-
undtrack for their next creation.
And as I think, Nik-O made really
cool track. But when they began to
fix it with their s_l_o_w_e_s_t
demo the track was perverted, loo-
ped more than once and finally it
lost its primary idea. In conclu-
sion I should say to our foreign
friends that this demo has a
strong social motivation, antinar-
cotic propaganda and may be due to
this social affection POS group be-
came empty inside. No drugs! Ehh!
Then I say - FUCK THE POLICE, FUCK
THE AUTHORITIES!!! FUCK!!!

Diver> It's hard to say something
good about this demo. It can be ba-
rely called a demo... Pure propa-
ganda. Quite clear for me why the
authors didn't want to take part
in demo compo with this stuff, it
is tooo faaar from Smokebomb...
But on the other hand, gfx is good
enough, Stanly's part in parti-
cular, it fits the whole theme,
which is quite rare event in a
demo. The rest of the visuals is
very weak, it makes no strong af-
fection which propaganda must
have. Comparing with Smokebomb
that leads into the deepest tho-
ughts...

Flying> As I know, this work was
made specially for another compo,
held at CAFe'2002, something like
"Social problems demo compo" :)),
but it was the only work there, so
it moved to demo compo.

For me two details are too evi-
dent: this demo is quite similar
to Pos WT's last work (Abyss Of
Madness), even some effects are
the same. I think this demo is
much more "wet" then Abyss Of
Madness. I'm sure that this work
fits that "strange" social compo,
but as a demo is very poor. Though
the effects sometimes are more dif-
ficuit to realize then in Abyss Of
Madness (final spinning and mor-
phing text is good, but old ef-
fect), and music along with gfx is
much better, but the whole demo
doesn't look complete, I think
it's a party version, made in big
rush. Maybe... Maybe the final re-
lease does exist, then I apolo-
gize.

One more thing, can't help with it
:))) Can anybody explain me what
does the set of tricolor pictures
within this antinarcotic propagan-
da mean? As for me, the phrase
"All clear?" in the end has put me
in a deadlock, cos nothing is
clear. Maybe I'm dumb? :)))

p.s. However, I got the final rele-
ase later, but I've decided to
keep everything that I wrote about
the party version as it is now. I
just want to say that the final
version looks more nicely. Al-
though, the picture "I'm alive,
but envy the dead" is being shown
for a too long time (as for me),
but I think that it's because the
musician lives in an other city
and PoS had to work with the tune
they had at that moment. And again
that strange tricolor pictures :))
At least, you could have corrected
them, guys :)

z80 cheap

Miguel> It's not worth of deep ana-
lisis, the only thing I have to
say is that knowledge is a power.
So you'd better learn before ma-
king something to show people. If
anyone thinks that I'm writing
this article because I know too
much about spectrum music and the
music at all, then I'll say that
you're wrong. I learn something
new every time I compose a
track... So, that's it.

Diver> It's not a surprise that it
has no credits, it's a big shame I
think to be proud of gfx like
this. The final screen has some
initials - SG, that aren't fami-
liar to me. Anyway, such gfx has
just one visual merit - it's noco-
py gfx :))) But the quality is mo-
re than awful. Maybe authors deci-
ded to imitate Yerzmyey's style,
which is too far from this parody.

Flying> While watching this demo I
had a feeling that the authors of
this work are mentally close to
HPRG (about their Alter Ego read
above). First, gfx has something
in common, then intentionally slip-
shod effects with evident mistakes
(there's need to use paper in
attribute plasma). Of course, the-
re are a lot of differencies: HPRG
works can be easily recognized due
to their excessive accents on the
"fallic symbols", while the
authors of z80 cheap demo con-
centrated on what we all like
Speccy. And this fact helps to for-
get about the technical drawbacks,
demo is filled with positive emoti-
ons and I'm happy that there are
people who can deliver it to the
audience it is quite rare event.

Thanks you guys, exellent work!

Invasion

Miguel> The soundtrack of this de-
mo was taking part in CAFe'2002
music compo, which was 2 weeks
earlier than Paradox party. By the
way, I'm against of such things,
especially when a screen from a de-
mo is taking part in gfx compo and
that's why everybody have to watch
it 2 times...

Now technics - I don't like when
the chord is playing much louder
than the rest of instruments. And
the main melodical theme which be-
gins after credits part is killing
me :)

Diver> Looks like there are no se-
rious problems with gfx used in
this demo. Of course, it's not so
good, but remember PCB who star-
ted their triumphant performances
not from 5th Element, as I know,
in the beginning there was Climba-
tize, it revealed from my memory
after seeing Invasion. I can't say
this demo sucks, i think that the
authors try to develop their
skills in the right direction. For-
get about the russian language ly-
rics here, such drawback can be fo-
und in Jaundice too, but the last
one had its tremendous followers -
Lovemaker and Summermilk. So, I
think a little bit of practice wo-
uld help the authors with their
next works. And of course, they
should look at the best amiga, c64
and pc stuff more than once to de-
velop their design abilities.

Flying> An average demo, conside-
ring code in particualar, though
music and gfx are good enough.
This work has nothing new in code
usual and old enough effects, rea-
lized as usual. On the other hand,
this demo was released complete,
though it's not a masterpiece. Ho-
wever, I think, that the authors
obtained that experience they need
and I hope we'll see their next
works for our beloved Speccy.

By the way, why did you buried
RST7 and Mic? Remember - Le-
gends never die!

The Loop

Miguel> Again Baze. I think he is
the only one who tries to make a
real PRODUCT, not crap, so and his
music is outstanding among the
rest of european musicians and de-
momakers, who wish only fun. Seri-
ous work.

Diver> At last, the demo which was
made for 2 years ago already but
had been released only in 2002.
Just before CAFe Baze made eve-
rybody on #z80 happy by giving the
party version of his 'The Loop' in-
to publicity. Poor Baze, he was af-
raid that nobody would understand
his work, and this time he was
right. Mostly, people have stupid
faces while watching The Loop
and describe the action on the
screen with the words something
like: "What a shit". Dummies! What
did you want? Another 3D sausage
with a breakbeat in background?
Considering that there's only few
good sausages I've seen nowadays.
And Baze brought another quality
conceptual product, somehow remin-
ding of c2h5oh, but more philo-
sophic

Flying> The Loop was first shown
at Forever 2E3 SE in march of
2001. But Baze/3SC hadn't released
the party version and explained it
by his desire to make the final
version. A year and a half passed
since then, and in september 2002
everybody could see it released,
again as a party version. Somehow
Baze didn't finish the demo. Tho-
ugh it's better than no release at
all.

At Forever 2E3 SE party this demo
won the third place. And i think
it deserves the higher rate. Espe-
cially when compared with Pondlife
(1st place) and Heart Beat (2nd).

It's amasing, but this masterpiece
(a real masterpiece) has nothing
difficuilt in code. Maybe somebody
is agaist of including such works
in the demo compo (no pure anima-
tion permitted as it is written in
the rules). Technically, The Loop
consists of one effect (used as a
background), one simple melody and
a dozen of short, primitive anima-
tions -that's all. Anyway, compi-
led together, all this captivate
the audience with a strange en-
chantment. You forget about how it
was done after seing the first mi-
nute of the demo, nothing matters
the samples, music arrangement,
the graphics, the code - all this
become insignificant, you just STA-
RE until the final sounds tell
you, that it's The Loop, and
nothing could be said. Such emoti-
ons could be revealed only by a
few things in this world, which
authors reached the effect by
their persistence, or by inspira-
tion or just being naturally born
genius. And this things are diffe-
rent for every single person, so-
mething you reckon as a genius co-
uld be nothing for another man.

As for me, The Loop emotionally
belongs to the row of such pieces
of art as Stairway to Heaven by
Led Zeppelin, Comfortably Numb by
Pink Floyd, Strawberry Fields Fore-
ver by The Beatles and The End by
The Doors.

There's nothing left to say - just
watch.


elph> I think that these are mar-
vellous reviews! Always deep and
full of different emotions. I
hope, that demomakers will read it
and try to judge their works from
different points of view, to see
some drawbacks, perhaps, to achie-
ve the higher level of realization
of their ideas. Let ideas disturb
your mind!