demo review
by elph, miguel, diver, flying
elph> lately, i began to feel the lack of professionalism when reading 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 someone should do only what they are competent in, or learn for more on practice as those, whom i've invited to review the 2002 year's demos and who are still perceiving the knowledge of the making. as for me, they are experts in each sphere of the art they are presenting and, an important thing, understand. so, it is always interesting and instructively to know opinions expressed by miguel, diver and flying.
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 programm 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 combining the track is a little different 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, because 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 contours.
flying> another work of the group, which is known for it's original style and sense of humour. it seems that the main purpose of demomaking for hprg is fun, nothing matters in means of getting into this condition, while others try to concentrate on powerful programming. and this demo is not an exception from this rule. technically, the most diffucuilt effect in a whole demo is a spinning 3d dick-styled sausage with gouraud shading. and the main problem 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 analogue 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 really cool) looks good indeed.
of course, this demo isn't a masterpiece, but this fact seem to be not very important for hprg. the demo has it's own style and that is the main thing.
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 purpose 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 remember funtasy from funtop'98 :) however, the idea and it's realization are good enough. 'originally' designed greetings for each of 4 platforms made in each platform's style - it's very cool.
miguel> baze roxx :) confident and qualified. i think it's a talant. although i'm not a fan of music like 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 demo aside of this review, because high designed demos in 2002 can be counted by fingers. and laya design can be called 'high quality' accurate synchronization with great music, well applied layer principle, a couple of hi-res features, weird slogans :). anyway, looks lovely, but i still can't understand 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 synchronization and a plenty of small details, which seem to live their own life and make the whole demo complete in the same time. it looks amazing altogether. of course, considering only technical stuff, neither laya, nor the loop is tight in code, it is not neccessary in both demos. but at the same time i can't expect 'lame' programming from baze :) as baze said: "i made these work basically for myself". nevertheless, many people can acquire a lot of positive vibrations while watching laya and the loop.
lovemaker
miguel> in this demo i do appreciate that the main idea really matters for skreamer. he tried to realize 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 something like gfx: did anybody understand what's placed on the beginning 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 comparing with the next work. and if laya is the first example of extreme nographics realization, the piece of the fine design, then lovemaker is another nographics realization, 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. minimalism in gfx, a set of sound effects instead of a melody in music, good code, tight synchronization, 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 very well - to make as more as possible using a very few of elements. this principle was implemented at the high quality level, resulted in a few minutes of action leading the audience into the deepest thoughts. uneven, original, ragged music combining with accurate synchronization brings the main demo affection. no need of difficuilt 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.
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 more complete, but it's not the way, so... that's all...
diver> here is another extreme piece, probably, the worst comparing with 2 previous works. it seems that authors relied on gfx and code only, or maybe they just can't design like baze and feel like 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 realized, 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 brainwave can work with 3d object at 3.5mhz and 128kb memory of our speccy. his code is generally recognized 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 everybody, but i should say that they had made their masterpieces not from the very start of their creativity. 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 observation :)
one more detail, which i should mention here - harm authors showed 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 separately in other demos thru the past few years. but anyway, this mixture of well known effects resulted in a new good looking picture, 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, basically considering the demo effects, 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 same 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 disappear 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 - useless. you can compare harm with refresh by extreme - the slower 3d scenes are more spectacular due to the drive produced by the soundtrack made by visual. so, it would be nice to see all of components of a good demo compiled together in the next works of these groups to bring us a real piece of art!
miguel> ahim is ahim, there's nothing left to say. his style (or maybe just the only way to do something 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 antidemoism :) 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 times saying that it was made by another 2 dudes... i can not remember 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 impudent 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 better to ask the author about it's use beforehand like skreemah did with bizk's characters used in lovemaker. 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 ninety's. graphics also brings no pleasure (by the way, almost no graphics is used). besides, obvious faults in code, resulted in a black screen for 5-10 seconds or stopping effect (things which are not accepted in any demo), are irritating 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 excess demo by zer0 (as you can remember, it was released at enlight'97). however, on the other hand, the whole demo brings the positive emotions (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 appear 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 loved greets - very simple and very beautiful.
miguel> ordinary european music. nothing more.
diver> why nobody had such idea to exhibit his work at assembly before? oldschool demo compo at this party is held since 2000. but there 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 performance. 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 have thought that summermilk is a copy 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 victoria 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 biggesteuropeandemoparty assembly'2002. was it worth of being there and presenting our platform 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. though 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 more impressive.
and even without this fact, losing victoria - is a very nice and well-made demo. though there is almost no gfx (only one picture) and no effects :)) (practically, 5 effects and only one among them is an independent, the other are subsidiary 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 absence, to be more correct. music just stops and everything disappears. anyway, losing victoria is a very good work, that's for sure, and it is worth of notice.
miguel> a demo from placebo causes the deepest emotions to appear deep inside of me. but time to time 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 after 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 inability of placebo to make something new, as they did some time ago. inbetween uses the same engine, which irritates the majority of sceners... so, i can make the conclusion that inbetween was done 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 question - who's gonna make a soundtrack 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 became worse, as it is no longer worth of my abilities. but i'm confused about that -why they think so? maybe it's because i started to copy not only scene works, but even those 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 called 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 - horizontal attitude and watching far beyond are copied (i hope not converted) from 'demoscope' by creative 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 remixes from lifeforms - lifeforms title screen ('cosme' by made) and the placebo team looking downwards (from 'elektroniks' by doomsday). i cannot judge objectively 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, only 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 achieve better results with effects having nothing in common with each other. the only solution is to use gfx as it was done in lifeforms. inbetween additional visual effects are spread quite good, some of them present in the early beginning of the demo, not only in the end as miguel said. and the allocation 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 (scoopex+haujobb, amiga), and inbetween has the beginning that reminds me of haupex (haujobb+scoopex, amiga). of course it's great that placebo had chosen these great examples of design for inspiration, but i think they did it too evidently.
flying> with this work placebo try to show everybody that speccy abilities in calculating 3d graphics revealed in their last demo is not a limit for 3.5mhz and 128kb memory. now objects and 3d scenes become more complicated, additional effects appear in this demo, animation applied in this work is used not only for rotating and moving the objects, but to the objects itself. sair00s, i think, is the leading expert in 3d on speccy nowadays, and he could have written a dissertation titled "the principles of 3d graphics realtime calculating 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 discussing sair00s' code - i'm not a speciallist 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 platforms and it's realisation in inbetween look fine. i mean the 3rd chunk effect with a sphere rotating in a flashing light. very fabulous thing! besides, the greetings part is made very originally, mentioning digital reality doubles my impression! the textures used are carefully selected, particularly in effect with plasma. finally, i think placebo are deserving 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.
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 during 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 demomakers. 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 made it the only way they had to realize it.
ok, now the music. as they say, it was written in pro tracker using tempo 2. and because the pro tracker player which is linked to compiled 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 particular) can be done within samples. of course, it's much harder i think, but it's possible. i wouldn't say anything about that if i hadn't try. that's all about technics. nothing to say about melody 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 based on the story of a man with original 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 being themselves and not afraid of being misunderstood. if talking about technical side of the work, i should say, that everything 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 become chunked when outside the borders (i hope you know what i'm talking about) - that's really cool! right on, guys!
miguel> the main track of this demo is made in sair00s style, it just pretending to sound like soundtracks 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 really good and powerful, at the same time they follow (maybe unconsciously) the current leader in demomaking - placebo. so, we get the music 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 :)) maybe it happened because of a little differences in sair00s' music itself... anyway, i think that any musician must have his own musical solutions. technically, i should pay attention to samples, again samples.
diver> having no artist or a person able to make more or less quality 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' section 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 images are selected in accordance with the demo theme (which is good enough), though it would be better to use handdrawn nocopy gfx to make the whole product more outstanding. design could have been be more 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 attidude to the final result. and finally, 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 messages, 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 course, 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 effects.
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 synchronization with music. i suppose, that music was specially written for this demo and not taken 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 important 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.
miguel> it looks like the author wanted to make a powerful track, as in usual newschool demo nowadays. but the lack of ideas and low technical level didn't let him to do so. and this is not about music only the rest of the demo is too ordinary and technically unprofessional.
diver> this demo had the close concurancy 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. however, all is done great, all titles, images, i like its quality, but, imho, all this stuff was converted, again, using ordered dither this time. it's possible 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 accompaniment for me. design is much weaker, we see only the following strict ordered combination: effect, 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 (attribute or planar analogues) can be found in many other demos from mid 90's. poor music bringing no pleasure to me, scanned and/or rendered 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 something for the compo. what a pity...
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 soundtrack 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, looped more than once and finally it lost its primary idea. in conclusion i should say to our foreign friends that this demo has a strong social motivation, antinarcotic propaganda and may be due to this social affection pos group became 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 barely called a demo... pure propaganda. 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 particular, 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 affection which propaganda must have. comparing with smokebomb that leads into the deepest thoughts...
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 evident: 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 difficuit to realize then in abyss of madness (final spinning and morphing text is good, but old effect), 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 release does exist, then i apologize.
one more thing, can't help with it :))) can anybody explain me what does the set of tricolor pictures within this antinarcotic propaganda 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 release 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. although, 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 :)
miguel> it's not worth of deep analisis, the only thing i have to say is that knowledge is a power. so you'd better learn before making 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 familiar to me. anyway, such gfx has just one visual merit - it's nocopy gfx :))) but the quality is more than awful. maybe authors decided 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 slipshod effects with evident mistakes (there's need to use paper in attribute plasma). of course, there 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 concentrated on what we all like speccy. and this fact helps to forget about the technical drawbacks, demo is filled with positive emotions and i'm happy that there are people who can deliver it to the audience it is quite rare event.
thanks you guys, excellent work!
miguel> the soundtrack of this demo 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 demo 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 begins after credits part is killing me :)
diver> looks like there are no serious problems with gfx used in this demo. of course, it's not so good, but remember pcb who started their triumphant performances not from 5th element, as i know, in the beginning there was climbatize, 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. forget about the russian language lyrics here, such drawback can be found in jaundice too, but the last one had its tremendous followers - lovemaker and summermilk. so, i think a little bit of practice would 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 develop their design abilities.
flying> an average demo, considering code in particualar, though music and gfx are good enough. this work has nothing new in code usual and old enough effects, realized as usual. on the other hand, this demo was released complete, though it's not a masterpiece. however, 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 - legends never die!
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 demomakers, who wish only fun. serious 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 everybody on #z80 happy by giving the party version of his 'the loop' into publicity. poor baze, he was afraid 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 reminding of c2h5oh, but more philosophic
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. though 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. especially 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 animation 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 animations -that's all. anyway, compiled together, all this captivate the audience with a strange enchantment. you forget about how it was done after seing the first minute of the demo, nothing matters the samples, music arrangement, the graphics, the code - all this become insignificant, you just stare until the final sounds tell you, that it's the loop, and nothing could be said. such emotions could be revealed only by a few things in this world, which authors reached the effect by their persistence, or by inspiration or just being naturally born genius. and this things are different for every single person, something you reckon as a genius could 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 forever by the beatles and the end by the doors.
there's nothing left to say - just watch.
elph> i think that these are marvellous 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 achieve the higher level of realization of their ideas. let ideas disturb your mind!