Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Second Demo Display [Report In Progress, Part 5 Posted]

Next Stop: ALL HAIL SATORI!
Yes, thank you Satori, this is where the fight started. The crowd got divided to 2 clear groups, the ones who completely loved the Satori demos and the ones who completely hated them. No in-betweens what-so-ever. Given that 2 Satori demos were shown you can probably guess that I'm a big fan. And I have to confess that watching people arguing deep over DE:TOX and Circulation was fun to no end. >:) Total chaos took over. Some of the negative comments [specially around DE:TOX]: No content, no concept, horrible music, artless, meaningless, nerve racking, and....you get the picture. And of course some of the positive comments: Awesome visuals [for Circulation], Satori rules, DE:TOX kicks it hard, great music and great visuals for both, and hey, I even heard "great concepts for both"! :D How about that? I also heard a lot of people saying that they "didn't get it", or "you didn't like it because you didn't get it". What I'm thinking right now is "define getting it". What does it mean to get it anyway? Does it mean that you have to know exactly what the artist was thinking, in order to enjoy the art? Or can you just enjoy [or disenjoy for that matter] whatever it is that the piece of art makes you feel? In any case, this was definitely one of the most heated up parts of the show. :)
195/95 by Plastic [which apparently has a final version made by rgba.....or correct me if you can!] was exactly what we needed to calm the chaotic mood down after the Satori war. The uber eye/ear candy did a nice job settling the differences. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the show once more. Some wanted to know the name of the dancing creature. Some sort of a fairy I think?!
Arise by Stravaganza again divided the crowd to 2 parts: people who liked the demo, and people who went absolutely crazy about it! Arise proved to have all that it takes to make everyone happy. Graphics, music, everything's great. But then, there's a specific group of people who might enjoy this demo even more than the rest. A group that includes myself. Anyone who's ever had something to do with building a robot probably knows what I'm talking about. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE THAT ANDROID IS AWESOME! Yup, my fellow electrical engeez and robot builders were in total frenzy during this one. Thank you Stravaganza for the pretty android. Resistance is absolutely futile.
Next came the Dooms Day fun pack Legomania. This super cute demo managed to bring a wide smile to everyone's faces! :) Apparently we had a lot of Lego fanatics in the crowd [again including myself] who were more than thrilled to see this one. The scenario for each of the Lego brothers was marvelous; specially the Matrix section seemed to have a lot of fans. The happy upbeat music was certainly a bonus. I have to mention this again, this is definitely one of the cuuuuuuuutest demos I've seen so far. :)
Fly fly brother red, close to home you will get,
Boost boost more speed, just another sci-fi geek!
Swim swim brother green, where have you been?
Smile smile don't frown, or you might suddenly drawn! [Hahaha :D]
We are not like the others, we are the famous Lego brothers,
Brother red green and blue, sticking together like glue,
Drive drive brother blue, keep your hat on, don't catch the flue,
Faster faster, keep the motor running, brick walls are very stunning! [ROFLz :D]

And of course some screen-shots as per request:

Stay tuned, cause we have another controversial crowd splitting demo to discuss next.

Update: Check out amv's comment regarding the 195/95 demo. :)

Update: Check aMUSiC's comment regarding Dragonil, on the previous post. :)

[End of part 5]

Labels:

Posted By Aasemoon @ 10:12 pm | Send Me Your Opinion |

Monday, August 28, 2006
Second Demo Display [Report In Progress, Part 4 Posted]

I've decided to start a new log for this part of the report, since the comments are already showing signs of difficulty while loading, and I think we still have a lot to talk about.
At this point in the show we had a bit of a change of directions. Next demo to go on the big screen was different from so many aspects compared to what we had seen up to that point. O Kyklos Tis Zwis [The Circle of Life] by Dragonil was the show's only flash demo, which was also the representative of a rather different style of demos. If you're reading this and you haven't seen this demo yet.....I have a warning for you. A very serious one that is. Ladies and Gentlemen, this demo successfully broke my heart to a thousand and one pieces, and believe you me, it will do the same to yours. It didn't just impress me, it actually made me cry. Yes. Honestly. Twice. And hey, I'm not exactly your example of an overly emotional person, and fortunately all the accusations of that sort were recently removed, thanks to the display crowd! They showed that it wasn't just me; that this demo actually had something different about it. The amazing concept of this demo added to the cute graphics and the great music, makes this demo quite a memorable one, as I was told by the viewers.
Next came WHEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAA ASD again! :D
Dreamchild, another ASD masterpiece. I was told by some of the viewers that this demo was not meant to be watched for simple entertainment purposes. The comment was pretty interesting for me. I think we can all see why that is. => CONCEPT <=. This demo definitely has a lot to offer to apprehensive minds. Besides that, the visuals rule and don't even get me started on the music. Kudos to aMUSiC and Leviathan for doing it again. There's also some super Kudos to go to aMUSiC [again] and Amoivikos for the lyrics: I'm not a product of your dreams,
I'm not either injected into your fantasy
by some conspiracy or diabolic plot.
I was, I am and I will be
a part of your crystalite world.
Omnipresent, spreading my roots
deep into your nightmares.
I cannot be removed.
I am just there.
Because I am, none other..
than you!

You are a dream.
You are the whispering twilight,
shining into my world of illusion.
You are the warmth of my mortality,
A moment in time.
You seek after me.
You are forgetfulness,
but you are forgiveness also.
You are the child I wish I had been,
the innocence I could never recapture.
You wish to embrace me.
You are but the candle's flicker,
yet you can set my heart ablaze.
You cried for me,
yet not one tear has reached me.
You need not despair.
You'll be there still for me to long for.
For you to be reflected,
into the stare of my loving eyes.
For you to be dreamt of.
For you..
am I.

UPDATE: DO CHECK THIS OUT: http://www.last.fm/music/aMUSiC+and+Leviathan

UPDATE: If you happen to be a last.fm user please go to the above page. We need some votes for a change of logo.

[End of part 4]

Labels: ,

Posted By Aasemoon @ 8:01 pm | Send Me Your Opinion |

Thursday, August 03, 2006
Second Demo Display [Report In Progress, Part 3 Posted]

Yes, it finally happened. After weeks of dealing with all sorts of ridiculous problems, we were finally able to hold the second Demo Display, which turned out to be well worth all the trouble. Given the amazing experience of the first show, and the amount of positive feedback that I received, we decided to be a little more organized and do some actual preparation for the second one. [For anyone who might not know this, the first show happened out of the blue and based on a sudden mental spark that I had!] Although the preparations didn't exactly happen in the most smooth manner, but we managed to get things done and send out the news to our Engee and Artzee friends and post some flyers for the rest of the world, on time. As a result of that, the crowd was considerably larger than the first time. The show was huge....a huge emotional outburst. I don't think I had ever seen Artzeez and Engeez agree so much....let alone going crazy over the same thing. Once again my Artzee friends did an awesome job helping me running the show. In addition I had the luxury of having 2 very special friends with me, who came to Toronto just for this. Soren, Kay [KayOS], you guys rule.
I had actually came up with a solid list of the demos that I wanted to show this time, but as the crowd grew larger, we decided to prolong the show. As a result I was happily able to add a few more favorites to the list, including a couple of demos from the last display. So here's what we showed:
And of course to close the show we listened to a couple of great tracks:
  • Chloral Hydrate by aMUSiC [ASD]
  • Music On The Moon by aMUSiC [ASD] & Amigo [The Lab]
Now as you're suspecting I'm going to talk a little about the demos that we watched, and I'd be glad to know what you thought of each. The size of the crowd this time made it impossible for me to gather what everyone had to say about each demo, so lets do that here. But first I suppose I should mention a few facts, based on some interesting questions that I've received lately.
Nope, I'm not a scener, neither are most of the people reading this blog. I came to learn about the Demoscene just recently [although I had seen some rather old demos a while ago]. Yup, I code a lot, Yup, I do some graphic design too, but Nope, I haven't ever done anything remotely related to creating a demo. Currently most of the coding that I'm doing is Microchip Assembly anyway. Given the way I came across Demoscene first, [watching Iconoclast completely confused & without the slightest idea of what was going on and with my jaw resting somewhere on the floor the whole time and enjoying the experience immensely that is], I've developed a tendency to pay more attention to the eye-candy/ear-candy aspects of the demos. Same applies to most of my friends here. [Not that I can ever completely ignore the behind-the-scenes!] Basically, we gathered to watch the demos for the joy of it. :)
The people who were present at the first display, came to the second one expecting particularly to see some more ASD demos. That, and the fact that me and my gang are huge fans, were the reasons for us to start the show with ASD's trilogy [and to include 5 ASD demos in the show of course :D]. ASD's trilogy is a superbly artistic symbolization of the 3 basic elements: Air [Antidote], Fire [Aphorism] and Water [Ambience]. Given all the discussions that were raised among the crowd specially over the "fire", I believe I should present here the very helpful explanation that aMUSiC of ASD has posted on Pouet:
"The trilogy is focused on the Aristotle's element line of Aether, Fire and Water. Aphorism is the Fire part. You can control fire up to a certain extent, but fire is always unpredictable both in its movements and constraint. The various backbone synch points and imagery is depicting the control and constrain of the fire, while the distortions and artifacts are representing the randomness and unpredictability of the flames, that however begin with a seed.. the flammable material (which is the music and its frequencies). The style of the music is harsh and expands into a multitude of frequencies to show the wildness and mercilessness of fire." What seemed very interesting to me was, although to a rather minor extent, it was apparent that each part of the trilogy seemed to be more appealing to a group of people with rather similar tempers! I'd definitely appreciate it if you people let me know whether you observed something similar. What I do know is that a theater room full of people was on fire while watching each part of this masterpiece! :)

After a the trilogy, came the only Amiga demo of the show, Ocean Machine by The Black Lotus. Of course I was pretty curious to see what everyone would think of the Amiga demo and watch some reactions. And of course I wasn't disappointed; having enjoyed watching this demo as much as I have, naturally I was hoping that the crowd would enjoy it as well, and gladly I should say that apparently they did. It seemed that the scene with the black dancer touched the hearts of most of the viewers, and I really didn't have to go asking around to figure that one out. I just had to stand behind the panel and observe the reactions! ;) In addition, the incredible sound track of this demo turned into a common favorite.

The next demo to go on the screen was Tokyo by xplsv. Yeah the same bloody demo that got me mistyping [yeah I know that most of you know what I'm talking about since you all had your ball making a huge fuss out of my tiny typo! :P]; the significance being the fact that my speech skills resembled my spelling skills for a few hours after watching that demo. But hey, it wasn't just me! The colors, the awesome music and all the beautiful effects in this demo managed to create the Tokyo feeling for the whole crowd, and from what I could see, it was quite an enjoyable one too. Another interesting fact is that no one out of that crowd has so far told me that the demo was too slow for them. Anyone thought so? Let me know. Personally I think the slow pace was a must for this one, in order to have "the" effect. Anyhow; off to the next part.

Update: Since a lot of people were asking for this, do check aMUSiC's comment regarding the ocean machine lyrics. [Yup, half a gallon Mustard/day for me from now on!]

Important Update: Ok I have to add this here so it won't get lost in the comments pile: Starting from the show day, I've received so many "who did what in the where" questions regarding the producers of the demos, a lot of which I honestly don't know the answers to. True, I do a whole lot of reading up and tracking down, and I do have "some" info, but I can not possibly have the answers to the kind of detailed questions you seem to have. So I suggest that you check out the group pages on www.pouet.net and from there find the website URLs of the groups that you have questions about [that is if they have one], and you probably know what to do after that. I also have to mention this: NO I won't post those questions on pouet.net BBS. I'm still enjoying my life. If you like, you can try that yourselves. :)

[End of part 3]

Labels: ,

Posted By Aasemoon @ 9:36 pm | Send Me Your Opinion |

 

Ahoo "Aasemoon" Pirsoleimani, 1998-2014