Revision 2011 Report
Written by Beb/Vanity
Friday 22.04.2011
5:00 in the morning I get chills... It is not my habit to get up at dawn. Or to drag me miserably on one leg to the nearest train station to take the train at 6:01... And it's for a good cause. I have to attend what is considered the best of demoparties, the 2011 Revision. I climb hoping to get a double seat as it would be legitimate for my temporary disability status. Not at all is the TGV packed with people at that early hour. This will not stop me from drooling copiously and alternately on the window as well as my pretty neighbor (who is probably an air hostess or someone dressed like that).
9:00: Paris, Gare de Lyon. Everybody out.
Normally Barjack, Tali & Grimmy should arrive soon by car. I take their legendary punctuality... And I drink two really expensive cups of coffee during this time. Eliot joins us. Everybody's here. We reach the parking lot and we try to put luggages, people, monitors and keyboards into the car. We drive quietly with quality music to mask the failure of air conditioning.
11:00: "And I dance, yes I dance" (Lova Moor) Barjack's favourite song.
I must admit that traveling always amuses me. Travelling is often at least as interesting as the destination itself. And we were not disappointed, since Barjack had the great idea to drive without technical control despite a warning from the police. The "Gendarmerie Nationale" stops us at 30 minutes of nirvana.
After a few more tears from the owner, it gets away with a vehicle immobilization delayed... Wonderful! The Romanian charm operates perfectly.
Saying that we found the E-Werk directly would be lying. Grimmy has wisely printed Saarbrücken maps. He remained enigmatic enough to inflict upon us an overview of this very pretty town... All this in order to identify several bars to quench his vice...
15:00: E-Werk "Oooohhhh You touch my Trala laaa" (Gunther)
The room is located in an entirely commercial zone, but it's very well frequented on week-ends. The building is quite beautiful. A mixture of iron and red bricks. Reminds me of the hall of the Main demoparty from the previous year. In any case, nothing to do with the ugly structure of Breakpoint (even if the room fulfilled its role).
Inside we first find "The Bar" with cheap drinks, beers and sodas, and 3 Pinballs... If you want to test your skills after some beers and win many extra-balls. On the right a custom T-shirts stand and a "dance floor" for people who want to shake their 4ss after midnight and try to catch a girl... Or maybe a drunken bearded coder.
And to access the toilets, down, you must run for 5 minutes to go to heaven through small steps and a few doors... It would be barely more complicated if a giant rolling stone fell behind you, as in Rick Dangerous (with a lot of zombie Aztecs throwing poisoned needles in your eyes).
After having paid our entrance fee, we can finally come and greet Hicks and Ultrasyd. A beautiful Amstrad row on the end of the table is visible to all (all those blue screens... mmmmhhh). Wise choice for those who like to see some great demos. We don't know yet that nearly 50 people will harass us to watch Batman Forever on the "real hardware".
Great organization. Giant screen. Breezy sound (slightly less than the Main demoparty). And padded chairs! Perfect.
17:00: "C'est l'heure de l'apéro" (Fatal Manbo)
It's time to eat potato chips and peanuts. All washed down with some booze. While we drink, a giant bald calls us from beyond the grave (finally behind us). We'll meet friendly Britelite/Dekadence^RNO, a well known programmer on Amiga and C64. He wishes to speak to us about "Batman Forever" (damn) and his desire to come and do demos on Amstrad. "You need good demos on Amstrad", "I'll kick your 4ss", "Ha ha!!!", laughing out loud. "" says Grimmy. It's a good news. Britelite/Dekadence^RNO and Reed/Fairlight on CPC... What else?
19:00: "La peinture à l'huile" (Bobby LaPointe)
Barjack and I decided that it would be good to use the time spent in front of the CPC to design a nice drawing. Then I draw a funny Rhinoceros, with a curious bird "pic-beef" on his back. With a lot of sweat. Perhaps we will be competing in the oldskool graphics. But after a while I perceive that I'll finish this pictorial composition alone :)
Tali tries to tame OCP Art Studio. And it's not so easy to draw a picture with a keyboard. Hicks starts a new hardware technique. The awesome diagonal splitscreen. And takes the opportunity to directly file a patent "ruptouille diagonouille". What a pleasure to see a plasma undulating... and another thing to the right of the screen.
We see the usual clique Rouquemoute / Rez / Made, and in front of us Exin. Rez comes to talk with us about our prods. And take a glass. Rouquemoute comes too. And Made stays away (obviously he did nothing to fuck the Amstrad... shame).
21:00: "Opening Ceremony" followed by "Scene.org Awards" (nothing on CPC... beuh!!!)
23:00: "Let's go to bed" (The Cure). Barjack left us... Ha ha ha!!! Happy little Jester.
The Willbe show starts with a small time lag. And the fun remains the same as at the Main 2010. We try to continue to deal with our machine until 6:00 am. But Eliot, Grimmy, Hicks and I (especially I) failed to do a sleepless night.
Game Over.
Saturday 23.04.2011
11:00: Many of us have woken up (80%). I'm still in the mist. Today, we will have competitions to watch and to listen. Ultrasyd made an oldschool music and a streaming music.
Lunch time. Here, you can find food for few bucks at any time. Waffles and pancakes, meat and fried potatoes, pizza, etc... Now we have to try the German food speciality. French fries (Grimmy says "Poms") and sausage. Barjack and Tali will make an orgy of chocolate banana waffles. And Hicks eats his own grass. Without any smile ;) "Burps!!!"
In the afternoon, UltraSyd is back with his family. The Tracked music competition will start soon. It's always a bit difficult to listen to music at a party. And it's hard to have a good sense. Sorry but, I don't remember all the music heard in the different categories. A little advice for anyone who would be interested in competing. Make a music without nuance and strongly paced :)
15:00: Toms arrived. The Praline team is now complete. Grimmy continues to code his trackloader with track-decruncher. Barjack continues to do nothing. Tali and I try to continue to paint with Art Studio. The Oldskool Graphics competition is running and I'm glad for not participating. Some drawings are really excellent.
Some people interrupt Eliot and Hicks (ASM coders are so rare, in the hall) for explanations about the Amstrad... And for watching some good demos. "Batman Forever?" beuh :) Grimmy made many copies of good demos, ready for distribution... Some underground coders recover these floppies (JAC!).
Many pepole are interested in our Amstrad and the HxCfloppy emulator. And our two famous stars, "Eliot and Hicks", are well interviewed by TV-Saar. Impressive. I don't understand anything of what they are talking about. I hope Eliot answered correctly. Hicks tries to smile at the camera... The interview is quite long. But the result at TV is so short... Sad (probably David's fault). I stay behind. Cause I don't speak English very well (as you can see). Scanning the room to see exotic computers or girls with big t1ts (a thought for MacDeath). But it's difficult for me to move.
In this kind of place, we lose track of time quickly. I missed the animation/video competition. I was looking for a coffee, outdoors. 21:00: With a little delay, we are seeing the benefit of DJ Hoffman. And Eliot rebelled again ;) (Wooots Woooots!!! Humpf humpf!!!)
I'm waiting for the 4K PC, Amiga intro and Commodore 64 competitions. Everybody takes a chair and comes close to the big screen. You can enjoy the show, with few break, for 2 hours. Fractal objects, synthesis speech... Outch!!! I don't know what kind of PC you must have at home, for watching these 4K...
I liked:
- States United - Bauknecht & Tek (low end hardware... with great effects)
- Fourskin / Rno (many neat little effects... oldschool)
- Spring Onion / Rebels & Neural (design and colours, nothing special)
- Electronenmultiplizierer / Akronyme Analogiker (great fractal objects)
- D-four / Ctrl-Alt-Test (original concept... Bouncing text with music) The end of the night continues with massive dance music, until 4:00 (what's the fuck with techno music???). We try to continue painting and coding for hours. Drinking booze and coffee.
RRrrzzzzZZzz.
Sunday 24.04.2011
"Elles sont diiingues de mon slip!!!" (Stephano Mariano)
11:00: Sleeping on chairs is unfair. Atch!!! Today's big day. Once again I wake up too late. Toms talks to me about the NUFLI/MUIFLI seminar. Obviously the C64 has very interesting and also ultra-binding graphic modes. Eliot must go home. We cry together. "We hope to see you at the next meeting." David, Nico and Cyril lead him to the station. Today we should see some wonderful competitions. PC demos, games, PC 64K and Amiga Demos.
A guy comes to talk with me and Toms about his work. He wants to sell us his last production, probably a so cool techno music. After some negotiations, I didn't buy anything and I forced him to watch Moody 4k. The guy walked away happily ;) Another guy will come to talk to me about his desire to code on CPC. The "Batman Group" and "Vanity" demos impressed him. His name is Sorex/Warriors of the Wasteland and he comes from C64. Welcome guy!
Here, I would like to thank Rhino, Benediction and ourselves for the reactions we attracted from the Demoscene. Doing demos and participating in a meeting (demoparty) is the best way to emancipate our microcosm. Obviously it's a bit obligatory to speak English. But this opening spirit is legitimate.
After having discussed again with Britelite, we try to convince him to learn to manipulate the CRTC. Because it's the only way to render fullscreen effects on our old machine (Hicks was talking about "poor ugly and slow demos from Targhan/Arkos"). He continued to laugh at us (is he drunk? :) Wait and see...
18:00: Game competition. We admire a traiblazzer 2011, revamped for the occasion. Adapted to the Wii console hardware. You tilt the pad to direct the ball. It's funny to see, and it didn't seem highly ergonomic. And another shooter on gelatin candy. Perhaps the programmer has a grudge against Haribo? (Barjack has the same problem.)
Outside, the lawn looks like a gigantic barbecue party. After a double waffle with Nutella and 4 Aberlours (and Poms for Grimmy), we seat comfortably, the nose glued to the screen to fully enjoy the evening. 23:00: The big competition starts. I will only speak about what caught my attention. I know it is anti-democratic. You just have to come :)
Pandora / Brain Control: It's a 64K PC demo. And you can see beautiful textures and a complex calculated world. It looks like Zoom3/AND without the speech synthesis. Barjack loved the pipes. Great good...
We Have Accidently Borrowed Your Votedisk / Razor1911: Rez is a very clever boy. He conscientiously applied his method "oldschool". He reused the same theme for a "bubblegum" demo... Fun to watch.
Fr080 - Pacemaker / Farbrausch & Stroboholics: Just for the gummy bears.
Human Traffic / Ghostown & Loonies: From the start, we quickly understand the winks to "Elude". The tone is set. We have a well designed production without taking any risks. A nice upbeat music. And common speed effects.
Shake off the dust / Elude: Many more complex effects. But the pallette is dark, so dark... We must, at times, guess what happens.
Massive / Skarla: I waited for years for a new Skarla demo (since "Ride On Our Enemy"). 12 Years of waiting, I'm inevitably a little disappointed. All routines are really solid. But the overall design is not the height... The music is unusual, but I'm not convinced.
Sorry for the fans but for PC demos this year, none found favour in my eyes. This is the end... Don't forget to vote for your favourite production. Like at Breakpoint or Main Party, you just have to go to the infodesk and get a serial number. It's party time!!! Music for everyone. Very late at night, you hear (tali / grimmy / I) singing "crazy about my underpants" a cappella. Alongside a German group improvises lyrics of "jumping music" :) "The show must go on." Hicks and Toms seem dismayed. Not fun...
.
Monday 25.04.2011
But what (what? what?) is this excitement in the early morning??? Mfff, fuck!!! It's already 11:00 am. "Time for the pastis", says Barjack and time for the awards of the week-end for normal people.
Concerning the results, I shall say that with rare exceptions, they are little surprising. The public didn't make a mistake there, it voted according to the order of broadcasting of the productions. We often keep the best for the end, but we forget to say that in these cases it's also the last one who speaks who's right... I let you consult the classification on the Pouet link.
To see:
- 64K: Pandora / Brain Control
- Amiga: Massive / Skarla
- 4K: Code is my pron / Nuance and D-Four Crtl-Alt-Test
The congratulated prize-winners and the distributed awards, the room seems empty already. Still one good beautiful demoparty, full of opening and nice meetings. Far from the misleading explanations of some people who have spoken about the apocalyptic conditions from Germans demoparties. We all keep a positive souvenir of this week-end. Only downside recurring music "garage-electro-my balls". To think that everybody listens more than that... It's definitely sad.
Sad! Sad! Sad! We have to leave the place :(
We cross the French frontier, now the air seems purer and the sun is shining undoubtedly better. :) We let ourselves be lulled by the gentle smooth ride of Barjack, who spends his time to eat Mentos and yells at drivers, distilling his advice on "assholes that slow down before being on the proper road", and it's legitimate, I thought ... (Next time, I will drive to the Reset Party in Normandy.) Return to Paris on Easter Monday should be a formality, is not counting on customs. Barjack really has a knack for attracting the "competent authorities". After being interrogated in good standing on our journey, our intentions and if we owned some cannabis, we continue joyfully until the famous Parisian traffic jam...
Beb/Vanity