Hugi Magazine 32: Say It With Flowers

Prologue.

Where can we, as loyal, passionate sceners, get our core scenish needs fulfilled Anno Domini 2006? In a huge, half empty hall dominated by persons who have nothing to do with demos and only play games? I don't think so! For a scene party, it takes time to establish and symbolize a good name for themselves. The Breakpoint organization crews have done a great job in realizing a scene party which brings back the scenish flavour, the old skool atmosphere during a long Easter weekend.

The organizers have connections with a lot of (the better) scenegroups, which makes chances of releases by those groups at Breakpoint a real possibility. With the last editions of Breakpoint the organizers built a great name for a scene party. This means we are most certainly in for a real hangover.. What can a person write about Breakpoint that hasn't been said before?

What can be written that could be of interest? Most sceners have visited Breakpoint at least once in their scene lives and know how it all works. Who hasn't experienced the Breakpoint sensation? Easter weekend arrived anyway in 2006 and sceners around the globe united, they returned home to Bingen am Rhein for their Breakpoint party.

And so WVL of Xenon (coder on C=64), Decompracid (female graphician on C=64) and myself found themselves in a car driving to Breakpoint 2006. The doors to the main area opened a little late at abound 17:00, but then it was finally time to party!

Breakpoint shapes the scene!

It's really interesting how the Breakpoint party, for a part, shapes the scene. The organization crew consisting of Vacuum, Farbrausch & friends are doing a good job. They rented a sports hall and invited sceners to bring their own content for their own party. In fact, Farbrauch made a demo making utility called Werkkzeug, and some sceners create demos with it to release them at Breakpoint ;-) (Can you see the irony?)

The Breakpoint 2006 concept about fighting for your scene spirit and the rumble in the jungle was nicely executed. The party invitation, the opening at Breakpoint, the graphical design on the bigscreen. My compliments to the Breakpoint organization team! If you look at the bigger picture as a whole, Breakpoint keeps the scene breathing.

Though the content (releases) are made by mostly sceners who have been around for a long, long time, the Breakpoint party is, perhaps, the motivation, the platform to get the attention deserved, to still make something and release it.

Time to party.....

I met a lot of nice sceners: Ghandy/Scarab, Smash/FLT, the lovely scene couple Bonzaj & Kinga, Strife from Norway, who I gladly united with Hakon/Whelpz. Axel of Brainstorm, who left his wife Patsy at home. Slummy of Spaceballs, fei and his lovely wife. Azarro, who was more drunk than sober ;-) My scene friend WFL/Xenon from whom I caught a ride to Breakpoint.

WFL/Xenon also won the 96k game competition with Pinball Dreams on the good old Commodore 64. The IRIS amiga crew. (Darkhawk of Iris finally got his beer from me.) But also the usual groups like: Ephidrena, Loonies, MFX, Farbrausch, The Black Lotus, Conspiracy, Fairlight, TRSI, Synesthetics, ASD, Nuance, Rebels, Traction, Limp Ninja, Scoopex, Calodox and all the other groups, too many to mention in this party report.

I had a nice time meeting a lot of nice sceners, some of whom I hadn't seen for a long, long time. For example Ghandy of Scarab, whom I had last seen at The Party 1995, while some of the Polish sceners (e.g. Bonzaj/Plastic) present had seen me last at the Satellite 1999 party. It was nice finally meeting Kalms of The Black Lotus, we had cooperated on some articles in the past and he had supported some Nah-kolor demos on Amiga in the second half of the 90's.

It was nice to meet some of the Madwizards members as well, although throughout various conversations it became clear to me Madwizards would be inactive from now on. Some members got jobs, started families, moved out of Poland. I hope they can integrate their demo making hobby in their new lives, because I would really like to see a new demo from them at Breakpoint 2007. As far as I know, I was the only staff member of Hugi present at Breakpoint 2006.

It was funny to see an advertisement for Pain diskmagazine on the big screen. It has been a while since their last issue, so I hope a new Pain will be released soon. Not many PC diskmags have been released in 2006 yet.

I spent a lot of time with Bonzaj/Plastic and some other Polish sceners. It was very nice to talk with them because of my Polish background (Nah-kolor is, from origin, a Polish demo group). It was weird that Bonzaj wanted to drink a bottle of alcohol and didn't want to watch the PC demo competition while I was sitting next to his girlfriend. But the first entries weren't that good, and then he came anyway.

Buzka to Kinga and Bonzaj ;-) After I entered the Moonstone PC demo for the competition, I heard that Mr. Acryl of Anadune who coded the demo selected the very last minute he would also enter Breakpoint 2006. However, he then found out he didn't have a valid passport and would not go. Pity. So I urged him for Breakpoint 2007 to get a new passport now!! ;-) I want to say sorry to Dreamer/Nah-kolor that I called him from the party place while he was asleep ;) But I think he didn't mind that much. Hehe ;-)

I talked with too many sceners to write about everything here in this report, but it was a fun experience to go to a scene party again. My scene spirit was saved ;-)

Summing Up

No doubt, when it comes to demo scene only parties, the Breakpoint staff have the leading team. The organising worked out so smooth that one can really say they brought it close to perfection. As usual, the mood among the visitors was absolutely stunning.

A friendly and relaxed atmosphere, celebrations in- and outside and organisers who, despite all horror, work and hectic, did not forget about their own party feeling, made it my second favourite party. A long time ago, when I was still a kid, I attended The Party 1994, which has been my absolute favourite ever since! But now it's only slightly in the lead 8) Maybe you have been at The Gathering. Maybe you will visit The Assembly. Me, I have been at Breakpoint 2006, and I really pity those who haven't been there. You don't know what you have missed. (And that may be just the problem, otherwise you would have been there now uh? ;-)

At the end of Breakpoint 2006, after the awards ceremony, the announcement was made that in 2007, the Breakpoint party will be held again. Great! I bet sceners from all over the globe will attend again, leaving their family, work, home, wife or girlfriend (some actually take them along) or usual social surroundings behind to support their passion for the scene for about four days and enter Breakpoint 2007! The question as always will be: Will the content, the entries in the competitions be of a high standard as usual?

To find out the answer is simple: Be there!

And then, the car with WVL/Xenon, Decompracid and Magic/Nah-kolor drove home after a long weekend without much sleep, but in a good mood. WVL won the 96k game competition with his Pinball Dreams Preview on the C=64. Decompracid got 3rd place in the C=64 gfx competition. And Moonstone got 5th place in the PC demo competition. Not bad for a Dutch car with 3 Dutch sceners in it.