★ DEMOSCENE ★ CPC IN THE YEAR 2011 THE TRADITIONAL REVIEW by Michael Kargas aka Optimus/Dirty minds ★ |
| Demoscene Review2011 |
The time has come for another article about the evolution of the CPC scene each passing year. I know my past article about 2010 is going to be released in the same Hugi issue so it's a nice introspection to read both of them at the same time and see what I was expecting or how things have moved on. I see that there might be fewer releases this year, overshadowed by a highlight that is monumental for the CPC and not only. I am of course talking about the release of Batman Forever, something unexpected considering what we were used to expect from even the good CPC demos. Maybe the release of this massive demo stunned all the good CPC groups for a while and we haven't seen anything released from the big teams except from Benediction that went into a hyperactivity releasing small demos at various demoparties. The demos I really enjoy talking about Batman Forever in blogs, articles and other sources. I have said that it's so good that sometimes it resembles an Amiga demo. The numbers of the dot effects in full screen is something you usually don't see in 8 bits. The zoomer and textured twister with the more vivid CPC palette could trick you into believing this is a 16 bit computer. The whole presentation is very trackmo style (in the true sense since loading is occuring from the disk during the whole demo) resembling the good Amiga demos. The vector animations are really in your face, overscan and smooth! You don't expect to see such animations in 8 bits, no matter if they are precalced and not real 3d as someone would expect, they still rock! And everything is there, effects, presentation, design, graphics, music in a perfect form. I might exaggerate with comparing this to Amiga, but let's say you were showing this to some guy and told him it is an AtariST demo. Bearing the same sound chip and the graphics being not much different, looking at the massiveness of effects one could say this is a good AtariST demo! I like to think this as a black swan effect, truly showing not only to the CPC scene what a CPC can really do but generally what more can we expect from 8 bits. It will be really interesting to see how this demo affects the rest of the scene. For once, we CPCers have finally our own Second Reality as a friend likes to say. Together with the attempt for CPC outreach from Push'n'Pop site, CPCers visiting modern demoparties, both of these events might effect the CPC scene positively by attracting newcomers. The effect was so positive that several sceners started being interested about the CPC and its technical capabilities. There were even some slightly heated discussions in various forums. It is to be expected when big things arrive and there is a lot of hype (justified) about them. Of course another reason for the fuzz was that the text writers of Batman Forever were teasing the C64 scene. I would add that it managed to pick on the CPC scene at the same time (epic) and very succesfully. Who would expect that one guy whose last demo was on Amiga more than 10 years ago would kick the asses of the whole scene with such a release. When Rhino came to the push'n'pop forum one and a half year ago claiming that he was writing a demo that can even beat the C64 demos it sounded a bit cocky and hard to believe. I was afraid this project would never see the light, remembering other less extreme projects that took 10 years to set free or are still in the works. But the miracle has happened! I'll just give you a link to this demo and let you watch it for yourself if you haven't done this yet. What else can I say about Batman Forever? If I started talking about every effect and every aspect of it then this would not be an article about CPC in 2011 but Batman Forever itself. In fact not many nice things were released except from an excessive activity from Benediction as I mentioned in the intro. First of all there was an unfinished demo from Benediction at the same party at which Batman Forever was released. I have seen the Benediction demo because the unfinished version was released at the Forever demoparty site before the link was removed and it is promising. Quite a nice trackmo that needs some more code and graphics. In that demo the zooming scroller effect was achieved (use of software rendering and hardware technique together), which is also a world's first and also appeared in Batman Forever (much better version). There are some other nice soft effects and a general direction to a multipart trackmo style. There might be a download link at CPC-Power site but I really hope I'll see the finished version soon. At the same Forever demoparty we had a few other cute releases, like Hello World by Frequency, which is their first demo on CPC, and my own 1k entry Springles, which is just ugly coder pr0n. Moving on with the tiny intro CPC releases I'd like to mention Barcatraz, which are great overscan vertical bars in just 256b. Last but not least 256 byte Overscan Megatext Intro, which is a vertical overscan raster scroller again in 256b only. The nice thing is that this intro was done from matahari, who is a newcomer from Turkey. I know that Turkey has a growing scene especially on PC and C64 and it would be really nice to see the new interest in CPC grow up too. I am curious how much the CPC computers have infiltrated the Turkish market in the past and if that computer was known there at all. So, I started talking about Benediction and went on talking about the other stuff. Ok, let's remember what I was about to say. Oh yes, Benediction. They also want to give lessons to the scene like the Batman group. First release was "Still the bests", which is a fullscreen overscan blocky rotozoomer in just 4k! It's a really good release even though the rotozoomer loses precision most of the time. For us enjoying pure coder pr0n even as a proof of concept this is an interesting release but it could disappoint other sceners. I say it's an excellent release considering the size limitations. At the same demoparty (which is Reset, the new Amstrad Expo) more Benediction demos were released. Les Experts - Coutances is a demo I quite like, bearing of a single screen, nicely designed with some lovely pixeled graphics and different shows of a single plasma effect (great changing palettes!). Interesting enough there was another unreleased entry in the competition results by Eliot, Rex and Voxfreax, which seems to be a music disk. Much later at Evoke demoparty we have a new Benediction release called Bloc Us! which is resembling more of a trackmo with different parts, mainly based on the improvement of the blocky rotozoomer routine from Still the Bests. There is a caleidoscope rotozoomer which doesn't look as good as the final big colored rotozoomer near the end. The texts consist of "cocky" messages to the CPC scene to wake up and do something :) Apparently only Benediction (apart from Batman group of course) did some nice stuff this year even though some of them where unfinished. I guess the big groups are more cautious on creating the perfectly polished demos and maybe release them after 10 years or something :). I personally like both styles, do whatever you can or wish, it's nice to see more CPC releases at demoparties sometimes even if not entirely finished and I am doing it too sometimes. I'd like to end with a little mention at less important releases like the Nyan Cat on CPC (I don't know why Krusty hates the Nyan Nyan so much and yet I can't say why I love it so much either :). Regrettably, I also took part in two demos designed by Sotsoft himself this year, Ra-pan-zeel and Zeeloxyl, which is slightly better. It was great fun to listen to Sotsoft's suggestions about what a ruling demo should be like and just provide the code(?) :). Sotsoft is a friend of mine originally from the Spectrum and also active on the CPC and I promise we will do more ruling stuff than the masterpieces here when I start a new C/assembly demo framework specifically for Sotsoft's commands (I got tired with line numbered basic code :P). Oh, you can see some of my old basic programs in the DSK from when I was 16 (in 1996) or something. Hilarious fun! XD The rest There were some nice releases in the game developing scene this year. First of all as a recent christmas present the Bubble Bobble remake for CPC was released by CNGSoft these last days of December. The attempt was to create a better version of Bubble Bobble with more proper colors and bigger sprites and gameplay more matching the original from the arcade, unlike the old commercial version of the game (which was still one of my favorite games in the past though). What is succeded here is a great game that apart from the technical supperiority is also very fun to play. There is finally the classic Bubble Bobble tune that was missing from the original version, improved sprites, bonuses that never existed on the original CPC game and various hidden extras. You can read more information and download the game at BB4CPC site. Second in the list of awesomeness is Edge Grinder for CPC. In the site Format Wars, which is an interesting site with friendly discussion and competition between different 8 bit systems, the first collaboration project was to recreate a shoot'em'up named Edge Grinder to your favourite platform. There was already a C64 version with smooth horizontal scrolling and thus someone had to take the opportunity to show up what his own computer can do. The result of all this is the very impressive Edge Grinder port on CPC from Paul Koistra, already known for his excellent work on CPC game developing (Star Sabre, Dead on time, Subhunter). This is really the first time I see smooth pixel perfect scrolling on CPC and all this with several sprites moving on the screen. The conversion from the C64 palette to the CPC color is great too. There are some great animated explosions. The game is a proof of concept, only one level where you have reach the very right of the level (it's harder than you think but possible). More information here. I am not sure if I am forgetting anything. I should mention the NoRecess CPC site, which is a 2011 event and started right in the second day of January. This is a great site from a former CPC demomaker with information about his releases, articles about the CPC (there is another article in there with interviews with people representing various countries about the CPC scene in their place at 2011), interviews and some very good resources and tutorials on CPC coding. No Recess is also the author of SDCC2Pasmo, which is a tool that has helped me to code on CPC with the use of SDCC but avoiding its strange assembly syntax. It converts the assembly generated from SDCC to Pasmo syntax, which more resembles of Maxam. I have been in contact with No Recess to correct some bugs in SDCC2Pasmo so that I can continue developing with these great tools and recently I have seen he released the SDCC2Pasmo sources on his website. There are some tutorials about using SDCC and his tools in the site, also two great tutorial about advanced memory usage and interrupts, something that is not only useful for newbies but also myself. I am always exstatic when new content is released on his site. Little last mention to a future event that was decided this year. An Amstrad megademo as a collaboration from various groups is being planned for ... 2014. That's right, it's the 30 years from the release of the first Amstrad CPC. You can find more information here. Another year gone... And so this article comes to an end. I am really hot about CPC but right now are my worst days in activity (when wasn't it?). I have left a Wolfenstein engine preview since the last year and I really, really want to work further with it, but it was that March of 2011 that I stopped working on it as I remember. I am also planning to maybe do something for the next Forever party as a remote entry and definitely I have to start working on my entry for the 30-years-megademo event (well 2014 is far enough but we CPCers are lazier :P). I said I have an interest for CPC game developing too, something that I almost haven't started, so who knows how things will go on with my life that affects my motivation, who knows if I can relieve the old creative flame into something that will make your CPC fly? I really wish this more than you do. I just have to find the window of opportunity, the flow of creativity. Till then, enjoy your CPC, because eleven years have past since I first started writing these article series and the damn beast is still alive. HUGI diskmag by optimus/dirty minds
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