Strange Days by Venture (screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
Review of Strange Days by Venture for the Amiga 1200/4000
Introduction
Back in the year of 1996, a demo party called Intel Outside 3 (catchy name!) was arranged in Warsaw, Poland. The gathering was organized by a group called Union and roughly 800 people attended the event. Quite a good turn-out if you ask me! It’s worth mentioning that this was the first time PC users were welcome to participate at an Intel Outside party, as earlier editions were Amiga orientated.
The demo we’re going to look at today is called Strange Days. It was developed by Venture, a Polish demo group, and released at the party mentioned above. The winner of the competition was Muscles (legendary demo!) by Impulse, with Embraced by Floppy trailing just behind. Strange Days captured the third place.
I actually wrote a review of this demo for another website many years ago. Thought I’d watch the demo again and write a new review.
The credits for this demo is as follows:
Noster (programming)
Pippen (programming)
Korbatz (graphics)
Majkel (graphics)
Wierza (music)
Requirements
This demo requires an Amiga 1200 or 4000 with at least 4MB of Fast-RAM and a hard drive.
Strange Days
One thing I like about Venture is that their demos have a unique and special style. Often they had an opinion about a subject that they wanted to share with the viewers. This could for example be about politics, war or drugs. This made them stand out from the crowd. Strange Days is no exception, as it contains an anti-war message. They shed light on all the cruelty and the devastating conflicts that are taking place on our planet. Another example is Fallen Angels, which (if I remember correctly), is about the dangers of drug-abuse.
The first part of the demo contains a home-made black and white video by Venture that shows people fighting. Viewer discretion is advised. First you’ll see a car arriving at a desolated area and two guys jumping out of the vehicle. They open the trunk and pull out a poor guy that gets his ass kicked. He then tries to run, but they catch him and.. I will not write more about it, but it’s not fun to watch and fortunately it is just acting. It just seems more real with regular people and the black and white footage.
Screenshot from the video showing a guy lifeless on the ground (screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
After the video is finished, the main part of the demo starts. It contains many texture-mapped 3D effects with various shadings applied. Some of these are a bit slow on a 68030 CPU, so a better CPU (or WinUAE) might be in order to get the most out of the presentation. You’ll also see images that characterizes the evil in our world.
(screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
(screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
(screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
(screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
The music in the background is rough and heavy and fits the design and idea of the demo. It works well with what is being shown on the screen. Everything you’ll see is synced with the music, which makes watching Strange Days a smooth ride. It is clear, when you watch it for the first time, that a lot of work, effort and thought have gone into this production. It is clear, though, that this isn’t a demo to run if you’re looking for something to cheer you up. It’s a demo that reminds you of how our world is and how cruel humans can be to each other.
Summary
In my opinion, there is nothing really wrong about this demo. It has an interesting theme, contains many cool effects and provides you with good music. The effects could be optimized to run better on slower CPU’s, but that is of course easy to say so many years after. After all, many people claimed that the Amiga couldn’t handle such kind of effects to begin with..
Strange Days is not your average demo, but it is an interesting one. definitely worth watching!
Review of Drammen Party Report by Crusaders for the Amiga 500
Introduction
This review is not about an ordinary demo, but of a slide-show that was created by a group that called themselves Crusaders. It was released way back in 1990, over 20 years ago!
The slide-show was a direct response to the Police raiding a copy-party in the city Drammen the same year.
Guys from Crusaders looking forward to have a good time amongst fellow Sceners (screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
Before we start looking at the slide-show, let’s have a quick peek at the credits:
Dr. Claw (intro) (programming)
Switchblade (programming)
Gunders (graphics)
Zeb (graphics)
Dr. Awesome (music)
Dr. Outtasight (text)
Requirements
No special requirements. I think it works on most configs. Please give me a sign if it doesn’t. A regular Amiga 500 should be fine.
Cryptoburners, IT and Visual Arts Party 1990
The party started on the 7th of April in 1990 and it was arranged by three Norwegian demo groups, namely IT, Cryptoburners and Visual Arts. The location was a school in Drammen, Norway. It was supposed to be the biggest gathering of Amiga freaks in the country at the time, but things didn’t turn out that way, since the Police decided to launch a raid against the party.
I’ve taken a screenshot of a text in the slide-show that shows Crusaders views on what happened:
Crusaders providing you with an insight into what happened (screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
As you can see from the story, the Police didn’t really know what they were doing.
They probably confiscated quite a few games, but they also took away stuff that people had spent a lot of time working on. Many of those attending were members of the Demoscene and spent their time drawing pixel-art, programming, writing articles and making music. The Police took their work with them as evidence and I guess a lot of interesting art disappeared at that moment.
With this slide-show, Crusaders wants to show us what went on during the razzia. I’ve taken a few screenshots for you to see:
The cops are coming! (Screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
Desperate Amiga users packing up stuff (Screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
The raiding starts (Screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
Local Police (Screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
The guy on the right is not very popular at the party place (Screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
Lot’s of people outside the school (Screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
I’ll let the picture speak for itself (Screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
Summary
I think this slide-show represents an important piece of computing history. The production is well made, the pictures are of good quality and the humour is nice. This demo takes you on a journey back in time, to a society without the Internet and The Pirate Bay.. to a place where people traded demos, games and programs through snail-mail and met each other at copy-parties a few times a year. Definitely worth watching in my opinion.
Pixel art: Response by Avalon – logo by Typhoon (screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
Review of Response by Avalon for the Amiga 1200/4000
Introduction
I wrote a review of this demo back in 2006 for another website. Today I’m revisiting this classic production to write an updated review. Hope you’ll like it!
Response was Avalon’s contribution to the Amiga demo competition at The Gathering 1995 in Norway. It was only beaten by Deep from Parallax and CNCD, which is a very nice demo. It’s worth mentioning that Avalon competed with groups like The Black Lotus, Gods and Subacid in the compo.
The guys behind Response are as follows:
Aragorn (programming)
Equex (programming)
Typhoon (graphics)
Cujo (ray tracing)
Typhoon (music)
Credits (screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
The whole team came from Norway.
It’s impressive that Typhoon composed the music AND created the graphics. Must have been a lot of work!
Requirements
The configuration needed for this demo is simply an Amiga 1200 or an Amiga 4000. No need for any extras at all. You can run the demo from a floppy disk or from a hard drive. For WinUAE users, I recommend getting a DMS or ADF version of the demo, so that you can watch it with a minimum of hassle.
Response
The first thing you’ll notice when watching this demo is quality of the design. It’s awesome! To me it looks like the guys in Avalon spent months and months of fine-tuning and working their asses off to make everything blend well together. Everything you see on the screen is perfectly synchronized to the music. This makes it a beauty to watch. From start to finish, the same style of graphics and music meets you screen after screen. I believe the word “coherent” is appropriate to use here.
Swirling cube (screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
Ray tracing by Cujo (screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
As usual in demo, there are a lot of effects to watch. Response contains everything from the usual texture-mapped cubes (with great pixled textures!) to a plane flying over a landscape. There is one effect I’d like to mention specifically though, since it really caught my eye. I’ve included a picture of it here, so that you can see how it looks for yourself. It does look a lot better in real-time of course.
Cool carpet-effect (screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
As you can see, there is a red ball in the center of the screen. A wire frame carpet falls down onto the ball and it reacts with real world physics. Outstanding! The cool thing is that the carpet changes its appearance after its collision with the ball. It’s fun to watch and looks pretty realistic. It’s safe to say that this is my favourite routine in the demo.
Apart from the neat looking design and the effects, there are some cool pixel art to see as well. Have a look below and you’ll see what I mean:
Scary beast! (screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
Animal (screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
Great work by Typhoon, isn’t it?
The music in this demo is good. I don’t think it is a tune that I would listen to a lot on its own (perhaps from time to time), but it works perfectly with the demo and that is the most important thing. It’s very atmospheric and can clearly be categorized as demo music.
Verdict
Avalon did a great job with this demo, no doubt about that. With some more technically impressive effects, this demo could have won the Amiga demo compo at The Gathering 1995. The best thing about this production is the design. It’s incredibly well made. Everything you see and hear fits together like a hand in a glove. Excellent stuff. Hope you’ll enjoy the demo, I know I did.
A picture by Grid of Freezers from the demo Lech (screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
Review of Lech by Freezers for the Amiga 1200/4000
Introduction
Today we’re going to have a look at a demo from a Polish group called Freezers. It is called Lech and was released at the Eastern Conference Party in Bialystok (Poland) in 1995. The demo won the competition at the event, beating productions like Moments by Old Bulls and Boom Boom by Flying Cows Inc.
Freezers logo by Freeman of Freezers (screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
For those of you who are interested in beer, it is worth noting that the demo is named after Lech Premium, a Polish beer.
Freezers used to be quite active on the Amiga demo scene back in the middle of the 1990′s. With productions like Dreamwalker (music disk) and Wit Premium (demo), they built up a solid reputation among Amiga enthusiasts.
Let’s have a quick look at the credits before we move on:
Sputnik (programming)
Freeman (graphics)
Grid (graphics)
Bethoven (music)
Requirements
The minimum requirements for Lech is a vanilla Amiga 1200. No need for extra memory or a more powerful CPU than the 68020. The demo takes up under 600 KB’s of space and will therefore fit on one floppy disk. I’d like to point out that the demo works well with beefier configurations as well. I haven’t experienced any compatibility problems so far.
The World of Lech
Neat cityscape from Lech by Freezers (screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
The first seconds of the demo is quite calm and relaxing, but you can sense that it won’t last long. After the logos have been presented, the music picks up in speed and a nice cityscape appears on the screen. You are literally taken for a ride among the buildings, back and forth and sideways. Displayed at the top and bottom of the screen is the credits. The effect features a sunrise-themed background.
After the cityscape, you’ll get to see a few rotating 3D objects. One of these features gourad shading and looks very nice. There is also a texture-mapped object with a light source floating around it. The effects look good on my 68030 configuration.
Doom-like maze (screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
Suddenly the music changes its tone and becomes a bit more mysterious.. You are then presented with a smooth Doom-like maze with full texture-mapping. The camera moves around the maze until it decides to try one of the exits. A bouncing ball appears in perfect synchronization with the music. It looks very cool. Speaking of synchronization.. this demo might not contain the most technical advanced effects, but the design is nicely done. The way what is happening on the screen is synced to the music makes it enjoyable and thrilling to watch.
Pixel-art from Lech by Freezers (screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
Anyway, after the ball-effect is done you find yourself back in the maze. This time the camera leaves through another exit and a pixled image of a woman appears on the screen. I must say that the picture looks good and it must have taken the artist quite some time to draw it. The image is followed by two effects, were the latter is a rotating object with a plasma-effect covering the different sides. Brilliant! This is something I’d like to see in more demos.
Nice! (screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
Once again the music changes and you enter a new cityscape, but this time it’s foggy. The effect looks OK enough, but it’s the music that does it for me. Bethoven manages to calm you a bit down with this music, until it takes off again. A gigantic torus fills the screen, rotating around, and suddenly you find yourself inside it. Not the coolest effects in the demo, but serves its purpose. The demo then ends and some people might say “too soon!”, since they want to see more.
Verdict
I really like this demo. It contains a wide variation of effects; two cityscapes, a Doom-like maze, rotating 3D objects and a lot more. The rotating plasma-object is my personal favourite. The best thing about Lech, however, is the combination of music and eye candy. Freezers have synchronized everything that’s happening on the screen with the tune in the background and the result is very, very good. Since the music is speedy, the demo is speedy. It is safe to say that you won’t fall asleep over your keyboard, since the effects and pictures are changing at a rapid pace.
The End (screenshot by Old School Game Blog)
My verdict? Awesome demo, a must see on your Amiga (or through emulation). I think it has some bugs when viewed with WinUAE, so a real Amiga is your best bet.
This demo takes you on a journey back in time, to a society without the Internet and The Pirate Bay.. to a place where people traded demos, games and programs through snail-mail and met each other at copy-parties a few times a year. Definitely worth watching in my opinion. 
