                         Sillyventure 2013 - reviews round-up

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     \ \\    \\              ATARI ST/STE 96KB INTRO COMPO             \\    \\ \
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One Trick Pony (4kb) - RNO There were no surprises from Rave Noise Overscan here. Many signature effects from previous releases were present, including the famous shaded vertical twister, along with various themes of raster bars and keftales. The difference is, that they have managed to squash a decent 64KB's worth down into 4KB, with a tune too! We were certainly impressed with the technical feats involved, but perhaps it is time that RNO did something new for the next one. Rating:- 80% - We have seen this all before, but kudos due for 4K and good presentation skills. Return - Hemoroids As well as established active people and newcomers, Sillyventure 2013 also saw the welcome return of a legendary crew who had been away for a long long time. The Hemoroids were among the stars of the mid-nineties Atari ST demo scene, but lost and out of site until now. 'Return' does pretty much as stated on the label. A series of established effects, a lot of greetings and some ace still pictures are all included in this intro. Hemoroids promise there is something bigger on the way. We sincerely hope so! In the meantime, the entertainment on offer is not too demanding and quietly enjoyable. Rating:- 75% - A blast from the past. Unreversable - MEC After the something old, we have something new. Masters of Electric City, who are new to the ST, impress us with something very dear to this author's heart. Yes, it's a real ASCII demo on the ST! Not like those horrible fake efforts a few years ago which we will draw a veil over (cough!) More accurately, you could describe this as the equivalent of the PC ANSI textmode demos for the Atari. Which is impressive as Atari does not have a graphical textmode unless you make one from scratch. So we get some textual plasmas and wibbly effects, twisting raster bars etc, and it seems to work. Also a harsh soundchip tune suits the mood too. Rating:- 72% - Not everyone's cup of hot leafy drink, but I liked it a lot. FirSTro - Lamers They've been busy on the Falcon, and managed to make this intro on the ST. There's nothing spectacular going on here, a series of stock effects and determinedly oldschool presentation, but on the other hand, nothing wrong here either. Like their Falcon demo, this is a beginning, with them going on to bigger and better future releases. This would qualify for a motivational thumb. Rating:- 60% - Nothing fantastic, but well put together.
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     \ \\    \\                 ATARI ST/STE DEMO COMPO                \\    \\ \
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Second Reality 2013 - Checkpoint The nicotine stained kid from Dresden stole the party, again! Defjam, or lsl had done a great job of building up anticipation when we were at the party. He casually mentioned this was not a new edition of Suretrip. This is still being made. It was not until the opening chords of Purple Motion through a DMA-SC filter echo around the party hall, that we realise what he'd done. Only gone and bloody well ported a 95% perfect version of the classic PeeCee demo, Second Reality to a standard 1MB Atari ST! I'd had some feelings and memories of this demo. Back in 1993, when the Falcon was young and the PeeCee was just stretching itself as a dominant platform, this demo came along. It demanded a lot of PeeCee, high spec 486 and a fancy soundcard called a 'Gus'. But it gave you a lot of 'wow!' in return. The feeling amongst us Falcon owners was that this could be done, with care, on the Falcon. Of course no-one did, preferring understandably to concentrate on original works. A long time later, in 2013, this demo needs but a standard amount of STFM, with a fancy soundcard called 'YM'! As for the demo itself, it is almost all there. I'd nitpick a tiny bit to comment that the TIE fighter is missing from the final fly-through and there are some issues with the duration of some parts, but hell, what a way to smash the party! I'm really hoping Defjam/lsl has got something special for this year. Rating:- 90% - Atari-perfect conversion of a PeCee legend! Elefantastic - Genesis Project After the blood and thunder of Second Reality 2013, comes a complete mood change, courtesy of yet more newcomers to the Atari ST. ElefantaSTic comes from the creative abilities of the team behind the veteran C64 group, Genesis Project. As a first release on the ST, it manages to completely avoid any first prod roughness. It can be summed up as possibly the ultimate 'cute' demo for the ST, with the technical side subordinate to superb design, animation and thematic skills. Oh, and elephants. Who doesn't love elephants? It seems that this demo managed to attract even more plaudits and love from the scene than any other release from Sillyventure 2013. And why not! Rating:- 91% - Just edges Second Reality 2013 in terms of overall impact, especially as a first time for the platform. MonogAtari - Cerebal Vortex For the third placed production, a more unusual limit was smashed. This time it was the screen mode known as 'mono' on the Atari ST. A 640 x 400 and one bitplane screen, choice of black and white, little used for demos apart from some scrolly rolling prototypes back from the early days of the scene. ST News was still on paper back then, with disk boxes for goal posts and all that. Cerebral Vortex have taken it on themselves to fill the twenty five year plus gap for top quality mono screen demos with this production. They do not disappoint, with crisp and sharp effects reminiscent of the more abstract stark black and white animated GIFs currently doing the rounds. There are some technical limits broken, with an appearance of four colours or shades onscreen later on. Overall, a very satisfying experience, our hunger for mono demo thrills has been satisfied for the next quarter of a century. Or is there someone else with big plans for this neglected screen mode? Rating:- 85% - Dared to do something new with the most '1985' part of the Atari ST! STrange roboTS - BlaBla^Mandarine Here's a welcome return from the master of hyper high colour effects on the ST, Cyg of BlaBla! For those of you familiar with his works, there is not too much more to add. He's opted for a 1930's sci-fi pulp style for this production. There's a clearer and crisper feel to this one. The effects are moving up a level in complexity (nice rotozoom near the start) better direction, so this demo was better received than the clown-based mayhem that I delivered to Revision 2013. I'd like to see where he's going next. Rating:- 88% - Another welcome look at the world of highcolour effects on the ST. Fujiology - tSCc Eerily echoing what the Hemeroids did in the intros section, another famous name from Atari demos past makes a welcome return. The Sirius Cybernetics Corp (tSCc) have 'insanely' gulped down some fresh coding blood and make a return to demo making with this solid effort. The tSCc trademarks of high quality effects (an interlace mode got in there?) and polished implementation shine through and provide a solid link to their illustrious past works. There is a nice tunnel which looks like it could become a gane? I certainly hope there is more to come from the reborn tSCc. Rating:- 80% - Solid effort, up against some major competition. SPKR2 - SPKR Sixth place was held by a new face on the Atari scene, who started off in a humble fashion at an Outline party. So this is that 'difficult' second demo. This is decidedly oldschool in approach, but niftily executed with SPKR finding his way around assembly language. There is a more polished look than the rough and ready first demo. I'm sure there is more to come. Rating:- 70% - Nothing original, but getting better all the time. It's A Girl 2 - Paradox And finally, our favourite makers of last minute releases with an undeserved last place, Paradox choose to celebrate the birth of 505's daughter with this charming little work. The last place belies the effort that went into this demo of course. The three cubes making up 'dad' and '505' are proper texture mapped cubes, there were several STE only techniques used in making this little demo. I get the feeling that Paradox have got the STE really taped and will hit us sometime with a real killer demo. Rating:- 80% - Deserved a better placing, but a crowded competition. I don't say that like it's a bad thing of course.
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     \ \\    \\              ATARI FALCON 030 DEMO COMPO               \\    \\ \
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In2ition - Mystic Bytes This entry, mostly from the hands of Sqward, was a welcome return to the Mystic Bytes roots, namely the Atari Falcon. This favourite computer has been neglected demowise, of late, and this shows in this prod. The effects are sparse, if top notch. I get the sense of people relearning on the job here. The sound track and the solitary still graphic in the middle really raise the level to include the very best possible on the Falcon. We really could have done with a couple more effects, preferably some hardcore DSP coded 3D stuff, to make this a perfect welcome back demo. Rating:- 75% - Felt over before it started, but lifted by the superb graphics and sound. Too Silly 2 - Lamers The second entry to the Falcon demo compo was also on the short side. However, this had the logic of being a debut effort from a group new to the Falcon. Lamers managed to pull off an intro sized release, which could be plonked down in 1994 without anyone complaining. From the complex wireframe vectors, through to the acid 'wob' soundtrack this is an enjoyable ice cold glass of nostalgic recollections. Of course they say they will return next year with a better demo. We certainly hope they can follow up this worthy debut. Rating:- 65% - Short and sweet, but a good start on the Falcon.
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     \ \\    \\                ATARI JAGUAR DEMO COMPO                 \\    \\ \
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J_ - Checkpoint. Quite apart from blowing away the ST part of the competitions, Defjam managed to make a nifty 'preview' (his description) of a Jaguar demo. This owes little, owes NOTHING to any school of design, but manages to feature some cool manipulation of the Jaguar, with marching cubes, a texture mapped tunnel, and something that looks like an MRI scan of a hip-bone to finish with. This was the stand-out Atari Jaguar production, for a party dedicated to the Jaguar. A special mention goes to a music player that takes a straight YM soundchip tune, and makes it sound softer and nicer. The even better news is that he's done more with the Jaguar since, and I'm sure there are greater things to come. Rating:- 80% - For a preview, a damn fine effort. Pictures of Atarian Grey - Offscreen Wide and HERO - VladR Compared with Checkpoint's effort, described above. These were fillers by comparison. To be fair, they were not entered as anything else. Unfortunately, memory does not recall too much of these two demos, and there seems to be no recorded video to boost failing brain cells. Rating:- Not really applicable. CiH - 2014 Back to the Index.