### Crystal Ball Time! ### Or what we might be expecting from Sillyventure 2014? (Originally written from the perspective of 'around a month to go' but substantially added to, when we decided to go for the 2014 report too). Hi there folks. This article will be either something that's eerily accurate and 'dead on the money' when it comes to speculating on likely releases from this year's party. Or else it could be a sad joke, with no trace of the true facts whatsoever! In a foolish fit of undue confidence, I think we can avoid total humiliation. especially if we divide our speculation into things where we actually have a hot tip that something is coming from a given direction, and only later on go into vaguer speculation based on things like previous year's performance, people attending the party and so on. The other thing to bear in mind is that I'm generally Atari ST and Falcon biased. But any 8-bit news I get will go in too. Post party Note:- There are some additional notes with regard to how things actually went down. Some of these are eerily close, others not so much.. Pretty hot tips! We'll start with the one sure-fire 'delivered in person to the author at a big Easter demo party by an alcoholically enhanced coder' spoiler. This is Britelite, who told me that he fully intended to bring a fully original and not Amiga ported Falcon 060/CT6x demo to Sillyventure! Now I appreciate this was back in April. I hope nothing has happened since then to dent his resolve. I do see that he is down to attend the party in person, so chances of something there are pretty good. Thankfully, Britelite attended the party in person. He also had his demo with him. Even better, he was not the sole Falcon entry. Next up, we have the helpful assistance of someone who is close to the party organisers, but who will remain nameless. One of the things this person did was to fill in the rather large gap in my 8-Bit scene speculation. Demos or intro's are supposed to be forthcoming from the following 8-bit groups. These are A8, LaResistance, Agenda, Lamers, MEC, HTT, g0blinish, Desire, Altira, and Dream. There was still more, as he knew that someone from ABBUC works on an Atari demo too, and there is a BIG SURPRISE forthcoming. My source did not reveal any more, so I look forward to being surprised hugely! Providing all of these come off, about 11 demos are expected for the Atari XL/XE. If not, then there is plenty of redundancy, as even a lesser number would still provide a decent competition. Most of these arrived. I missed LaResistance and don't think ABBUG showed. I'm still unsure what the BIG SURPRISE was? The same nameless source also had some knowledge of what was going down on the Atari ST/STE side of things. I'd expect a stronger showing for the 'STE' model, bearing in mind its having a 25th birthday. We are expecting the return of a lot of crews who have been here before. Checkpoint, SPKR, MEC, Lamers, Hemoroids, UKKO (with a music disk?), Paradox, BlaBla, maybe tSCc (they started to work on their demo late). Which by a simple process of using the fingers on both hands to keep tally, gives us 8 or 9 demos or intros. Maybe some, like Checkpoint and Lamers last year, are feeling extra productive and will have more than one production? The source was having a forgetfulness fit, so there was at least another one in there. (Author's supplemental note:- It's nice to see a couple of the Atari 8-bit crews looking at having a go on the ST.) A lot of the expected players, but also a lot of omissions. No tSCc, or BlaBla, or the Hemoroids. Maybe they are keeping things back for the future. We did get a reappearence of Effect, so one addition we didn't pick up there. There was less information about the status of the Falcon 030/060, apart from the fact that this platform would be 'satisfied'. (Does that tie in with Britelite?) Arms waving wildly speculation! We move on to the wilder shores of speculation to consider others that have been left out so far. For example, we have Thadoss of Dune and Orion attending the party. Thadoss has been pretty reliable bringing some kind of game over for the Falcon. Orion could be here on his own behalf, or as representing Cerebral Vortex, which would increase the chances for another demo on the STE. (Or could he even quietly have another CT60 production in hand?! A whisper of memory suggests he has been coding further in that area previously.) Emphii of Extream may have something with him? Also, is this the year that Inter Developments make a conclusive return to the Falcon? Now this is the bit where we should have been keeping a closer eye on things. Demos abounded, great job for Emphii and Orion for the Falcon demos, and a totally happy and glorious surprise winning demo from Dune, Sector One and Cerebral Visions! There does not seem to be any Mystic Bytes names on the visitors list. Are they all hidden away as organisers? Are we to get a return from Sqward on the Falcon? Is Klocek coding afresh for the ST? Are we going to get a return from the Genesis Project? Last year's demo, a first time on the Atari ST was really 'elefantastic'! I'm not expecting too much here, but Baggio and Deez of Evolution/Mind Design are attending, so I wonder if they have any plans of their own? I tend to think of them as determinedly non-active, but if they are coming to Sillyventure, which is a temple of Atari demo activity, we can live in hope! As discussed in the report, our heroes above didn't really have anything. They had plans, but these did not come off. Still, something new from that direction may emerge at some point, we live in hope! Unlikely to see these! The mighty Dead Hackers, this is not really their party. They have been having a quiet spell lately as well. Whatever happened to Nerve? He had a couple of good demos which needed finishing touches, never seen as yet? Any new demo from Dune. Chuck was giving up on Atari for a while to concentrate on other projects. I guess it will take time to tempt him back in. That one sure answered itself! Earx's missing Falcon demo. He will be there with synthesisers, I guess. Heftig by Cream. Now you're getting silly! Yes, with a new Agent T entry to the graphics compo too! (And a new Tao multichannel SID player on the ST, you slay me CiH, hahahaha!) Reservoir Gods, Bunion Canyon Xtreme! Could be possible for Play Station 4, depends how much clout Mr Pink has at UbiSoft? A bit about missing prods Well there's the so far unseen Atari TT demo for SV 2012. A finished version of the Racer game from Thadoss would be cool? YES! - And how! We're awaiting a release of 'SToomph from those lovely tSCc guys. Bonus has his own timescale, so we're still awaiting BeGEMed? And finally, whatever happened to that fancy game and watch thing for the Atari ST from last year, that is supplying the intro graphics to this years party website? Yes, I'm talking about that thing! CiH - With a bit of help, 2014. Back to the Index.