, The List of Shame! In my undying quest to quench the foul odor of aging on my demo ratings, I find myself unable to re-evaluate quite a hefty number of productions - ever increasing as the years move on. In plain speak this means that, with the newest drivers for my 7800gt and XP, I get the figurative "blue screen of death" on the list below. These being the important ones, "the list of shame" would be thrice-fold as long, would I include everything that crashes, burns and misbehaves after a click over the *.exe. I consider these important works, so I'm somewhat baffled why demos like '2nd Floor' have to play "sleeping beauty", since well over five years. This is a call to to the groups responsible: You've spent weeks or even months of your life with creation, why discard it all like an unwanted stepchild? 3state: Melrose Space Cocoon: Synaps Haujobb: Discloned Cocoon&Syndrome: Shad 2 Incognita: 2nd Floor 3state: Anti-Money bbu+misc: Ernte 23 Aardbei: Please the Cookie Thing CNCD: Pornstar Haujobb: Unet Kolor: China Mandula: Liveevil Haujobb: Microstrange Wipe: Experimental Haujobb: 2001 Lunix: Leitmotiv Madwizards: PlanetLOOP I stumpled upon this fix for Kolor's 'Relais' just a few days ago: Download Hello Gang and Gangsters! Thought why let it all go to waste? It's bloody five years worth of lamenting about demos. Thought maybe scene.org might wanna have me. They did! I can only say it is an honor being on the same server that makes the very scene even possible. Ok, somehow you've stumpled in here...Thing is, I don't wanna announce my return without something to show for. So this still applies: Next review in the pipeline is "Bakkslide 7" (Out before the year ends) Dream of mine is to review 1998 and back. We'll see how it goes with my spare time in '09...Next update in two weeks or so... Wonderful news: shash/Collapse, has converted the seminal "Fulcrum" from Matrix to Windows XP! Download As previously outlined, the site has been on the backburner (even more than usual) because of my other writing activities. Well, no harm, no foul is what they say, isn't it? Now let's get crackin'. From the original review: "96 from Damage will be just as good in 2005 as it impressed me the first time I saw it." I've written this in 2000. In about three weeks, the prognosis comes full circle. (as you can see from the unaltered score) As a demo, 96 doesn't take itself very seriously. There are no great feats of technological prowress. No story to tell. As you watch, you'll be hard pressed to find any trace of trying to prove itself for whomever out there. There are no "tracks" leading sideways. Only the main statement, and even that is as softly "rendered" as the imagery itself. It starts easy enough. Left side: wireframe rings, right: some transparent cubes with rounded corners. Everything is sub- and emerging from an all consuming white background. Creates, if nothing else, a nice constrasty scene. The next part "houses" the poem, soft spoken, to go along with the marine blue, rose and violets. It also marks the entrance of the rather tragic, mostly inserted on the side, handdrawn (maybe) black artwork. Those are always fragmentary, with the background doubling as the w of the b&w . Sometimes letting things (of very simple geometry) run through them (screen 1) But by then the music has fully captured you. They might tell a tale of the false female image that modernity instills within man. Cross examine all that with the poem and see how far you are getting. The beginning sentence: "Still waiting for the promised one to descend upon me, to embrace, to abduct, to take me" Or not, and I am just thinking this into it. As I said the true beauty is the wide roaming field of interpretation, viable to everyone.It can state something, but you don't have it to. So in essence, when it comes smack down to it, my main preference for something good is, can it pull you in? Does it make you forget about your surroundings? It's not different from theater or a book. But by then the music has fully captured you. As always, not even diamonds are without flaws, and more often than not, lack of time (and or motivation) got the better of the creators. Case in point: the last part before the credits, where it gets messy and complex (see screen 4 for example) for no apparent reason, the basic idea straying from the successful clean cut look prior. Lastly, the final few sentences I devote to the astounding music from biotek+db, whose mild-mannered tongue click extravaganza, will go down as one of the most memorable and original demo tunes in history. (see 2000 awards section) There is nothing really quite like it. I think after some time of viewings it becomes very apparent that ultimately the whole visual section has only one function: the transportation device for the leading part of this play. (that is not to understate the supporting cast, mind you) Now this must come off as rather weird, but it is of importance. So concluding, I must add that there is one prerequisite necessary before watching: enough intuition. Remember this. Take your time, Let this gentleman guide you The full Booty: Graphics and Music of Yesteryear (2) I've expressed my disappointment over scene party music in the past years, several times. Now here is an idea, for anyone open to it: Why arent there any events, catering to quality musicians mainly, like the good old Music Contest around, anymore? Got anything interesting on the subject? I'm all ears. Here is part two, beginning with the music, like last time. dragonfly_[evokecut].mp3 from 187/PHANTASY 'D & B' with an edge. What's the edge? Variety. No idle feets with this one. noviy son.mp3 done by Oleg (agorka) feat. Nuta At first I was just scratching my chin, thinking that with an (russian) oral talent like that, what were they doing in a party compo? Having a good laugh at the expense of the other "song" entries? It is, after all a plague, however limited (thank God) that's making the rounds: Every odd guy who is a scene musician thinks he can sing too, marring the otherwise one or another interesting track. To get back at the subject at hand: I went over the mp3 info, and sure enough someone is making a living with this voice. Or is at least trying. nanotech_by_injektio.mp3 Even though it is listed as 'Drum and Bass', I would argue more in favor of hardcore breakbeat. Whatever the case, it starts nice enough but wallows in replay later on. rubberplastic_by_theodore Very impressive. The colors. The bump on the nose. The creative travelling of hair, suggesting a machine underneath. The fashion sense. The atmosphere. the_core_by_nek___quadra This would have made any metal 80ies band cover proud, back in the day. Zombies-Ate-My-Dealer crafted by Acryl Nothing more to say than: Fantastic. As we've come to expect from Acryl. I hope though he travels back to the less "gloss and glamorous" territory once in awhile, as seen in his "Viking Ship" recently. (archive 15) heeere_bunny_bunny from Darcy Yikes. This one is pretty creepy. I like the bunny especially. too_many_by_toukka Not your average looking hand-drawn, that is for certain. Looks like it comes right out of a Space Quest adventure set in the future, from the future. One of the best. junkie_by_nis To the point and effective. Nice work on the pose. nuclear_winter done by penpen The hair is so moody. A great 'the day after' inspired theme. possesed_priest_by_dfect Almost didn't make the cut, because I think this would have been better with less cartoony elements. As it stands, conveying the state of someone being possessed by whatever isn't easy to nail. But 'dfect', did just that. Larme from ? Quirky all around. It's about the touches. Feet in water, the swirling spiral (is that like saying a round sphere?) on the cat's head. Yeah, those make the difference. The full Booty: Graphics and Music of Yesteryear (1) All right, I promised you more music and graphics back in the stone age, so here it is! I was cleaning my 2004 directory anyway, so instead of just keeping it all to myself, I thought I'll share it. Doesn't cost me an arm and a leg, timewise (not unlike a review) so it's all good. Besides, I feel I'm pretty much the only one on the net that gives scene (party) musicians a break. That's probably because no one else bothers to cut through gigabytes of garbage just to come up with six (6) tracks. Welcome to this "multimedia" extravaganza two-parter. Can you dig it? Alumina by edzes of rebels.mp3 Pretty much flawless dance. Very high audio quality. Not the most creative track ever, but it will do. i_would_like_to_stay_up_late_by_kabbefett.mp3 Electric with rough cut vocal bits. Charming. Freshens things up nicely at half-time. 1,2,3,4 get your body on the floor, 5,6,7,8 I would like to stay up late. Fading Bloom by oxiroxt.ogg Just here for the singing, which resembles "Sisters of Mercy". Angel of Death by Razorback To do this justice you have to download the full size image. (which you should always do) Composition is cool. I like this. The falling feather is overdoing it, though. Watch out for the other from "Razorback", here. Tree on Acid by kustaa_fairlight Should be self explenatory. Good lighting and idea as well. Waiting by Razorback Collage. Guessing the background is a photo. Still, it builds a nice triangle with the head. Eerie. Sale from ? Good because the motive and pose is so far from conventional. Bwshit from xenusion There is a large amount of inspiration from romanticism paintings. Maybe too much. Or maybe not, depening on one's view Either way, it's well worth a look. Voodoochild done by ? Could have been on one of those graphics CD's from the mid 90ies. That's funky. twista sista permanent_by joil from planet hassers This has been done before, so to speak, but its individual touches like the sharing of cloth, that make this extraordinary. When I went over the original review (no point in calling it that, but what are you gonna do...) only one line catched my eye. I found it pretty accurate then and still do: Seeing Wonder for the first time is like tossing a coin in the air, you'll never know which side comes up. This is by and large a demo that did things differently, yet needs a thorough look to see that, because sometimes it doesn't stray too much from the tried and tested and often still as counter balance quite does. Now, let's leave the theory babble behind us, and take a look inside. Wonder starts with a bust of a woman, mouth wide open, and the logo taking turns in bouncing back and forth. The opener is quite interesting and promises that this could be the start of something special. On a peculiar note, I'm going to address that I'm weary of the constant barrage of nonsensical "pretties" in demos, (not as blatant in here, but still there) undermining most serious design efforts. Or worse, signalling, well you know what the demoscene is infamous for. Now I've written myself in a negative corner and I intent to come out swinging until the music critique with proverbial flowers. Here's two commentaries on visual examples. This one is what Wonder is all about. Doing the extraordinary with the ordinary. Boring figure A) is casting an outward moving shadow, leaving weaker trails of each incarnation. Also notice how the background is interestingly cut into into two segments, one fiery the other aquatic. All this, when it's in full effect is somewhat surprising because it feels awkward and looks intentionally unpolished. The sample used for audio synchronization whenever the shadow is cast outward only underlines this harshness. Potentially enhancing what's already there. Provided, of course, that one let's it in. The "newspaper" credits: Perhaps one of the best credits in the recent past. Layer upon layer of spiraled text (handles) mixed furiously with simple cylinders, highlight stripes and more. Hard to make any sense from it just reading about it, even harder to capture. Believe me I've tried, but this is the most pleasing screenshot I've gathered. One specialty of Sunflower's debut (along with the demo Zilog, from the same party) is that it finds a connection with demo traditions like the, in this case, good old tunnel. Here it's golden transparent and doesn't feel attached at all. The cool thing is its movement: Winding like snake. And you're its eyes. Muzak. This man did it: Virgill, now in the group Haujobb. I leave the abstruse melody critically untouched, mainly because I refuse to give a clear cut good, bad or inbetween this time. Why? For one you're never going to know what would've happened if someone decided to toss out the low-quality (if you're the profane type you can substitute that with a shit) samples and possibly altered the last third, which is one big loop. I'm not quite clear if 4 channels isn't a bit shortsighted either. All these points do become crystal clear once you strip the mod from the engaging and forgiving visuals. At first playing I could've sworn this is some sort of low-quality version, possibly originating originally (hmm) from the Amiga era. You can make the test for yourself at Demodulate, under the entry of Wonder, of course. All the "What If's" aside, the music is in the end a fit for the graphics. So, mission accomplished. No bonus, though. One of the earliest Open-GL demos ends like it started: With a face. Not that it matters in the grand scheme of God or anything, but isn't that Diana troy from Star Trek: Next Generation? The mother of all payoff's from being creative and simply doing your thing: Timelessness. Whether you watched this first in 1999 or 2004 is totally inconsequential. Demoscene gone wrong (1) This is it. Milk gone so sour, it turned yellow and passes as piss. But since there's always been people who swear on their pint of urine a day, who knows, it might be good for you too... MOUSE OVERDOSE by Kahvila & P3M. Now this golden shower might be a bit hard to swallow. What I do can tell you is that it excels in just about everything that's needed for being on this feature. So how the fuck are they supposed to be doing it? Firstly, they had a concept guy (for real) on this. Congratulations "Jim Jamaica", for getting your brain stuck in an acid loop, and being the tremendous help ye were! (pardon me while I laugh) There were a grand total of 3-4 on the modelling job. (pardon me while I laugh more) In summation, it's an adventure of a boxing kangaroo and a penguin having a really wild one in one awesomely poorly textured living room with a cow-couch and particles...But hey it doesn't stop there! Music sounds like "Rage Against The Machine". But someone in the Readme insists it is a total different band! The outrage! Finally, I'm not losing a single word over the artistic interpretation of a human FACE, as seen above. Looking back, I think this demo takes the fucked-up cookie over the years, for its sheer weirdness. Now all that's left is one jumbo-sized: Why? Kinderfasching by I have no clue (I really don't) The next one isn't really bad. Actually I like it for bringing "Mario" (the Italian plumper from Japan) up to speed on the laws of physics and realism. He gets a life, so to speak. Or is that simply yet another 1-UP? (that was clever, wasn't it?) Anyway, forget Havoc 2.0 and its correctly tipped over trash-cans in Half-Life 2. This is what would really happen if some fat bastard with a moustache like they got them in the YMCA video, were to shoot head-first into some brick wall at 100 mph! Awwooar, it hurts like a mother! Oh, I don't complain. Sure there's the very frequent bad demo, intro, mp3 whatever. Spread over a a full year in real-time it is manageable. But have you ever tried to get the good(s) out of a year worth of demoscene music in one run, listening to nothing else? Enter 1998. A nauseating process as the load of downright shit that's masquerading as mild crap is staggering. Anyhow, im doing this for the sake of my own harddrive, it's not supposed to be a hint that I'm putting the THS spin on this year, yet. Regarding that, and ever the old professor, I've done a bit o' research'n and checked out a recent build of DOSBOX, (see last update, archive 16) and it doesn't look too good at the moment. Probably not even a state-of-the-art CPU could smoothly emulate the demos I'd need, to give me self the go-ahead. No, it would have to be a Jim-Bob computer anyway, I'm targeting. Won't do us any good if only 5 out of 100 are able to watch what I review. Meaning we'll continue (almost) as planned. Bakkslide-7 is on indefinite hold. So review'ed next is "Wonder" and "96" from Sunflower and Damage, respectively. If you demo makers are reading this: I could do very well with comments, making of's etc. of your creations! And wait till you see the new feature here, which I've entitled boldly: Demoscene gone wrong! The brief story so far: Certainly in the top-tier of all-time great groups, their high output activity was 95/96. The Orange core consisted of Dune/music (nowadays goes by brothomstates) hoplite/code and derpiipo/gfx. Ibiza uses this exact arrangement. Previous titles like "Super Television", "Megablast" or the latter "The Secret Life of Mr. Black" did distinguish relatively easily from the competition: they did what others did not. Almost feverishly laced out digital masterpieces, that apart from the visionary element were also one heck of a thrill back then. And still are. After one gets past the initial posing, which I dont have any problem with as long as you can back it up with content, we move to the sub-sets of the demo. I don't do this because the deconstruction into its individual parts is the easy review root, but rather to make a point in the end. Starting with the work that stands out: In some instances derpiipo and hoplite stood but a bit in the shadow of dune in the past, but this time it's the graphician who takes the spotlight. In all honesty, I tried to think of a more ambitious artwork for a demo in recent history, but couldn't dig up any memories in the back of my head-closet. The crudeness of the sky, the religious theme (prophet with pupils) that goes lenghts not to fall into a mere theological mockery, the stilted smiles and indiffernt line of sight of the children - one might aswell walk into any museum with any old masters and see how cleverly this reflects baroque and warps it elaborately into 2000. There are other images used, (one I've dubbed as "Fallout Cowboys") which except for one, you won't see in its raw form. (unless you salvage the demo's archives) as Orange decided to put a little bit of movement into and around them. Motion trails, warps, kaleidosope effects - mixed with great care. My forecast: you will dig it. Music is odd. Not unlistenable, not bad, but odd. Unlike others, who like to pass on (or simply confuse) different = good, I most of the time try to imagine how suitable the used and b) a different audio approach would have been to the demo in review. Afterwards I then proceed to judge the music on its own. Composition foremost, samples (quality) and finally try to squezze my personal taste into there aswell. Made up of hip-hop, exp., electronic and rough but cool mixed vocal bits. (looped in the end ad nauseum) After all said and exe'd, it stays weird and ingenious. As far as replay value is concerned, I will acknowledge that after time it's beginning slowly to move in the direction I'd like it to. But heck, im probably extra sensitive, because dune laid the bar for himself so high over the years. Which doesn't imply that everything he touched went gold, either. > Now on to the graphics. 0 Polygons, 0 accelerated is the greeting credo. Let's see how that pans out. We've got particles. Not exaclty the exciting kind, either. Well the ones forming the logo were nice enough. The rest left me blurry and messy. Nothing to rant on forever, but on the other hand also nothing I would have done twice with minimal change, as it is the case. There are moments where you'll get your monopoly-online moneys worth in Orange's final (from the looks of it - I think this reunion of sorts only came to be because of a good dose of persuasion tactics of the katastro.fi people) demo. Among them is the inside lit, rotating sphere with said light pouring outside from crackles on the surface. Still all software, still all impressive. So is the morphing spike thing. Point for hoplite. Also in the money circle was the opener prerendered/movie "fuck up your rgb" clip edited creatively. Developer's Corner derpiipo aka kapteeni punaparta: "The reason why we had to do this demo is that we didn't quite like the demos we saw during all these years and we noticed that there is still some need for an orange demo!!! since we've always wanted to make a demo look good without 3d, and never really got that much respect on the bigscreen, this is a nice example what you really can do without that 3d engine and stuff... we hope it encourages people to do more demos and concentrate also to the fact that demos should be entertaining.. ELiTEGrouP, no offence but your demos suck!! who wants to see 3 3d scenes for 10 minutes with just camera- runs and shit like that.. respect for the nice textures, BUT!! its plain boring...peace, and i'm out see you in another orange demo" End Here we have a few bold hints about what they tried to accomplish. I'm withholding my "Kasparov" defense as this shouldn't end up as anal bbs style retaliation, but when taking a glance at the assets that come with Ibiza, it's safe to remark that one can create (much) better without 3D (if one wants to do that) than what is showcased here. Download no further than "2nd floor" (2000 awards. Caution: Xp might crash hard) or "metaform" (also 2000 awards) - both from the same year no less. The list is long and definitely doesnt work in favor of Ibiza. Voxel landscape. Is that retro by default? Must be, as I've seen that better back in the day. Forgive my ignorance, but I fail to see any related intent or purpose, other than to give a weary history lession. This irriatates me. Of all groups Orange decides to look back and not forward for their last demo. Color me aquamarine, grass-green and unimpressed. Now for the finale. Take all youve read so far, shove it into one of those big cement mixers and you'll get The Nonstop Ibiza Experience. It will mix sure enough. Expect that it simply doesn't add up. Hovering around the borderline of nostalgia and procreative try-out material, this potpourri won't make up its mind. But I did. After very recent comparisons on the lowest end of the 2000 awards, I've decided to add half a point, to amass a 6.0. The tilting of the scales in favor of this decision falls under derpiipo's responsibility. Someone got sentimental after their long break. Alleged diagnosis: oldskool parasitis. Most groups should be content with this result. On the Orange richter scala, this amounts to only a mild shake-up. Virhe by Maturefurk Originally from '99, they did this in 48 hours (which shows). I've not seen it until recently, because it was and still is a Voodoo only demo."Brucelex" sent me this glide wrapper some time ago, working all right with probably any D3D card out there. Don't fixate too much on the screenshot, this is the only really campy "artwork", I think. Models with lendsflares never did much for me. This demo is worth a look, as its an interesting display of V2-3 capabilities and the similarities to their follow up, and vastly better demo "Lapsus" only one year later. I wonder if Gautama would approve. Synonyms for psychedelic: consciousness-expanding, crazy, experimental, freaky, hallucinatory, hallucinogenic, kaleidoscopic, mind-bending, mind-blowing, mind-changing, mind-expanding, multi-colored, psychoactive, psychotomimetic, psychotropic, trippy. The group name Satori has a meaning: "Satori is the spiritual goal of Zen Buddhism. (in Chinese: wu.) Satori roughly translates into individual Enlightenment, or a flash of sudden awareness. Satori is as well an intuitive experience. A brief experience of Enlightenment is sometimes called Kensho. Semantically, Kensho and Satori have virtually the same meaning and are often used interchangeably. In discribing the Enlightenment of the Buddha and the patriarchs, however, it is customary to use the word Satori rather than Kensho, the term Satori implying a deeper experience. The feeling of Satori is that of infinite space." Yeah, I guess! Demos with a psychedelic motive simply build on the strength of mixing seemingly incompatible colors. And a boatload of them. That this can go beyond a glorified plasma romp is understood only since a few years. In that aspect the German group Apocalypse Inc. has probably left the biggest impression over the years. Leading the pack, "PSY-954" proves to be a runner with marathon qualities. Regardless, there isn't a whole lot of value besides the crash 'n' burn attitude in their demos. On the other side of the fence stands Incyber, bringing with ease alternation in the stale color-stew, that's been warmed up on too many times in recent time. Here is how: What you see to the left is a real sewing pattern. Associating was never easier! Ring any bells? It did mine after Incyber. Instead of a multidude of hues, we've got intersecting lines, creating "faces" on the fly - adding and subtracting color at will inside these. Or to put it simpler: pattern gone batshit - and in motion. The effect is startling and is amplified with really, really awkward color combinations - as any well behaved "psy" demonstration should have. So there is also enough for the traditionalist. (hippie) Not stopping there, there is stuff like a Buddha statue juggling nulls, a swell opener resembling the inner workings of something crystal, and what they do with fonts is extraordinary. No scratch that, some of the best scene font work ever, works better. I won't go into detail for everything as it would, providing you're an Incyber virgin, take away from this unique experience. (which it really is) On to the reverse side of a demo. Music comes in old fashioned XM from "Raiden" of Aural Planet and is on the compositional level very good, if a bit too predictable for the daring-doo effects. There is no denying that it has a dark swing to it, but not nearly wicked enough. It's hard to categorize, but I would try goa - only harder and faster. And now make way unconditional praise! As all is not as rose-colored as it looks. With convention buster I certainly did not mean this: Hoo-hey! Looks like a bad "Replay". Boring, unimaginative and uh.. take a look at the shot and figure it out yourself already. Continuing with the negative points: one scene is also slow, when it shouldn't be. That's on top of that another visual backburner, thankfully not as lasting as the garbage seen here. I like it for what this demo does different but the deficiencies don't add up to a 7.0 grade. At least for me as a reviewer the occasional drop in enthusiasm is clearly traceable. Convention buster I hate "making of's" on DVD's. I don't know what's worse: Spielberg's soaky armpits in some Tunisian desert for two hours, or the fact that I can't get the poor idiot in the rubber suit out of my head whenever I watch a Godzilla movie. In my opinion the whole concept is only getting interesting for something as abstract as a demo. As far as my few dev. corners go, this is definitely my finest yet. First the general info and then lots of anecdotes. Thank you for taking the time, Slyde. And now, take it away: Developer's Corner Slyde: "MHC in a lot of ways felt like the logical conclusion to the stuff we had been working on since our demo Louis Lane. We got a lot of the inspiration for Louis from TPOLM's TE-2RB and on Kkowboy we got some valuable input by working with the guys from Purple. Those two influences were still very much present in MHC, but we just thought we could take it one step further and that there was still unexplored potential in spline effects and flat-shaded geometry. Visually, the idea was to make it all more textured and dirty, and to give it more depth by adding layers while trying not to make it too cluttered. Also, we tried to make it flow a bit more like a music video, but that's something I wish we'd spent more time on. - The source material for the backgrounds was mostly our own photos and a very cool old telex manual that I found in a thrift store and kindly borrowed (the machine ifself was there too but I can't imagine anyone ever bought it). - Jaakko (MD) pretty much forced us to do a demo for his tune. Of course we have no regrets, it absolutely rocks. - The yellow fly-through scene in the beginning was one of the last things we did. I believe we decided something along the lines of "let's do a TE-2RB rip-off" when we couldn't think of any new ideas ourselves. - We worked on MHC over many months slowly distilling ideas, but only the last few weeks were really intense. - The credits scene was originally fully textured, but the colours didn't quite "work" so Stefan had to throw away his hard work. - The light beams were an original idea and are proper volumetric meshes whose brightness depends on the distance a ray travels through the volume (this means you can go inside the beams though we didn't think of that before it happened by accident). The textured scene is rendered with no overdraw using an s-buffer which is pretty neat in itself. - We spent a lot of time listening to the music to figure out which effect should go where. We didn't know in advance what order we wanted them in. - The name Moral Hard Candy comes from an incident in Stefan's family that I won't go further into. - Stefan and I have always had remarkably similar thoughts on colour and other design issues, though he's usually the one with the informed opinion and I'm just following my gut instinct. - Since MHC we have been doing various live visuals with www.effekts.dk (and with Alex 'statix' Evans on one occasion). I'm now in London working on a game (called Fable) and Stefan is studying design in Copenhagen. Jaakko is moving from London to Spain where he'll be living the good life. We wish him luck. - In case you wondered, So Like Candy is a song by Elvis Costello." End The swelling of the blue "stream" goes hand in hand with the music. It eventually reaches almost full-screen size and inevitably, and on the same time voluntary as the "take me away" suggests, sweeps you away. It is then, that one realizes how much thought went into this. Let's draw the curtain for this review. A curtain like effect is also with what it starts. Subtle vertical lines are revealing, alternating and very slowly, more and more of the scene. A fade-in (intro) and fade-out (ending, see screenshot 1 - I love that thing) that could hardly be any more atmospheric. As me move forward, I want to highlight a few examples and how they contribute to the excellency of the conceptual design, and why a lot of people copied these patterns in the following years and mostly fell on their asses. Iconography. Defined as pictorial illustration of a subject. Gets stale pretty fast, without a prober context or at least connection. The worst case I can think of in recent years are Chinese symbols or fonts. Even tough technically not icons, they can be substitutes, because almost no one is able to decipher them. Now what every dimwit did was slap some in, and thought he'd filled his design quota. Of course you can repeat this with about any other icon that stands alone and separated. Blasphemy, on the other hand went with a purpose. We have the up arrow sign and accordingly moving hexagons. This idea is extended into other areas as well. See screenshot 2 for example. Sounds all rather simple, and it actually is. But it's not the point how complex you can make it look like, rather how sound. Even more basic is the idea to take a photograph of walking people, let the music pronounce the footsteps and finalize it with a big flashing "Walking" right in front of it. It is downright amusing to realize how few is needed, if you've got a big pool of talent at your arsenal. When Slyde spoke of dirt, I can only think of this particular scene, which is in stark contrast to the very cleaned up look of the rest. The transparent yellow rings reveal underneath a picture with a lot of font garbage. The combination makes this indeed very distorted looking. Apart from that it does not do a whole lot else. It certainly did not distract enough from the perfected look of the other parts. As it is short, it does not hurt either. Also worth of note are the background images, which are constantly covered to a deegree. Nonetheless they are effective and show to what length the graphician went to ensure a "complete picture". Check out the Eskimo head (I guess?) in the "walking" part or the reliefs, (screenshot 2) which have a bit of a Mayan feel to them. (O.k, ever so slightly) All in all there is not a single moment wasted here, the effects still look very good five years later, which is a feat in itself. And a final remark to the graphics: To me it is a negative tendency to favor covering new ground (textures) over exploring the already advanced wire-frame aspect, which was an integral part prior. But I guess to insist on that argument would be like Britney Spears complaining about the lack of a private life. I remember this well from '99. Mostly because it was slow. I think I was as much surprised as Blasphemy, when the camera went into one of the light beams. Beautiful. And another good looking play with light. As the luminance for every dot increases, so does its size. Mellow-d. Stupid nickname, (later just MD) outstanding tracker. Typical electronic mixed with experimental of various strength is usually very agressive (Dune of Orange is a good example) and/or prone to repeat. As such, I value the calm but not passionless nature and repeat is simply not an issue. I doubt anyone will disagree with me, when I say that for every good MD track a whole world of its own is spinning out there. Kingsizebullmaster.xm has a lot of abrasive breaks. I think Blasphemy tried to capture the rough parts and its many tempo changes and weave this duality into the visual side, which fell a bit short. (screenshot 3 commentary) Nonetheless, this module has all the features of a superb MD track as the many in detail pronounced passages, which complement each other over (play)time, clearly show. Ultra deep bass, mediative intermezzi, hysterically lashing drums, the fantastic prelude, which is so subtle that it rivals wind playing in a chimney - all this and so much more in 32 channels. Anything else than honest, utter praise would be a lie. As this demo proves, there are many benefits of building from scratch around music and not the other way around, as is common. You can so much easier transport a feeling and nail a desired mood. I'd like to touch one more point of general concern. I've often wondered as reviewer why so many groups (and often good ones) don't build on previous works, and release demos/intros that are substantially weaker than previous efforts. Blasphemy on the other end can be seen as a prime example of taking experience with them into the next project. A 45° line in a chart of wireframes and flat-shading, moving on up from "Louis Lane" to "Kkowboy" to the final destination Moralhardcandy. A landmark in preperation, workmanship and (demo) design. Whatever you do: go for bullseye! A little status quo. My first review will be Blasphemy's "Moralhardcandy". I'm trying to explore this architectural, from top to bottom. After that we'll throw in some fresh meat (for this site). I'm thinking Orange, Satori and Hellcore & Omnicolor for starters. You can also expect more gfx and music inbetween. In the meantime, I cordially invite you to take a look at the past writings on my wall. Goodbye, mckracken.