Special: The Best Of The 2009 Demoscene, Part 1 - Demos
[In the latest of an occasional series of demoscene-related posts on GameSetWatch before, AteBit's Paul 'EvilPaul' Grenfell presents a multi-part retrospective on 2009's best demos - starting out with the top ten real-time PC demos of the year.]
Over the next few weeks I'm going to be taking a look back at what the still vibrant demoscene gave us in 2009. I've searched through the hundreds of productions relased last year and rounded up my favourites into six categories: Demo, 64k, 4k, Oldschool, Wild and Console.
As Wikipedia notes of the history of the demo, these are "non-interactive audio-visual presentations that run in real-time... The main goal of a demo is to show off programming, artistic, and musical skills."
Everything you see in these charts (apart from a few of the Wild entries) runs in real-time on a computer - don't forget this when you watch the video captures. In fact, for the true experience you should definitely downloading the executable versions and run them on your own hardware.
Also, whilst you may have seen some of these works on the pages of GameSetWatch before, I hope there'll be something here to surprise all but the keenest followers of the demoscene. And we're starting with 'Top 10 demos'. Almost any demoscene productions could be called a "demo", but this term is often reserved for larger works - smaller demos (such as those written to fit inside a 64k executable file) are usually called "intros".
In this first chart, I've limited myself to demos that run on a PC. This section of the demoscene is usually considered to be the most prestigious, with the various parties and competitions being dominated by the best groups who utilise the finest art, technology, music and direction to produce works that are bound by very few limits - as long as it runs in real-time, it's in. Here we go:
1st: Frameranger by Fairlight & Orange & Carillon & Cyberiad
The technical powerhouse demo of the year with a blistering soundtrack to match. Fairlight gave us a demo in two halves here: a story driven opening, and then, just in case you missed the incredible effects, a second half harking back to the old-school tradition of simply showing off your tech.
2nd: Rupture by ASD
A high octane escape run from a dystopian world, rendered in a beautiful post-Tron style.
3rd: The golden path by United Force & Digital Dynamite
This demo may be heavily influenced by the video for Cassius' "The Sound of violence" but it's still an entertaining and well-rendered journey.
4th: Chameleon by ASD
If ASD's previous entry in this chart was an action scene from a Bond movie, then this is the title sequence. Great direction and camerawork seal the deal again.
5th: Syntax Party 2009 Invite by Disaster Area
Another epic journey. This time we see a demoscener hurridly finishing his demo and then rushing to present it at Syntax Party 2009. And it's all rendered in a wonderful lo-res style.
6th: Assembly 2009 Invitation by Andromeda & Excess & Nooon
Back to a much more modern rendering style for another demoparty invitation, this time for Assembly 2009.
7th: Blunderbuss by Fairlight
Almost the complete opposite of Frameranger, Fairlight's second entry in this chart is beautifully understated - the tech behind it is no less advanced though.
8th: Everything is Under Control - The Breakpoint 2009 Invitation by MFX
Yet more invites! This time MFX try to tempt us to visit Breakpoint 2009. The party almost didn't take place this year, after the main sponsor pulled out for economic reasons. Thanks to the donations of sceners themselves and the hard work undertaken by the Breakpoint organising team to cut budgets and find new sponsors, the party still went ahead.
9th: Ballad of a Cluster Bomb - Director's Cut by Kooma
Originally released at Breakpoint back in April and placing 14th in the demo competition there, Ballad of a Culster Bomb didn't exactly catch many people's imagination. But the director's cut, released in September, sported a new look that lifted the demo to greater heights.
10th: Extatique by Adinpsz
And finally, an epic psychedelic trip from Adinpsz.
Comments
So are there no size limits on demos? Disclaimer that I can't do anything like what's shown here, but that makes this stuff significantly less impressive than a .kkreiger to me.
Posted by: Max Lieberman | January 19, 2010 1:11 PM
Size limit depends on the party. The only one I can remember off the top of my head is Assembly, which now has a 64mb limit for demos. Frameranger (released at Assembly) is, I think, the biggest demo here, coming in at about 60mb.
Posted by: evilpaul | January 19, 2010 1:37 PM
The Scene is Dead!
Posted by: 8BitPerson | January 19, 2010 10:48 PM
yeah, most impressive ones for me are the 64k intros (and 4k, 512b etc.).
It's just amazing what smart people can do with a few kb!
Posted by: buster | January 20, 2010 6:47 AM
There's seldom anything programmatically impressive in "size-unlimited" pc demos anymore, and I don't think it would harm the demoscene at all if the whole category was fused with the animation/video category. In full-size pc demos, it is the content that matters, and the technology has been in a secondary position for quite many years already.
Posted by: viznut | January 20, 2010 7:51 AM
Dont forget Elevated by RGBA, amazing stuff in only 4k!
Nice post btw!
Posted by: shon doe | January 20, 2010 10:11 AM
another vote for Elevated here
Posted by: edson | January 20, 2010 10:48 AM
Viznut, aren't you overstating the technical challenge of small intros? I mean, it does not sound to me that a demo is devoid of any code nowadays:
http://directtovideo.wordpress.com/2010/01/15/ambient-occlusion-in-frameranger/
Posted by: nicolas | January 20, 2010 10:25 PM
don't overestimate the challenge in making a size-coded production. it's like a magic trick. it looks impossible to the viewer, but once you know how it's done it's often just a case of practicing your sleight-of-hand.
in contrast making a full-size pc demo impressive - when faced with an audience that thinks everything is easy unless it's small - is a very different challenge. in the best demos you don't always see the large volume of top-level technology involved because it forms only a part of the piece - it has to work with the direction and design, not dominate it. maybe pc demos don't scream "LOOK AT MY CODE" like their oldschool counterparts, but it doesn't mean it's not there.
Posted by: smash | January 21, 2010 2:16 AM
I'm not overstating anything. Actually, I've personally found it much more difficult to create "big and unrestricted stuff" than to stick to a "hard-core" set of restrictions. The philosophy is entirely different; to create "big stuff" one needs to put the conceptual and artistic ideas in a primary position and channel one's perfectionism in an "industry standard" way rather than a good old "get every bit just right" way.
My point was that once the concept gets the primary role in an environment where the restrictions don't really need to be considered, the actual chosen techniques weigh much less. A real-time demo is just one of the possible ways of implementing a conceptual idea, and in the end it doesn't really matter to the audience whether it is real-time or what kind of programming is involved, as long as it looks, sounds and flows great.
The potential in full-size pc demos in today's demoscene, in my opinion, lies in the exploration of conceptual ideas and showing off "industry-standard" musical and graphical skills. The "magic" that makes the artform unique, however, is elsewhere.
Posted by: viznut | January 21, 2010 5:41 PM
Some great demos. Specially the design in Chameleon is impressive and original. Whats also cool is more demos these last years starting to use music with vocals, the generic psytrance/breakbeat soundtracks was getting old ;)
Posted by: Shadrach | January 22, 2010 2:30 PM