pouët.net

oh, forgot: skaven also did a tune for UT. (but it was sux0r so i forgot, teque rox :)

Should mention that at least one person has asked me if there's going to be a music compo there...

Throw up a compo, don't worry about prizes, just have compos.

SirG: but this is just an outreach event to promote the party. I don't think Thom is planning any compos for the outreach event -- during outreach that I have done I try to generate interest in Pilgrimage, which has the compos.

Wow... More information that I could've ever hoped for. Coolness.

psonice: That's a nice idea about the CDs. Unfortunately that also takes time and money. But we'll see.

Gargaj: Yeah, I should mention GBA. I see many around campus.

Thom: definately do the CDs, but give them as a "premium" for a $5 donation (or CA$10, whatever). Rule of thumb: cost of a "premium" should be no more than 10% of the donation amount. This will let you raise some money to help promote your event. $5 is not much to ask, particularly if you show them demos that are on the CD. Download the DemoShow CDs, they are good. There are some other CD collections on scene.org as well.

I always offer to tell people how to get the CD contents for themselves if they don't want to donate. When most people find out that they must download 700 MB per CD, unpack the RAR file to get an ISO, and then burn a CD from the ISO image, they are more than happy to contribute $5.

Its a fine distinction to note that we aren't selling the CDs. We are giving them a CD as a "thank you gift" for a $5 donation.

Buy CD-R blanks in a 50 pack and print out a sheet of paper that is folded over into a sleeve for the CD. Don't spend money on jewel cases or print out full color CD inserts, unless you raise the amount of the donation. We figure that a US$25 donation would warrant a jewel case and a full-color printed insert using the cover art from the demoshow CDs.

If you haven't yet downloaded the demoshow CDs, I recommend that you do so. They have a nice interface for scrolling through the demos and selecting them. They also have an "autoplay" mode, but I haven't used it succesfully because not all the demos work on my WinXP/Radeon combination. So when a demo freezes, the autoplay ceases to function.

For outreach literature, I can send you the text of the pamphlets I've prepared in the past and you can use that straight up or modify to suit your tastes. I will have generic "what is the demoscene?" pamphlets ready in the next month for use at the SynOrgy 2003 Decompression party. Just drop me an email....

Also... the "AutoIt" utility is great for creating an automated script that runs a bunch of demos in sequence. We used that for First Night 2002 and it worked out really well. This way we could have the machine on automated playback which meant we had time to talk to people instead of babysit the keyboard. There is a link to AutoIt on the page describing my First Night outreach.

Guerrilla Games (formerly known as Lost Boys Games) still features Arjen Brussee of Ultraforce and Jazz Jackrabbit lore/fame/whatever. They're doing that "the media is calling it a Halo-Beater, which is silly" game for Sony called Kin.

There's a number of sceners still running there. Couple of people from Success, Acme and Weird Magic, last time I checked.

I thought that game was called "Killzone" ??

Thom: cds are cheap if you shop around. They cost around £0.30 (US$0.50) here in the shops, but if you buy 50 or 100 at a computer market, you can get them for about half that. US$25 for 100 cds is not bad, you just need the time to copy them :) You could probably do it in batches of 20 and hand them out as they're done, you'd get longer exposure too that way.

Demo show is definately a good start, although it's getting a bit dated now perhaps. The files on scene.org are dated may last year, and theres been some good demos since then :) Perhaps you can get hold of the creator, see if a more recent version is available, or if you can modify the script? Also, that comes on 2 cds, which could be a problem. But if you do 100 cds, you could do 50 of each, let people know there are two different cds, and people who are interested enough will come back for the 2nd disk.

AutoIt is definately a good way to script the demo playing machine btw. I used to use that at work for various stuff. Let me know if you need any help getting it working.

Actually in Jazz Jackrabbit, if you press pause, then backspace, and then enter "GREETZ", you get a greetzlist including some scene-groups like TSL and FC :)

legalize: well... I'm not sure if telling them that they can only get the stuff in a huge ISO is fair... including download URL-s in the flyers should be OK... (i guess most of them will choose buying the CD anyway, since it's still easier)

thom: you prolly should get 1-2 DOS demos in the playlist (Second Reality, Crystal Dream 2). if you have a mindcandy dvd around, you may as well show them from that too. but first of all i guess you should throw together a website for all that.

bah.. second reality and crystal dreams II ? they are only important as
milestones of the first good demos on the pc platform.. Thus only as an
historical interest for (pc) sceners. If you wanted to have a show
spawning multiple generations, you'd better show some amiga demos
instead.

I agree, showing such old stuff at an outreach event will turn a lot of people off. 7000 phong polys don't mean much to most people, and they don't look impressive either compared to the stuff people are used to. I would maybe nice to have a side-show with some stuff about the history of the scene, and you could show it at the party of course.

They won't even have any idea what's an Amiga. ("Isn't that some kinda game console?")
I'd stick to the aforementioned demos. ("What? They could do THIS on a 386?")

And it's not "Crystal Dream 2" but "Crystal Dream 2".

I mean "Crystal Dream 2", not "Crystal DreamS 2".

I'm not convinced people will want to see it anyway, and I doubt most of them will give a shit if it was running on a 386, if they even know enough to see how powerful a 386 is.

I think fairly recent demos which look good, and show off a lot of different styles would make more sense for an outreach event. I think it shouldn't look TOO geeky or people will be put off.

I have my doubts about the whole outreach/going-to-mainstream-media thing. And as it seems, others have them too:

"Very contradicting. I wonder how long it will stay underground when it's exposed to the puplic. The masses have no fucking clue yet, and that has always been the major advantage. The people with a driving force behind them will always find this niche movement on their own, because they are exactly the ones that make it worthwhile. I think most overlook this aspect."

Oh, well, let's look forward to the daily Farbrausch show on MTV. ;)

I think that kind of view is missing the point a bit. People who would be into scene do not always find out about the scene, a lot never hear anything about it and don't stumble into it by chance. In past years perhaps they did, as most had an amiga and demos were passed round with the games. Most of the kids now have no clue at all. I think the scene could be much bigger than it is now.

And all the shit about the scene 'going mainstream' is wrong too. A lot of publicity will get the scene noticed sure, but it won't get demos onto mtv unless people start making comercial-quality demos. And really, if you want a music video then video editing tools + a 3d package are going to do a lot more work than a team of crack coders, and it costs a lot less too :) The mainstream won't be interested in demos, because they aren't interested in the fact that it's realtime, and it looks worse than the videos on mtv.

So these outreach events are (hopefullly) going to bring some fresh talent into the scene, which so far as i can see is only a good thing. And I can't see scene being anything other than underground for a long long time.

I can't help but think people who are attached to keep the scene
"underground" for the underground's sake are actually fearing
that, while in the underground one's stench gets drowned in the very own
stench of the underground, in the open air it'd get too noticeable.

In past years perhaps they did, as most had an amiga and demos were passed round with the games.

In the age of internet and decent search engines, it's not significantly harder. Of course, interest assumed.

And all the shit about the scene 'going mainstream' is wrong too.

Within this week pretty much ALL german online mags/news sites had demoscene articles with headlines like "former crackers doing film-art". And that didn't happen accidentally.

The mainstream won't be interested in demos, because they aren't interested in the fact that it's realtime, and it looks worse than the videos on mtv.

Granted, maybe not MTV, but NBC Giga aired demos on a weekly basis. And the gamer kids were more annoyed than interested, afaik. ;)

So these outreach events are (hopefullly) going to bring some fresh talent into the scene, which so far as i can see is only a good thing.

If it works that is.

Lets face it, it won't be left in the sun too long while it still stinks, someone will come along and bury it :)

Seriously, look at hacking, how much media attention does that get?? There's even films glamourising it. And does that make it less underground? No. People are probably attracted into it by the media coverage, but once they find they have to learn the insides of the tcp stack, most leave it well alone. Same applies to the scene, although more will stay if they're into graphics or music.

So hackers are NOT annoyed when they have to read everythere that they are dangerous internet criminals?

Tomaes: I mentioned the demos being passed round with the games to make the point that people who had computers usually knew what demos were, and had usually seen some. Most of the kiddies now don't, at least from my experience.

If the german online game mags have some stuff about demos, I think that's a step back personally. The magazines in the shops used to have demos on the cover, places to order demos from advertising, and demo reviews each month. Theres always a bit of interest like this now and then, with some stuff about cracktros, or some particularly impressive demo gets some attention.

What's NBC Giga? TV station? I've heard of NBC (it's an american new channel or something?) Are they still airing demos each week? Not heard about that.

And yeah, outreach events will only be good if they work, I guess that's down to the organisers. But I'll be amazed if any can pursuade the majority that writing computer programs that do nothing but show pretty pictures with some music is cool :)

Hmm, looks like i'm constantly one post behind :)

Hackers often ARE dangerous online criminals, at least the serious ones :) Then theres the big majority 'script kiddies' who are nothing more than annoying vandals most of the time. Of course there are also the groups of 'good' hackers that find + warn about security problems etc.

The fact that there are hackers that use their skills to commit crimes, stealing confidential data, money, causing lot's of damage etc. of course gets a lot of bad press, the media aren't often interested in presenting the whole picture, they show what will sell the most copies.

I think demo scene is far enough removed now that we don't need to worry that much about this sort of thing, although we'll always get that 'cracker' brand I guess :)

Hmm, looks like i'm constantly one post behind :)

Reload faster. :)


If the german online game mags have some stuff about demos

Those are not game mags, but regular major news(paper) portals.


What's NBC Giga? TV station? I've heard of NBC (it's an american new channel or something?) Are they still airing demos each week? Not heard about that.

Imagine mtv with games and computers instead of videos. Only(?) broadcasted in Germany for several hours a day afaik.


the media aren't often interested in presenting the whole picture, they show what will sell the most copies.

THAT is the point and that was my point considering the scene vs. the press. They are very selective and manipulative. :).

"Reload faster. :)" - wrong again :P I need to type faster ;)

Somehow I read the word 'game' into your bit about the portals. Perhaps it's a step forwards then :) Perhaps this is actally a good thing though, if it suggests the scene has moved from cracking into making art. Hard to tell without reading it.

Perhaps I'll write an article on media relations, would be a good idea to get people more knowledgable about that.