pouët.net

DarkOwl information 11 glöps

• general:
• level: user
• personal:
• first name: Mike
• last name: Hopkins

• 64k Windows Offset Overdrive by Spectrox
• It just flows so well. And all in 64kb, fantastic work.
• rulezadded on the 2024-10-31 03:19:22
• demo SEGA Master System Invasion by Disaster Area [web]
• @hollowone Thanks for your feedback, it's appreciated. I can add bit of context about about this year's production. For anyone expecting a follow-up to Emergency, it's fair to be a bit disappointed. I don't think any of us expected Emergency to be as well received as it was! We were proud of it, sure, but we definitely stand on the shoulders of giants.
  
  This year we weren't even sure we were going to submit much, as my first child was born, and bananaboy welcomed his second. The fun of newborns, plus full-time work, put us in a very different situation time-wise. That said, bb did manage to put in a quick little P100-based midschool demo this year (Life), an achievement in itself.
  
  invasion is a bit different for us as I wrote most of the code in addition to making the art, with assistance from bananboy and sh0ck. It's my first code credit for a demo and it was fun to challenge myself in a new way. I also must acknowledge the kind people from the SMS Power! forums for answering my questions too. I was able to get it over the line as my partner organised to take bub to visit the grandparents for the week of Syntax. I'm very grateful to her for that.
  
  There's still much that could be improved, there always is, and the code and effects are what they are given my relative newness to Z80 ASM / C. I did try to keep the scene edits short so that they didn't overstay their welcome. Once I rationalised that I didn't have to live up to Emergency's reception and that just getting something submitted was a goal in itself, it all pulled together at the last minute.
  
  Music on an SMS is challenging, as unlike the far more capable Mega Drive or even its contemporary the NES, the SMS' audio chip is very lacklustre. I'd asked for something moody and discordant to fit the theme, and I think cTrix delivered given the limitations of the hardware. Maybe it's not your cup of tea and that's cool, I'm still always in awe of how well he matches the vibe of what we're going for sonically :)
• isokadded on the 2024-10-29 23:41:59
• 8k Windows fr-minus-210: Attractor by Farbrausch [web]
• I really like this piece on its own merits. There's something about the way the graphics, noise, almost heat-like distortion and colour grading has been done that makes it look almost *not* computer generated. It has a sort of semi-realism to it, which is very very tricky to achieve.
  
  I feel the timing could maybe have been tightened *just a little* as it takes a while for the visual evolution to occur, but once it does, the final form is gorgeous. I enjoyed how it goes from its paper-like start to its kaleidoscopic fresnel-like glassy end.
• rulezadded on the 2024-10-25 00:00:01
• demo MS-Dos Windows MS-Dos/gus emergency by Disaster Area [web]
• @drezeissler Emergency is a DOS demo. If you're using a Win95 machine, you'll likely need to boot it into real DOS. From memory, you need to press the F8 key when the Windows 95 logo appeared. Not sure if running it from within the Win95 command prompt would work, we haven't tested that.
  
  The Windows executable is compiled for modern Windows (10, 11) and is only provided for convenience of running on a contemporary machine outside of DOS. It's not intended to run on legacy Windows versions.
• isokadded on the 2024-01-03 07:37:58
• demo MS-Dos Windows MS-Dos/gus emergency by Disaster Area [web]
• @emoon To be clear, we only ever output 320x200 VGA mode 13h. With the linked shadertoy, set the scale to 1.0 re-run it. The right side gets a pretty strong blur though yes it does appear to move more smoothly. The left side, while more "jittery", maintains the integrity of the original pixel art and that crispness is what we strive for. Hope that explains the situation a bit better.
• isokadded on the 2023-12-02 08:09:50
• demo MS-Dos Windows MS-Dos/gus emergency by Disaster Area [web]
• Thanks for all the kind words!
  
  Funny there's mention of Amiga style; @ript's beautiful rendition of the DA logo at the start came from an unreleased Amiga demo. Four colours plus copper effects, then they converted it to 6-bit VGA for us. For me personally, Amiga demos were always an inspiration when I only had CGA. In saying the demo has that sort of vibe, it's a humbling compliment!
  
  The original concept came from @Sumaleth as he pulled together a huge collection of all these amazing 80s and 90s scifi/anime scenes. From there we worked it into the flow of the final. Having a pseudo-narrative this year vs just freely rearranging visuals and effects to @cTrix's fantastic music was a new challenge for us.
  
  With parallax scrolling, the scenes are composited in real-time. I'd respectfully disagree that filtering the art between pixels would look better. I don't think that was really ever done circa 1995, unless it was pre-rendered video/3D which always looked soft/blurry imho. If you do have the means to watch this on a ~15" CRT, it's a bit less jarring than LCD. Hmm, if we rendered the demo at 640x400 but art remained 320x200 we'd technically have "half" pixels... future idea? Who knows hah!
  
  As always @bananaboy and @sh0ck pulled off some amazing coding feats; We had a showstopper bug on the night that nearly derailed us but bboy finally pinpointed the issue and we finished the party release at the 11th hour. The post-party release here has some code improvements, timing tweaks and a few music and art additions we wanted to get to, while keeping within the spirit of the party release. Cheers!
• isokadded on the 2023-12-02 00:23:31