pouët.net

I think the first question is: is this a competition for coders, or artists? With last year's compo, it seemed like the answer was "both", and that's the problem - it was comparing apples and oranges.

My feeling is that 4K procedural graphics - on newskool platforms - is a coder's category, and it works well as a coder's category because 4K is too restrictive for a pixel artist but still interesting for a coder. And that's also why (IMHO) the category doesn't translate well to oldskool platforms, because the file sizes there are so small to begin with. To give an example: a standard Spectrum screen is 6.5Kb; a fancy interlace / multicolour mode screen maybe 12-16Kb; and for other platforms like the C64 you'd be looking at the same sort of figures. If you were to set a 4Kb limit (or 8Kb, or 16Kb or whatever), then it would still be a contest for artists - except they'd just be faced with the extra annoyance of simplifying their work or getting a coder to help with the packing.

For that reason, I don't think option three will work - whatever filesize you choose, it'll still be newskool coder porn versus oldskool pixel art. If there's really no way to justify a separate oldskool graphics compo, then I'd reluctantly suggest that merging it into the 'normal' newskool graphics compo makes more sense... which is equivalent to option 2 I guess.

I actually think it could be interesting to see what could be done on oldskool'ish platforms in 4k. We haven't seen much of that so far (only Man with a hat in Bingen and Ain't no fool, went to Clown School come to mind). To me, a plain 4k executable graphics compo with no platform restrictions would make a lot of sense.

Got my ticket now, see you there o/

Okay, I don't understand the seating chart. Is it correct that there are only 150 seats for demoscene but 2500 for gamers??

bartman: That's Assembly for you :).

I remember Assembly from back in 1994 in the Ice Skating Olympic Arena with ONLY demosceners :)

it all went to hell in 1995

The 150 seats are discounted (nearly half price), separate "VIP" area for sceners only. But yeah, this isn't Breakpoint, but a hybrid party - the only of one its kind. It tries damn hard to bring demoscene to the mainstream, but doing that does dilute things. I'd gladly have 2500 seats for demosceners if all of you would come (how many seats did Breakpoint actually have?).

Nosfe, I think it all went hell to in 94 with the Doom compo. Or was in 93 when some Amiga lamers played games and swapped software? Or was it in 1992 when we relaxed with some games in the middle of hacking away with those sweet 386sxes. ;-)

Bartman, it's not Olympic though (no Winter Olympics in Finland so far, just the summer games in 1952).

Anyway, enuff with the scene is dead meme. Looking forward to the compos kicking ass.

I ain't doing the TV this year.. syphus and okkie will be taking my place.

If we finish our demo on time, I'll come and help.

PS. OPEN THE BLOODY BAR!

abyss: you're doing pretty good don't worry about it :-)

abyss, heh, realized i should've mentioned the Doom compo of 94 after i posted ;)

aren't there tg and euskal and some other "hybrid" parties also? though, those seem to have even smaller scene side..
funny how all the smaller lan events in finland have completely abandoned scene compos which they still used to have like ~10 years ago..

Nosfe: Sceners also abandoned the lan-parties that tried to host scene-compos

yeah, it works both ways. for instance there was this lan party called solid mojo somewhere in vantaa last weekend, and they had demo compos and the like. they didn't really bother to advertise it in demoscene media (e.g. pouet) though, which doesn't surprise me considering the kind of feedback they probably would've got :)

nosfe: My guess is that all the gamers wanted the scene compos cut since they couldn't concentrate on their gaming when the compos where shown/played.

And yes, sceners abandoned lan-parties since the IQ of gamers are particular lower than sceners and able to reach a way higher level of "being annoying" than even the worst sceners.

well actually, now that i remember last time i tried to go to a lan-party me and about 20 other sceners were banned from the event before it started... :D and that was in vantaa, myyrmäki. as that solid mojo event seemed to be too...

Unfortunately the lan in questionwas held when we had already grown too old and tired to wreck the place. I sometimes feel sorry for the organizers for the shit they have to take but not in that case.

No way they could reach much higher levels :)

hello I want to know - somehow ive got the feeling that Assembly jury is very strict in demo rules -
i wonder if you will disqualify demo featuring 97% of real-time graphics and 3% of animation :-)
or we got precedent with Saint by Halcyon so it's useless question and answer is "YES"? And if answer is "NO" what was the real issue with Saint back then in '97? does it crashed on compo machine?
this case really worries me to invest so much time in demo making and then get banned from big screen;)

Pure animations are only accepted in the short film competition. If your demo is mostly anim then the jury may disqualify it.

If it is really 97% realtime and 3% anim, then there is definitely no risk of disqualification. If you have specific questions, please shoot them to compos2010 at assembly dot org.

13 years ago? I can't remember what happened then (sorry! =)). I checked the video recording of Saint and I can't believe it would have been disqualified for including video as there is a ton of realtime graphics going on (if somebody remembers, please chime in). Anyway if this is roughly what you are making, then you are not making a pure animation and there is no risk of disqualification.

in demoscene language "disqualified" means "not shown on the bigscreen"

216: I don't think so... if a demo fails to pass preselection you might say it's "not qualified", but to me "disqualified" specifically means that it was removed from the compo because of a rules violation. At least, that's how the Asm results files from recent years have used the term.

(unfortunately the 1997 results file doesn't go into that detail, so there's no way of knowing which category Saint fell into...)

btw: how long does it usually take to get a response for applying for the "Oldschool ticket"?

Wasn't Saint disqualified for being too much of a rave demo? Or at least that's what I seem to remember from back then.