Datastorm 2017 party report
= = = = =
by Cefa68000/Nukleus
= = = = =
by Cefa68000/Nukleus
I went to Datastorm 2017 Summer for the first time last year. Sadly, I was busy on Friday, so I missed the first day of the demoparty. Datastorm is a yearly oldschool demoparty that has become very popular in Gothenburg, Sweden. Datastorm was held in a “nightclub” that has a very weird artsy Mad Max style. It is kind of hard to describe, you will have to see for yourself. There were almost 200 visitors this year and almost all of the big Amiga sceners were there, like Up Rough,Tulou, Spaceballs, Scoopex, Insane, Blueberry, Chris Huelsbeck, Mahoney, Nature and other one that I have forgotten, but there were many people there. When I came, I started talking with the sceners I knew, like the guys from Tulou and Nature. The place had a nice atmosphere and I had a nice day talking to everyone. It was a long time since the last demoparty. The theme this year was Monkey Island/Pirate theme. I don’t know why, probably some sort of anniversary. The food that you could buy from the backyard area was very nice, vegetarian food. I’m not vegetarian, but the food was tasty. From the bar you could order the usual sodas and beers.
The large backyard area at Datastorm was very nice with some old used car parts scattered around. There was a BBQ and some sofas that I used and talked with the guys from Insane. It was a nice relaxed atmosphere walking around talking to everyone.
On Saturday evening Mahoney had an interview on the stage with the famous musician Chris Huelsbeck. He talked about making arrangements of the Turrican tunes with a real orchestra. Mahoney asked and showed some technical details of the TFMX sound routine and how it worked. They showed some videos from Chris’ C64 Sound Monitor and other players he was involved with. This interview was very interesting, and you can watch it for yourself on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL9g-YkhyS0.
I highly recommend to you watch it there. Afterwards, many people were sadly busy (because the deadline was coming) working on their demo entries, tunes and other stuff, so I was just walking around talking to people that seemed less busy.
Afterwards they had some weird improvised actor playing the Voodoo Lady from Monkey Island on the main stage. This was a little weird and she talked/screamed very loud, so I walked outside to the backyard area.
On Saturday evening there was the graphics competition. The first entry was Amiga ascii. I did not pay much attention to the ascii entries, so I won’t report on them. There were apparently only two entries in the Amiga ascii compo.
The next competition was the Amiga graphics compo. There were three entries and I liked the one called Jungle Glitch by Sunday/Calamity, which ended up in second place. The first-place winner was a 6k executable computer calculated picture. I was very impressed! This type of computer generated pictures is not very common on the Amiga-scene.
The next compo was a fun compo called Colour Cycling pictures. The point of the competition was to create a picture and use a colour cycling animation. There were three entries in this compo by Dalton, Sunday and Todi. The first entry was called Bad Rings by Dalton of Tulou and it was a simple rotating stars animation. Second entry was a Tulou Invaders by Tody of Tulou. It was a very nice colour cycling logo in the middle and Space Invaders alien the background that scrolled downwards. This entry was my favourite of the colour cycling compo. The last entry was called Truckstop Ayeehualaska by Sunday, don’t remember which group, but I think he is a member of the Amiga group Traktor. A very nice logo with a scrolling copperbar in the background.
The next compo was the Petscii competition, but I went to the backyard area and missed this compo. There was sadly only one entry in this competition.
Next was C64 graphics, which I also missed, since I was still outside socializing with people.
We had a small break between the compos, so lots of people went outside talking and drinking. It was getting a little late and it was getting a little cold outside, so I stayed and waited for the compos to start again.
The next compo was the Wild demo compo, but I skipped that compo also. I was only interested in the demo and intro compos, since it was late, and I was tired.
The Amiga demo competition was a combined OCS and AGA one. They had some sound problems with Insane’s OCS entry, so they showed this in the end of the compo. We had to wait a while because they had to switch computers. The first was called JD-00: HACK-IN-BOX by Wine Design. This entry looked like demo made with the help of the YouTube Amiga Assembly course by Photon of Scoopex. It looked like Wine Design changed some colours and some graphics. It looked like it was their first Amiga demo. The next entry was a nice small demo invitation for GERP made by Traktor and Nature by my friend Olle.
Next entry was an OCS A500 demo called B2B6 by Insane. It was a simple demo with a heat picture on the side of the screen with some copperbars in the background with some text. The music was nice, and I enjoyed the simple design of it. It reminded me of those old cracktro intros.
The last entry was the only AGA entry, which was a surprise. OCS Amiga demos are getting more and more popular. The entry was called Naughty by Nature and it was a very impressive demo with lots of advanced 3D effects running in a nice framerate on a 060 AGA Amiga. It was short demo. I would have liked a different colour scheme because brown and dark colours do not show well on the big screen.
The next compo was the Amiga 1k Bootblock compo. The first entry was Boot me up before you go go by Jackasser of Booze Design. It had a very impressive rotating “Booze Design” text with colour cycling and shadows. It also had “music”, but I would not call it music, more of a sound looping.
Next entry was also by Booze Design and it was called Let's Twist Again, also made by Jackasser. This was a very nice-looking twister effect with better music this time.
Last bootblock was made by Olle/Planet Jazz and the entry was called Olle. This one also had some sound effect, since it is hard to make music with only 1k. This entry had a sinus pixel effect like old screensavers. A nice little fun bootblock.
After a short delay, it was time for the C64 4k compo. They tried to start a demo by Alfatech called Tribute to Triad, but they could not run it properly. A demo party is not a demo party without some problems. The organisers decided to skip this intro and run the next intro called Datafresh by Loonies and Darklite instead. This 4k intro had a very nice music and very advanced nice plasma effects. It was coded by the Blueberry and I think it is his first C64 intro.
Afterwards the C64 demo compo started and first demo was called Pandemoniac Part 2 of 5 Swirler by Panoramic Designs and Prosonix. This was a very nice scrolling twisting text that I could not read. A very nice and short demo.
Next was Witchcraft by Logicoma and Pegboard Nerds. This was a very simple demo with a logo that changed colours and a scrolling text underneath the logo. The music was a good C64 tune.
Next was Beats by Atlantis, a nice demo with some cool effects. My favourite was a blinking flying pixel ball that later had the blinking Beats text flying over it. There was a plasma effect and nice graphics by Diamond Design and Fatfrost. The music, as always with C64 demos, was very good.
The last demo was K9 V Orange Main Sequence by Fairlight. This was the most impressive C64 demo with the most design and some nice effects like triangle fractal zoom and very nice music and design. Watch it on YouTube or on your C64, as I highly recommend this demo. It deserved the first place and it did win the C64 demo compo.
That was all the entries I watched and after the last C64 demo it was time for techno, dubstep music by Tentakel on the main stage.
When it was time to sleep, I was surprised there wasn't any sleeping quarters, so I had to find some place to sleep. It was hard to find a spot, because there were people sleeping everywhere. I tried to get a hotel room on the nearby Radisson, but there was sadly no vacancy there. I finally found a small sofa near the entrance to sleep in. Next year I will book a hotel room ahead of time. When I woke up, the organizers invited everyone to a breakfast which was nice.
I don’t remember the price ceremony, so I can’t write about it. I was tired and just wanted get home and sleep some more. The demoparty was very good, not that many compo entries, but Datastorm must be the best scene demo party in Sweden. You should come if you are able and see for yourself.