X'95
Party Report
Submitted by tim/scl (Tim) on May 11 2003
Written by Tim/Silicon Ltd. + TDJ/Focus
Official results
X95 demo competitions - results & explanation
Results:
C64 Demo Competition
Demo Group Points
1. Radio Napalm Reflex 756
2. W.O.I.I.F.T.D. F4CG 665
3. Contraflow Cosine 571
4. World Demise Slash Designs 556
5. Nation Black Code Design 485
PC Music
Songname Composer Points
1. Sounded like God's arrival Vic 800
2. Fear in her eyes The Rew 767
3. Beat this Beat Weird Magic 683
4. Angels Suck Anarky 634
5. Estranged Tragos 567
6. Paradise Nation Peric 550
7. Flying Together Mars & Fabian 550
8. Naturally Heretic 534
9. Ode 2 Jodie Cygnus 500
10. Rancid Mordillo 417
PC Graphics
Piece Artist Points
1. Gangsta Richochet 750
2. Frozen Contrast 717
3. Splat 2 ? 550
4. Fly'n Fall ? 533
5. Genie Comik 483
6. Final VI Hobo 433
7. Ganjaman Balex 417
8. Take This ? 167
PC Intro
Introname Group Points
1. Spring Logic Design
2. Envy The Clan
3. Zakje Plasmatat Frituur Kraam
4. Chicky The Kip Brigade
PC Demo
Demoname Group Points
1. Big Deal Acme 748
2. Expression Abstract Concepts 722
3. Uitgeroeid Ground Zero 610
4. Ultimate Possibilities Massive 594
5. Ancient Routines Image 572
6. Schopkont (?) CRAP 560
7. No GUS ..No Glory Dwhurl 488
Surprise Competition (paperdrawing of a logo for X-95)
Artist Group
1. Comic The Kip Brigade
2. Sander Focus
3. Mirage Focus\Bonzai
Note:
As you can see from the results of the surprise competition, there were
also organizing groups competing. This was due to a sponsor who wanted this
competition next to the other competitions. The Judging of the pictures
was done by three Graphic artists who did not compete with the others.
My apologies to those who entered the competitions while we didn't show
their demos. Those demos were left out and only the quality demos were
shown to bring as much entertainment as possible.
As you can see another problem occurred with the intro competition. Because
of some Intros which lacked sound, the compo results were not accurate.
That is why you do not see any points at the Intro Compo.
Another excuse goes to those who asked me a copy of the releases. I said that
I would announce the spreading on the big-screen, but due to other obligations
I was not able to do so.
I uploaded most of the releases on the following boards:
Planet Earth : 020-6995913
Maniax Dream : 02979-72019
Supreme Court: 01650-51850
I heard from Sdog that they are on the following ftp site:
anthraciet.arts.kuleuven.ac.be/pub/demos/x95
Ok I hope everybody had a wonderful time and see you all at X-96.
Special thanx fly to:
Kiseki films and Sound Solutions for sponsering the event and to all
visitors for making it worthwhile....
Tim\Success
Any comments about X-95 are very welcome. This gives me an insight in the
way people experienced the event and how we can improve the next one.
tim@pitel_lnx.ibk.hvu.nl
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The X95 competition point system, or "Why dark judges never are wrong".
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Almost every party competition uses the public voting system, where everybody
present is allowed to vote for his or her favourites. Still, we of the X95
organisation decided against it. Why ?? Well, there are several reasons:
it is easy to cheat (friendship votes), and it can cost quite some time to
process all votes, even if a vote disk is used. But the main reason is that
we think we have enough knowledge of the demo world to pick the winners
ourselves. Arrogant ?? Maybe, but justified. Read on ..
There were five (5) different competitions, 4 of them for pc and one for
the c64. For every competition a different jury was formed, consisting of
members of the organising group and guests. The pc graphics & music juries
were built up by 3 men, each of them giving a competing production a figure.
The average of those figures times 100 was the number of points such a
production could receive.
For the other 3 competitions (c64 demo, pc intro and pc demo) a different
system was used. The juries here consisted of 5 people. Four of them were
considered to be experts in a certain area, the fifth one was the so-called
'outsider' who donated a fresh view. All jury members gave points on the
next subjects:
1. Coding: How well was it done? How well was it used? Was there any
original stuff in it or just another optimised routine?
2. Graphics: Both the quality of logo's, pictures and fonts as well as
the look of the whole thing. Sometimes a beautiful picture
is completely out of place in a certain part, ruining the
graphical feel of a demo ..
3. Music: How good was the music itself, and did it fit to the demo?
4. Feeling: Looking back at the demo, how much did we like it? Do we
want to see it again any time soon? Because even demo's with
bad coding, gfx and music can be funny to watch and become
a favorite with a demo scener.
The points an expert gave in his own field counted 3 times as high as those
from the other jury members. This way his expertise outweighted the opinion
of the others for a significant part. The average points were calculated and
again multiplied by a 100 to make it fall in the 100-1000 points range.
This may seem a way too complicated system for you but fact is that it works.
Personal feelings towards a group are cancelled as much as possible this
way, and true quality prevails ..
Now, you probably wonder who we are to consider ourselves experts. The
keyword here is 'c64'. All members save for the three outsiders and a guest
member of the music jury (whose job for Sound Solutions it is to decide if
somebody is good enough to earn money doing music for games, amongst other
things) are or have been at one time active in the demo scene of this superb
machine, and for quite a few years as well.
One example is Mirage (Focus c64, Bonzai pc), considered by many to be one of
the best c64 graphicians ever and surprising a lot of people by winning third
prize at the TP4 graphics competition last christmas with one of his first
pc pictures. Apart from that he's also co-drawing on what promises to be one
of the hottest cd-rom games of next year ..
Another one is Harlequin (Success pc), a multi-talented dude who brought the
house down with a truly smashing performance of his rap-group Toadstools. Once
he was the backbone of veteran c64 group Silicon ltd., nowadays he fulfills
the same function in the Success crew. He's a graphician and musician, as well
as one of the most energetic and nicest guys you'll ever meet. For examples of
his work just check out the great "Black Ice" demo by Success.
The final jury member I want to comment on is me, The Dark Judge (Focus c64,
Bonzai pc). I organised the compo's, was the head of the jury and expert on
the 'feeling' area as well. Now you probably think that I'm a real arrogant
sonuvabitch to claim I know so much about demo's, but I do. In fact I think
there are few people who have seen as many demo's as I have in all my years
in the c64, amiga (500+1200) and pc scene. Apart from that I also have been
coding over a 100 c64 demo parts myself from 1987 until 1995 .. I think I know
exactly what makes or breaks a demo and fortunately quite a lot of people agree
with me. I also am responsible for the nasty point system explained above, a
system I already developed a few years ago for the famous c64 magazine "Sh0ck"
of which I was the demo-reviewer for a short period (a job I unfortunately had
to cancel due to lack of time). And if you think this system is complex, just
remember that I made it easier for the competitions, the Sh0ck system had a
few more things to it !!
Still after all this talk I realise quite a lot of people will disagree with
my views and maybe even consider me just another self-proclaimed expert who
is nothing but a fool in reality. Not that it matters though, the competitions
are over, the prizes have been given and I will continue my quest to teach
the ignorant public about good demo's.
My thanks goes out to all those who were in the juries (Mirage, Heathcliff,
VV, Nightshade, Mitch, Harlequin, Scout, Roy and Marc Moore of Sound Solutions
as well as Tim for organising a party which brought us great fun and hope for a
folluw-up next year.
Free to 'irc.xs4all.nl': All praise goes to the jury, complaints to /dev/null
Signed: The Dark Judge of Focus (c64) & Bonzai (pc)
tdj@bart.nl or v922530@si.hhs.nl
'Nuff said .. :)
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