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- Norway's no.1
- More than meets the eye
AKA:
Megastyle Incorporated, Megastyle Productions
Founded by :
Cobra, Mao & Napoleon on 1 September 1988
Group Types :
Demo Group, Game Development Group
Base Country :
Norway
Website :
http://megastyle.itch.io/
Trivia :
Megastyle was a c64 demo and game developer group, with its HQ located in Brønnøysund - a small town in the northern regions of Norway.
The group was founded on the 1. of september 1988 by Mao (aka. Crockett/Space-Roy/Rotteroy), Napoleon (aka. Sleepwalker) and Cobra (aka Brooz). The first weeks this trio released a couple of single file demos called: "I'm Norwegian", "Kontaktlinse 4", "Poemz" and "Ram It Down". During these productive days another friend from their school, Predator(aka Rage) a member of a local c64 group called The New Hellmates (TNH) joined Megastyle together with the independent amiga-swapper Gentle Fox.
In late november 1988, Megastyle started working on a cooperation demo called "Brothers in Arms" together with the other members in The New Hellmates. This Cooperation was very successful, and shortly after the groups decided to join forces. Psycho (aka Hawker), Scroll (aka Stubbscroll), Ruz (aka Sparkler), Stripe(aka Inzane), Yiare and AM-Run started producing demos under the Megastyle label.
The first "MSI Demo Meeting" was arranged by Mao in January 1989. All members, except Gentle Fox and AM-Run attended to create the first Megastyle Multi Load Demo: "Brainstorm "
A couple of new demoparts was coded on the meeting, but several parts of the demo was made of old demo parts that Scroll programmed for The New Hellmates. These parts was not released because that group did not have any swapper. This demo got a lot of nice feedback, and Megastyle started building a name in the C64 Scene.
Shortly after the release of Brainstorm , there where some changes in the memberstatus. Yiare sold his c64 and quit all activity, and AM-Run got deleted from the memberstatus. Megastyle also started working on the sequel demo called "Brainstorm 2".
Some of the parts was heavlily inspired by misc. Amiga demos, and it included alot of fresh routines with nice graphics. Most of the demo was produced during the Megastyle Easter Meeting, and the finished demo was released early spring 1989. This demo contains Sleepwalkers last c64 demopart, leaving Scroll as the only coder at the time. Brainstorm 2 was a pretty popular demo, and the scene liked it alot. Megastyle got a lot of new contacts and friends after this release.
After the release of Brainstorm 2, a swapper and logodesigner called Price, from the west coast of norway joined Megastyle.
Megastyle decided to attend at the Hoaxers/Abnormal party in Trondheim to compete in their first democompetition ever. As only Crockett, Rage and Cobra where the only members who should represent Megastyle at the party, Scroll had a lot of pressure on his shoulders coding the whole demo alone to be finished before departure. The demo was named "Brainstorm 3" and finished 22 june 1989. The demo was voted as #3 in the competition, only beaten by two demos that concentrated more on hardcore coding than style and design.
The demo compo result was a bit disappointing for the Megastyle members, but the demo entered the charts in the most important disk mags that summer, so all disappointment was soon forgotten. This demo also caught the attention of the German game developing group Double Density, and Megastyle was asked to make a game for them. The Megastyle memberstatus changed a bit after this demo too. Megastyle lost contact with their amiga member Gentle Fox, so he was deleted from the memberstatus, while a young promising guy with the handle Flashman (aka Drumtex)joined Megastyle to be their musician.
During the summer of 1989 Megastyle threw themselves into the wave of hardcore technique demos with heavy code and less design. The demos goal was to break every world record and to make even better coded routines than all the others. The demo was called "Piece of Cake". Most of the music in this demo was specially written for the demo by ELA of Antimon and Flashman.
The whole demo was programmed by Scroll during the summer holidays, and it became extremely popular. The demo was voted among the best demos, Megastyle among the best demo groups and Scroll among the best coders in disk mag charts.
During the autumn of 1989 Megastyle did their first serious attempt of making a game. The game was called "Strobe" and it was supposed to be released by Double Density. The game was programmed by Scroll, with graphics by Sparkler and music composed by Henning Rokling and Olav Mørkrid from Panoramic Designs. At the same time, several new members was requited to maintain the demo section of Megastyle. The Norwegian based demo group Reflex was asked to join, and new members was: Wax, Pee, Play Power, Dolla and Lizard. This autumn was overshadowed by internal conflics in Megastyle, so the promising game project sadly ended as a bugged and hardly playable preview.
In november'89 Megastyle made a sequel to the Piece Of Cake demo called "Fat Oddvar". This demo was a hard and heavy technique demo with a whole lot of record attempts. The demo looked very ugly, but impressed alot of sceners enough to vote it high on the charts. Rage, Crockett, Scroll, Drumtex and Lizard formed a music subdivision of Megastyle called Jolly Poppers. The members of Jolly Poppers made one track each for this demo. There was a small change in the memberstatus after this demo. Hawker was deleted from the memberstatus in Megastyle, and joined Full Force instead.
Early 1990 there was a huge amount of diskmags on the Scene. Megastyle started a disk mag project called "The Megazine". The project was supposed to be run by the recently joined Reflex members. The layout and looks of The Megazine was very good, but the editors lost interest after ony two issues, and the project was shut down.
The Megazine was also made to spread info about the coming demo party in Bergen where Megastyle was a co-host together with Full Force and The Shadows. The spring period before this party was heavily used to create a new demo to attend in the competition. During this period Megastyle cleaned up a bit in their memberstatus. Wax and Pee was deleted from the memberstatus and reformed Reflex. Dolla left Megastyle and joined Warriors of Time, while Playpower quit the scene. Megastyle also got a new coder: Cycleburner from Contex.
The party demo was called "Shampoo In Soyasauce", but released as "Piece of Cake 3". This demo was partly designed by both Brooz and Sparkler, and included alot of nice graphics combined by new routines. It also included the first Megastyle demopart ever by Cycleburner. The demo ended as number 3 in the competition. Sparkler won the graphic competition and Jolly Poppers ended as number 4 in the music competition.
After the Bergen party, Drumtex leaves Megastyle and starts a new music group on the Amiga instead.
During the summer holiday 1990 Megastyle starts the work on the Brainstorm 4 demo. A lot of parts where made/started, but only a sneak peak onefile preview named "Yet to Come" was released.
The project gets buried, and instead a new project is started called "Kalle Kloakk Looking for Toilet Paper". This project started in august 1990 and was not ready for a release untill december the same year. The demo is considered as one of the best demos from Megastyle and a real c64 demo classic.
1991 and 1992 was silent Megastyle years. Several members left the scene, leaving only seven active members left in Megastyle. As the c64 scene slowly faded away, the seven remaining members in Megastyle decided to make one last demo. The project was called "Seal of Focalor". The demo contained a lot of samplings from The Black Album by Metallica. The demo theme was based upon the Seven Deadly Sins, having one part dedicated to each sin. The demo project started in 1991, was finished in 1992, but not released until February 1993. There are a couple of hidden files on the demo disk.
After the release of "Seal of Focalor" most members quit the 64 scene. Cycleburner, Sparkler, Rage, Price and Lizard stops all their Megastyle activities, leaving Scroll and Rotteroy as the only active members. Scroll and Rotteroy teams up with the german graphician Shok Ray and the Australian swapper Vengance. They release 2 smaller demos with old music and graphics lying around on old work disks. The demos are named "The Great Kloakkman" (released in 1995) and "Aaaargh!!" (released in 1997).
Scroll and Rotteroy also releases a couple of games like Burger Time '97, Twintris and Ordleik. Some game projects like Pimple Panic and a couple of adventure games was also started, but never finished.
Today, Megastyle still have some active members. From the old hard core, Rotteroy, Sparkler, Magnar, Rage and Scroll are still active. Also Jiminy, Hank Splendid, Endurion, Docster, MicroBit, FX, Roysterini, LukHash, Nyke, Babyduckgames, Pixelburner, Six, Optic Freeze, Badrax, Geir S. and Fandenivoldsk are developing together with the old members of Megastyle, mainly games for c64, Mega65 and Pico-8.
All Members :
| Craig Derbyshire | (22/6-2021 -> ) | .... | Coder, Graphician |
| Docster | (22/5-2017 -> ) | .... | Coder |
| Endurion | (30/4-2018 -> ) | .... | Coder |
| fandenivoldsk | (9/5-2020 -> ) | .... | Cover Designer, Fullscreen Graphician, Graphician, Tester |
| FX | (16/10-2017 -> ) | .... | Coder, Graphician, Musician |
| Hank Splendid | (5/10-2018 -> ) | .... | Graphician |
| Jiminy | (5/10-2018 -> ) | .... | Coder |
| LukHash | (13/9-2020 -> ) | .... | Musician, Tester |
| Magnar Harestad | (1/1-2020 -> ) | .... | Coder, Musician |
| MicroBit | (1/10-2017 -> ) | .... | Coder |
| MonstersGoBoom | (10/10-2020 -> ) | .... | Coder, Graphician |
| Nyke | (1/2-2021 -> ) | .... | Graphician |
| Optic Freeze | (7/7-2022 -> ) | .... | Tester |
| Rage | (1989 -> ) | .... | Coder, Musician |
| Robert Ramsay | (18/4-2021 -> ) | .... | Coder, Fullscreen Graphician, Graphician |
| Rotteroy | (1995 -> ) | .... | Coder, Graphician, Logo Graphician, Musician, Organizer |
| Roysterini | (14/5-2020 -> ) | .... | Coder, Graphician, Musician |
| Scroll | (12-1988 -> ) | .... | Coder, Musician |
| Six | (11/7-2022 -> ) | .... | Coder, Graphician, Musician, NTSC-Fixer, Tester |
| Sparkler | (1-1989 -> ) | .... | Fullscreen Graphician, Graphician |
| Cycleburner (inactive) | (3-1990 -> ) | .... | Coder |
| Price (inactive) | (6-1989 -> ) | .... | Coder, Graphician, Mega Swapper |
| Am-run (ex) | (12-1988 -> 2-1989) | .... | (unknown function) |
| Brooz (ex) | (1-1989 -> ) | .... | Graphician, Swapper |
| Cobra (ex) | (1/9-1988 -> ) | .... | Graphician, Swapper |
| Crockett (ex) | (1989 -> 1993) | .... | Logo Graphician, Musician, Organizer, Swapper |
| dmx (ex) | | .... | Coder, Musician |
| Dolla (ex) | (10-1989 -> 2-1990) | .... | Coder, Graphician, Mega Swapper |
| Drumtex (ex) | (7-1989 -> ) | .... | Coder, Musician |
| Gentle Fox (ex) | (9-1988 -> 8-1989) | .... | Swapper |
| Hawker (ex) | (12-1988 -> 11-1989) | .... | Coder, Musician |
| Inzane (ex) | (1-1989 -> ) | .... | Musician |
| Lizard (ex) | (10-1989 -> ) | .... | Coder, Musician |
| Majikeyric (ex) | (10-2016 -> 16/4-2018) | .... | Coder, Graphician |
| Mao (ex) | (1/9-1988 -> 1989) | .... | Logo Graphician, Musician, Organizer, Swapper |
| Napoleon (ex) | (1/9-1988 -> ) | .... | Coder, Swapper |
| Pee (ex) | (10-1989 -> 2-1990) | .... | Graphician |
| Play Power (ex) | (10-1989 -> 2-1990) | .... | Logo Graphician, Swapper |
| Shokray (ex) | (6-1995 -> ) | .... | Graphician, Modem Trader |
| Sleepwalker (ex) | (1-1989 -> ) | .... | Coder, Swapper |
| Spaceroy (ex) | (1993 -> 1995) | .... | Logo Graphician, Musician, Organizer, Swapper |
| Trasher (ex) | | .... | Coder, Graphician, Logo Graphician |
| Vengeance (ex) | (6-1995 -> 6-1995) | .... | Swapper |
| Wax (ex) | (10-1989 -> 2-1990) | .... | Coder |
| Yiare (ex) | (12-1988 -> 2-1989) | .... | Musician |
Releases : (204)
Organizer of :
User Comment
Submitted by Shokray on 5 April 2014
| Finally, was about time to make it clear, Megastyle is now official in Deeeeeeeeep Sleep mode. ;) |
User Comment
Submitted by Zyron on 11 May 2013
User Comment
Submitted by Rotteroy on 11 May 2013
| 11/05/13 - Edited alot of the trivia text, added the lost hyperlinks, and updated/corrected info in the memberstatus. The page is now locked with me as maintainer. //Rotteroy |
User Comment
Submitted by Scroll on 11 May 2013
| A new and much better text is finally up. Many thanks to Rotteroy for updating it! |
User Comment
Submitted by Scroll on 23 August 2006
| The reason why I hate this story is that it isn't objective. But I agree, it's better to have this story than to have nothing, especially since I currently don't have time to clean it up. Just be aware that some of the events described can be exaggerated, and some parts are totally irrelevant. |
User Comment
Submitted by Zyron on 21 July 2006
@JBK: I don't think that was a good idea. One of the purposes with CSDb is to gather information about groups & sceners and you have removed such information that someone (in this case I) spent valuable time researching & entering.
As it is now it's even more confusing since it looks like the founders Mao, Cobra & Napoleon never were members of the group.
I had also spent time adding hyperlinks to all groups mentioned in the history which is also gone now... |
User Comment
Submitted by Scroll on 8 July 2006
| I never saw the trivia entry for this page, but I believe the story might have been taken from my old homepage. Maybe I'll write a new story some day (the old story was terribly written anyway). |
User Comment
Submitted by Zyron on 5 July 2006
| There used to be a looooong story in the trivia explaining how the group was built, when members left/joined etc but unfortunately someone must have deleted it. |
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8.5/10 (22 votes) 
