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:::::::[ Dead Hackers Society ]:::::::
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"Drone"
Was it something that was said that brought this demo out?
A long time ago, there was a textfile which discussed the possible ways in which an UltraSatan SD-Card to hard disk adaptor could enhance the use of existing Atari ST hardware and provide a boost to creativity in a number of unexpected ways. That is, if people cared to do so, and not remain locked in 'old' ways of thinking about their ST's.
That article appears to have been read and understood. Memories of it have faded, especially on the part of the author, whoever he was? Now years later, we get this, "a ten megabyte tribute to the great UltraSatan SD-adaptor. Long live new Atari hardware!"
On first impressions, 'Drone' is yet another great Atari STE demo, to add to the rich platform portfolio that the Dead Hackers Society has built up over a number of years. We'll discuss a bit more about the screens themselves shortly.
What is going on 'under the bonnet' is of more interest than usual. The demo is being delivered, in part, through streaming techniques, with a file size that firmly trounces the "holy two disk limit". There is a streaming soundtrack, a data transfer rate of around 500 KB/sec is the only requirement for membership of this demo club, so any reasonable normal hard drive will do too.
The start of the show is marked by an orchestral sounding soundtrack with a grandiose mood, a dark shadowy background appears, with a massive in-yer-face logo scrolling across the fullscreen. Did I mention that lots of other good DHS stuff was back for this one too? Such as use of the STE overscan/Full screen display in most parts.
We pull back for a broader view on the logo, which is now the title graphic. This logo feels more 'modelled' and almost photo realistic? Meanwhile the music subtly alters to something more Jarresque, with a cheeky hint of chip sound in there also.
The first major screen is on the simple side, relatively speaking. A massive textured chessboard zoomer, does its thing, recreating memories of similar things on earlier demos?
But the Dead Hackers are also playing around with some new things too. A hard to describe series of rippling dot or bead patterns comes up next. These are almost moving in a manner that the classic 'flowing towards the viewer' star field used to do on old school demos.
A major feature of this demo, we are greeted with the first hi-res and possibly hi-colour still picture by Ultradialectics. I think this one uses the 400 x 273 interlace display mode, showing 31 colour scales? The material can be described as late night horror movie friendly! The later pictures are using a 320 x 273 display mode, with a potential maximum 26288 colours onscreen at once!
Some quick greetings are next, set to a background of swinging rotating motion blurry bars.
We're switching to a gorgeous greeny plasma screen, topped off with the realistic 'Drone' logo from the beginning of the demo. DHS seem to really own the extended STE colour palette and the extra opportunities to avoid garish 'coder colours' that this offers.
A second horrorshow chest-burster of a picture is up next. This is definitely grey scaled with a tint of sepia and is as convincing as an action photograph could be, if that was used instead of hand-drawn pixels.
Hardcore and DHS know the score, with two effects combined to one screen of STE goodness. A group of rotating textured blocks zooms in and out of the foreground, whilst a lit and textured horizontal twister does its thing in the background. When I say 'background'. I mean the twister is huge and dominating the screen, utterly!
The third picture arrives after the previous screen vanishes. More 'gothic' than 'horror' but still fitting in with the overall mood and tenor of the demo.
Another more 'technical' rather than aesthetic screen here. With a fullscreen bump mapping of a texture scrolling forever upwards. This is suitably 'dark', the light source often flashes too.
Something new, but hinted at near the start of the demo. The large dots or beads make a welcome return. They are acting as the pixels for a fast spinning and zooming textured cube. The detail level shoots up, the nearer the cube gets to the camera and more of these dots are shown. There is also a hint of motion blur in there too! One of my favourite bits of the demo!
The final still image, well there's a freak at the window, tapping on your screen. It wants to be let out!
We see stars! We see stars in close formation, forming the outer lines of another 3-D shape. And not 'stars' as in 'points of light' either, but actual star-shaped sprites. Lots and lots of them. The effect is hardcore, fast, stark, invigorating and not at all cartoony. Another favourite!
There's a pyramid made of these things too. Did I mention there's fading and more motion blur with the movement of these stars as well?
And a solid wall of them, the stars going to the back of the screen merge into a single brightness before re-emerging back into their individual parts coming back to the front of the screen.
We're definitely on the way out, as a massive graphic, made up of all the other static pictures shown before, scrolls upward, carrying 'who did what' text with it. The rather excellent soundtrack was by Cerror and called 'Cubeism'. It ends with the always excellent advice "Never give up - stay Atari!"
So was this a 'Falcon 030 demo in an STE' as suggested in some quarters. Well, around eighty percent of it could well have been. There were a couple of screens which might have been better suited to another production, but no real issues with this one.
Is this the start of the UltraSatan revolution? Hopefully yes. Surely there's more that can be done with the streaming technique. Video streaming in conjunction with effects anyone?
Overall, Another class act from the Dead Hackers, who almost make it look easy. What next from them, and is a return to the Falcon planned at any time soon?
Ratings..
Graphics:- 90% - Both for the spectacular static images and well realised moving parts in-demo as well.
Sound:- 95% - What's not to like? One of my favourite demo tracks from 2012.
Tech:- 95% - Data streaming, of course. But there are some promising new stuffs too, such as those 'star fields' near the end.
Overall:- 93% - Dead Hackers squeezing a Falcon quart into an STE pint pot!
CiH, for Mag, Nov 2012.