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Atari Falcon port
The ascii explosion above came courtesy of Dipswitch!
For a long time, the porting state of the art Amiga 060 demos to the CT60 gauntlet, thrown down with such enthusiasm by Mikro back in 2008 with his tweaking of the famous Black Lotus trio, remained un-picked up for a long time.It's not as if there wasn't further interest. We heard tales of others. We even got to see a captive version of 'Chips don't Lie' by Ephidrena and Darklite at one past Outline party. However, a promised final and dual compatible with Firebee version is still awaiting its first nervous trip into the wild.
It has taken until now, with another previously quiescent CT60 owner, Britelite, to pick up that disregarded glove and stun us all with a re-release of the Revision 2012 Amiga demo compo winner, 'Kioea' for the CT60.
There were previous overheard mutterings of something to come from that direction. Observant readers of the previous issue of Mag! might remember some cryptic clues offered right at the end of that issue's scene news column. Although we got the generalities right. The actual timing and nature of this release was a complete (joyful) surprise to those of us at Outline 2013.
So I guess I'd better start saying some nice things about this demo then?
From that first glorious loading screen, it's clear that the Revision 2012 Amiga demo compo first prize winner was something pretty special. I wouldn't expect anything less, being privileged to see the class of 2013 in person. Even the otherwise ghastly 2002 Mekka Symposium had their top notch Amiga demo competition to make it almost worthwhile attending that party.
Well there are lots of standard elements here, a comforting reassurance of past glories. So we see quite a lot of metallic space ship corridors in different places, some of these have complex 3-D objects flowing through them. Some flow a bit more smoothly than others, but more of that later.
There are set-pieces where MadWizards strive to create more magical artistic moments. One such of these is best described as 'Alien flowers suspended in the clouds.'
A bit later on, we get a definite Black Lotus homage, with the unforgettable 'Woman in the sky suspended above the city' drama.
The soundtrack is of a suitably high quality, in keeping with the rest. In the main demo it is mildly reminiscent of the mellow tones coming from 'Ocean Machine'. As a result of this, we're gently eased through the running order. The mood is very relaxed all the way, even through the harder edged metallic screens.
I've touched on this already, but the artistry, style and loose theming are rather reminiscent of the classic TBL approach to demos.
There are no slack or 'flat' bits, even the normally underdeveloped credits and greetings screens had some sort of effect going on.
The Falcon '060 version is noticeably smoother when running compared with the Amiga '060, but it is not completely so. The effects here are pushing the metal, even on an 68060 class machine. Then again, in a multi GHz Multi-core world, even the '060 is quaint retro hardware now.
On the other hand, the relative lack of raw processing power is subtly assisted in parts by some very helpful and co-operative background graphics! This form of artistic licence can also be seen in places in some TBL works. Some might call it cheating, I might call it doing more with less.
This demo is very well made and put together. It deserved its first place at Revision 2012 and the Falcon '060 port does justice to Britelite's efforts on our behalf. We take the opportunity of this paragraph to thank him very much for his time and commitment.
A lot of the appeal of this demo is down to the evocative feeling you would get when thinking back to the classic times spent enjoying watching a TBL production. Maybe these days, people are looking as much for the familiar and reassuring, as much as they are expecting the novelty and brain blasting stuff? A large part of its first place up-voting may be due to the seekers of the classic and familiar finding what they wanted here?
In conclusion, yet again here is proof that the Falcon '060 can deliver fully on anything made for the Amiga '060. We have also read encouraging comments in a subsequent interview with Britelite. He's keen to include future releases and even past material from various associated groups in porting over to the Falcon!
More power to that man's elbow! Now will this give other parties a motivating kick in the Devpac? Time for some new and original demos to go with these brilliant ports perhaps?
Rating: - 95% - Falcon '060 can still handle the state of the art!
CiH - For Mag! - Aug 2013.