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Demoscene: The best and most impressive amateur demos

Ninjadom

Ninjadom

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,195
London, UK
The term "Demoscene" is used to describe a scene of amateur developers who make awesome tech demos for consoles and computers.

It started way back in the 80's and had different groups of people making tech demos for 8-bit & 16-bit computers like C64, Amiga, Atari ST and ZX Spectrum. Now there wasn't a game attached to these demos, just really impressive feats of programming, graphics and music.

Different conventions were held where groups would gather and show off their demos and competitions were had to see who had the best demos. These conventions still go on today.

Nowadays the demoscene is centred around the PC but many groups still make console demos (NES, Genesis, PS1). What I'm mostly interested in are the console demos (NES demos are my current favourite).

This thread is for people to post the most impressive demos, console or PC. I'll start with a few.

High Hopes by Aspekt, 2007. NES.


N64 Hardware Demo by Retroactive, 2011
 
Kientin

Kientin

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,278
Love this stuff. Always fascinating to see what you can really do with some of this hardware. One demo that blew my mind recently was this one for PC.



All this done in a program about 64 kilobytes large. The screenshot included in the zip is larger than the entire program haha.
 
Raticus79

Raticus79

Community Resettler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,041
Exapunks has a console meant for doing this kind of thing with their funky animated-little-robots version of assembly:

https://youtu.be/nmdEHSe7Uxw


https://youtu.be/m7vhLmHnXMc


Edit: it's not really what you'd normally think of as a scene demo, but it is impressive considering the constraints. Now I'm wondering what kinds of graphical effects you could pull off on the thing.
 
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Pottuvoi

Pottuvoi

Member
Oct 28, 2017
3,062
Kientin said:
Love this stuff. Always fascinating to see what you can really do with some of this hardware. One demo that blew my mind recently was this one for PC.



All this done in a program about 64 kilobytes large. The screenshot included in the zip is larger than the entire program haha.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

64kB is surprisingly big amount when using resources sparingly.
Compression should allow quite bit more wiggle room as well.


Here is one of the most impressive old-school demos in recent years.
 
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Dominic Snyder

Dominic Snyder

Member
Oct 27, 2017
440
Seattle
The developer Plastic! They were a fixture of the demoscene before they started making stuff for PlayStations. Sony's worked with them a number of times now to create some really interesting shit.

I remember Linger in Shadows was, I think, the first thing I bought and downloaded on the PlayStation Network:


The more ambitious Datura followed that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vktlNnql7mA

And on the PS4, they came out with their best work yet, Bound:
 
Shaneus

Shaneus

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,898
Ninjadom said:
Overdrive by Titan, 2013. Sega Megadrive
[MEDIA]OGDtViPngi8[MEDIA]
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
You beat me to it! Even though it's technically more impressive, I still prefer that one to their follow-up (which I'm still waiting for news on a physical release on!):


I think this is my favourite 64kb demo, even though it's not the most technically impressive. What impressed me was that the guy did everything by himself over a number of years. Coding, modeling, and I'm pretty sure even composing the music.

Squish by .and:
 
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Why would you do that?

Why would you do that?

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,801
New York City
kaleii

kaleii

Member
Nov 21, 2017
59
Nice to see some demoscene love here. I was involved in the early 90's Amiga Demo Scene, so for me it's especially impressive to see Amiga stuff.

I think my favourite is "Rift" by "The Black Lotus" from 2014. Truly amazing stuff! I especially love the music and the distortion effects!

 
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Peru

Peru

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,129
I was never part of scenes like this myself but remember them with some nostalgia because they were part of the general hype around games and technology. I remember several TV shows that were just about "computers" or "gaming" and they often featured demos sent in to the show.
 
Shy

Shy

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
18,520
I've been thinking a lot about demo stuff lately (Linger in Shadows in particular)

I don't have any cool demos to link. Buuuut. I do have a documentary about the demo scene to post. :P
 
johan

johan

Member
Oct 29, 2017
1,554
Demoscene is amazing. The best performing games and ports are largely done by (ex) demoscene people. Nixxes is a great example of that.

I should go to a demoparty some day..
 
Herne

Herne

Member
Dec 10, 2017
5,318




Should have noted that I was involved in the C64 demo scene myself in a very small way, with my biggest achievement being that I have my own entry on csdb.dk. Great to see all these old machines being pushed beyond what they were originally intended to do!
 
Herne

Herne

Member
Dec 10, 2017
5,318
Ninjadom said:
Here is the NES version of Bad Apple (2011).
Click to expand...
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Very cool! It makes me wish for a version on the C64 where it's not constrained by the 166kb disk capacity and uses a cartridge or something... see what kind of image would result from that. Very, very cool to see it on both the Master System and the NES. I have no idea what Bad Apple and Touhou is and why it's a popular sequence to do, but I've learned more about it's existence than I ever wanted to over the past few years.
 
Shaneus

Shaneus

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,898
Whilst not necessarily the most impressive or anywhere near the best, a favourite of mine (probably for the music/visual sync which is basically perfect) is Panic by Future Crew:

Skaven/Purple Motion were/are wizards.

Also, not specifically sticking with the OP it's not really demoscene but it IS demosceners Zyrinx (who I think were Silents/Crionics? Jesper Kyd composed for them, including this video), with a tech demo for the 32X:
 
AmFreak

AmFreak

Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,506
Favorite "high-end" Amiga demos:
Starstruck - The Black Lotus

Lapsuus - Maturefurk (=Futuremark = 3D Mark)
 
Outrun

Outrun

Member
Oct 30, 2017
5,782
I remember a demo with the USS Enterprise leaving space dock on the Amiga.

That blew my mind back in the day.
 
ODD

ODD

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,224
Kientin said:
Love this stuff. Always fascinating to see what you can really do with some of this hardware. One demo that blew my mind recently was this one for PC.



All this done in a program about 64 kilobytes large. The screenshot included in the zip is larger than the entire program haha.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I love how it ends with the pale blue dot.
 
Tunahead

Tunahead

Member
Oct 30, 2017
986
Raticus79 said:
Exapunks has a console meant for doing this kind of thing with their funky animated-little-robots version of assembly:

https://youtu.be/nmdEHSe7Uxw

https://youtu.be/m7vhLmHnXMc

Edit: it's not really what you'd normally think of as a scene demo, but it is impressive considering the constraints. Now I'm wondering what kinds of graphical effects you could pull off on the thing.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I could see an Exapunks demo getting into one of those special category demo compos that utilize unusual hardware.

You know, like this thing:

 
Patram

Patram

Member
May 5, 2018
35
I rarely post on this site but hey, this is a fun topic so why not! Everything here were shown at Revision 2017.

Kernkompetenz (Apple IIGS)


Logon's run - 3D meets the aging bits (Amstrad CPC)
 
ghibli99

ghibli99

Member
Oct 27, 2017
17,768
Dang, that SMS demo is crazy.

I remember this being a bit of a spiritual successor to the work from Spaceballs. It was a fun one to show to even non-demosceners, just like State of the Art and 9 Fingers.



Edit: Wow, this is 15 years old already. :|
 
Drain You

Drain You

â–˛ Legend â–˛
Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,986
Connecticut
brainchild said:
Gonna have to go with .kkreiger

Still impressive to this day!
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This was crazy too, especially seeing as it was a playable game kinda. I was about to get up and plug in my external drive so I could see if I still had it on there then I realized we are talking about a 96kb Demo hahaha. Would be much easier and fast to Google it.
 
Shaneus

Shaneus

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Oct 27, 2017
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Deleted member 48897

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Yeah at this point they're documenting what would be considered otherwise to be exceptional behavior, so it's probably going to be pretty inherently technical. Even I am still but a grasshopper when it comes to the finer points of using interrupts to create artistic effects
 
Knurek

Knurek

Member
Oct 26, 2017
4,335
64kB demos are so passe:

4kB shader that has everything (including sound soft-synth) running on your GPU. Can be run in your browser as well
(don't click on the link on mobile, obviously)
And a sequel to the above:
 

Deleted member 12790

User requested account closure
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Oct 27, 2017
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Anybody here on Resetera fancy themselves a budding pixel artist? Want to contribute to an amiga demo? I'm a programmer, not an artist, and I need some neato pixel art to finish my demo.

Specifically looking for anybody who specializes in working in 2bpp or 4bpp pixel art. I'd also like to try some 1bpp mathematical effects, so if someone is skilled at 1bpp shaded art I'd be all down for that too.
 
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