
THE DOOMED PARTY
0480780

The third phase of the Assembly was held in Finnish capital, Helsinki,
in the first weekend of August. New limits were set. PC's unveiled as
an expensive game console.

By Mount

The  icehockey hall, Jaahalli, reminded
of  everything  else  than  winter when
Assembly   '94   was  held  at  outside
temperatures   near  30  degress.   The
place  seemed  perfect  to hold a party
with  a  hall  surrounded  by seats and
plenty  of  space  and  toilets  around
that.    Only   air   condition  was  a
terrible  lack  and  in the outer areas
the  big  windows  couldn't  be openned
while the sun was burning merciless.
In  the  centre of the hall a tower was

























hanging    with    screens   in   three
directions  which  was a big plus since
you  had  a  good  view  of a screen at
nearly  all  places  in  the  hall  and
especially   at  the  many  high  level
seats.  Over each screen were a display
screen  which  could  tell the name and
number   of  production  while  it  was
showed.   Really  nice  though  it took
some   time   (=   the  whole  graphics
competition)   for  the  organizers  to
realize  that  the display shouldn't be
turned  all  the  time  since the light
disturbed  the  screen  a lot.  And the
screens where already not at all good.
The  party  place  was good to make the
right atmosphere and there seemed to be
no   power   problems.    Some  however
thought  they  were  sitting  a bit too
close  at  the tabletops of loose-lying
and not too stable chip-plates.


Insufficient organisation
In  general  the  organisation  of  the
party  was  rather messed, maybe due to
too  many  organizers  or  focus on the
money they could earn when people first
had  entered.   At  least  there wasn't
enough  control  of  what was going on.
That   resulted   in   12   disks  with
competition  graphics disappearing so a
couple of pictures had to be shown much
later when they where finally found.
Since  you didn't need to register when
entering the arrangers could only guess
who  and  how  people who were present.
Some  predicted  between 3000 and 4000.
When  considering the size of the hall,
around 2000 visitors is probably a good
guess.   But it was hard to judge since
a  lot of the groups didn't bring their
computers.  They just walked around and
talked to people or were in the city.


At  all big parties the list of results
is  normally released shortly after the
winners  have  been  awarded.   But not
here.  "It will be released in a couple
days", one of the PC organizers said.
Disappointingly     there     was    no
competition  climax.  Instead of having
a  speaker  saying the results from the
buttom to the top it was just displayed
on  the  screen.   There  was  no stage
where   the  winners  could  get  their
prizes.  Instead they should just go to
the organizer centre and pick it up.
Some  deadlines for e.g.  graphics were
very  early so you would miss it if you
came  the  second  day.  The invitation
most  people  had,  and  which had been
published, said nothing about that (and
some  other rules).  But worst was that
this  invitation  didn't  say  WHERE in
Helsinki the party was to be held which


gave  quite  a  lot  of people problems
getting there.
There   was   no   laserdisc   room  as
promised.    Instead   you  could  hunt
around and shoot at your friends in the
Quazar room.

The Doomed PC
More  than  2/3 of the computers at the
party were PC's  Most of them seemed to
be  hit  by  a very strong virus called
Doom.   At  least  you could constantly
see  a  lot of screens running with the
popular   game.    Though  a  few  work
serious  it is obvious that most of the
PC  scene  is  no  good  for  more than
promoting the PC as a game console, and
a  quite  expensive one if you want the
game to run smoothly.


                                      

New limits, no limits?
When comparing with the demos from last
year  the  overall  quality  was rather
high  and  several  of   the demos were
near  to  the  limit  of 4 disks.  Some
could only run from harddisk.
The  coders  had  big advantage at this
competition  since  the  rules  allowed
them  to use 2 Mb of fastmem apart from
2  Mb chip.  The benefit of that is not
so  much  the  bigger workspace but the
fact  that  fastmemory  makes the A1200
twice as fast.  The big disadvantage is
that  only  a minority of the scene has
the  hardware  to see those demos.  One
thing  is  taking  advantage of fastmem
when  it's  there (like Complex' Real),
another  thing is needing it to run the
demo  at all.  Several of the demos did
that - even the winning 40kb!
Stellar's  winning demo also needed the


extra  memory but it was clearly needed
for  e.g.  a Doom-routine so great that
even   the  PC-guys  gave  it  a  hand.
Actually  most  of Mindflow was made in
only   two  and  a  half  weeks.   Both
Finnish routines and brains run fast...
Upcomers  Parallax  released Drool This
which  was  quite  interesting  inspite
some "A4000 needing" routines.  But the
2.5  Mb LHA packed demo was also fed up
with quite a lot of raytracings.

No swiss comeback succes
The  people  behind  Alcatraz'  classic
Odyssey,   Hornet  and  PGCS,  tried  a
comeback   but   didn't   get   a   top
placement.  The demo had scenes similar
to  Odyssey  with  bombastic  sound and
design but what was shown on the screen
looked  more  like  the  intro part and
ended  all  of  a sudden.  Like Virtual


Dreams' demo, Breathtaker, it was first
released a little week after the party,
probably  due  to some "low-memory" and
loader   fixing.   When  shown  on  the
screen  Breathtaker  most looked like a
video  demo  but the thing was squeezed
down to four disks.
The  introcompetition  was  won  by the
17-year  old  coder,  Silver Eagle, who
had  made  the  most  beautiful gouraud
shaded  and  animated  objects  seen on
Amiga  yet.   When  asked  how  he  had
handled  the  maths he admitted that he
had  been  helped  a  little by his big
brother,  who  won  the democompetition
for Pygmy last year!
Lizardking/Razor  1911 (and Triton, PC)
must  have  had one of his best days in
his scene career.  He won the 4-channel
music  competition and was third in the
multichannel comp.


What  the invitation said nothing about
was  the  extra entertainment caused by
the  European championship in athletics
taking  place right outside the windows
of  the hall.  Therefore you could have
perfect view to the final of the womens
marathon  run  Saturday.  Unfortunately
the  sports  event had a quite negative
effect  on the parking facilities which
were  brought down to a minimum so some
had  to  carry  their  computers a very
long  way after finally finding a place
to park their car.

To sum up you can say that The Assembly
'94 had  interesting releases, but most
people   thought   the  organizing  was
disappointing.   Refering  to a certain
Easter  arrangement in Norway, it seems
to  be  hard  to  organize a party with
success three  times  though  you  have
experience.