Coded by Dr. Skull / VD (FLT), known for his awesome video packer in 242 demo.
This little production contains 29mb of animation crunched to only one disk. This is not a joke. The decruncher is able to play up to 16fps of 16-coloured animation.
Spaceballs and Virtual Dreams were pioneers in video transcoding, before the terminology even existed. On Virtual Dreams, I would have never allowed brand dilution: either you’re all Fairlight or fuck off in three leaps, none of this group-within-a-group bullshit. I wouldn’t have cared how good they were, either we’re all in this together or get lost… I’ll have to ask Bacchus why that was done that way, I found it utter shit back in the day and 30 years later I still find it utter shit…
Quartex had Alliance Design, Crystal had Melon Design, it was a badge of kudos to have a bespoke demo/cracktro group attached to a major cracking group.
Fairlight were simply ensuring they were represented as well.
Well you already know I don’t have a very high opinion of Mellon based on their work, so one could say that I’m very consistent. Building a worthy group by assembling just the right people with the correct mix of skills and motivation is an extremely hard (and often serendipitous!) task, allowing for subgroups is throwing a lot of that away.
I’m an OK coder, but I’m not in the same league as Dr.Skull/VD.
And regardless your opinion on Melon, the majority of Crystal’s cracktros consisted of a 4 colour text typer, they were beyond boring, and Melons work elevated what Crystal were releasing.
And having a subgroup meant crackers could concentrate on the growing volume of cracks to do, and a more cohesive style was produced by those subgroups.
They definitely still have a style, I just think their style is utter shyte. A solid group should have crackers, coders, graphicians and musicians all in equal measure. That’s what differentiates amateurs from professionals, and that was the winning recipe for the groups which survive to this day.
Well time catched up with the piracy groups, as it was clearly that if you wanted to have a leg placed in both the illegal and legal demoscene, you would have to risk a lot, so only way was for the crackers/coders to be double members in both a piracy and demogroup. We in Paradox had several members who operated with different nicks in the demoscene. Also keep in mind, that some “out of the box” thinking guys started to earn much money from their activities, so if you wanted to be associated with piracy – your chance to get… Read more »
In my country we didn’t bother with trying to get development jobs in the industry because there was no game development industry. Where I grew up, if one wasn’t charging money for the cracks one was considered nothing more than an annoying, clueless kid. I know people who literally built entire family houses from selling cracked software. That was the only way to fly. Of course, not having any copyright laws helped a lot. It’s not actually law enforcement that killed it, it was the ubiquitous access to the InterNet, where every kiddie can find the latest cracks if (s)he… Read more »
IIRC, some of these demo groups wanted to ‘distance’ themselves from the illegal activity of the crackers groups. So, by having a separate ‘label’ so to speak, they could claim neutrality and say they focused on the creative aspect only. Kind of makes sense to me?
Coded by Dr. Skull / VD (FLT), known for his awesome video packer in 242 demo.
Spaceballs and Virtual Dreams were pioneers in video transcoding, before the terminology even existed. On Virtual Dreams, I would have never allowed brand dilution: either you’re all Fairlight or fuck off in three leaps, none of this group-within-a-group bullshit. I wouldn’t have cared how good they were, either we’re all in this together or get lost… I’ll have to ask Bacchus why that was done that way, I found it utter shit back in the day and 30 years later I still find it utter shit…
Blame Quartex or blame Crystal.
Quartex had Alliance Design, Crystal had Melon Design, it was a badge of kudos to have a bespoke demo/cracktro group attached to a major cracking group.
Fairlight were simply ensuring they were represented as well.
Well you already know I don’t have a very high opinion of Mellon based on their work, so one could say that I’m very consistent. Building a worthy group by assembling just the right people with the correct mix of skills and motivation is an extremely hard (and often serendipitous!) task, allowing for subgroups is throwing a lot of that away.
Disagree.
I’m an OK coder, but I’m not in the same league as Dr.Skull/VD.
And regardless your opinion on Melon, the majority of Crystal’s cracktros consisted of a 4 colour text typer, they were beyond boring, and Melons work elevated what Crystal were releasing.
And having a subgroup meant crackers could concentrate on the growing volume of cracks to do, and a more cohesive style was produced by those subgroups.
Whether you liked Melon or not, they had a style.
They definitely still have a style, I just think their style is utter shyte. A solid group should have crackers, coders, graphicians and musicians all in equal measure. That’s what differentiates amateurs from professionals, and that was the winning recipe for the groups which survive to this day.
Well time catched up with the piracy groups, as it was clearly that if you wanted to have a leg placed in both the illegal and legal demoscene, you would have to risk a lot, so only way was for the crackers/coders to be double members in both a piracy and demogroup. We in Paradox had several members who operated with different nicks in the demoscene. Also keep in mind, that some “out of the box” thinking guys started to earn much money from their activities, so if you wanted to be associated with piracy – your chance to get… Read more »
In my country we didn’t bother with trying to get development jobs in the industry because there was no game development industry. Where I grew up, if one wasn’t charging money for the cracks one was considered nothing more than an annoying, clueless kid. I know people who literally built entire family houses from selling cracked software. That was the only way to fly. Of course, not having any copyright laws helped a lot. It’s not actually law enforcement that killed it, it was the ubiquitous access to the InterNet, where every kiddie can find the latest cracks if (s)he… Read more »
IIRC, some of these demo groups wanted to ‘distance’ themselves from the illegal activity of the crackers groups. So, by having a separate ‘label’ so to speak, they could claim neutrality and say they focused on the creative aspect only. Kind of makes sense to me?
Yeeeaaahhh, a lot of folks had that kind of attitude, but it’s a shitty attitude in my book. Piracy is where it all began! <3
Heard this tune somewhere recently and I think it was on the Commodore 64…
…really cool tune, throws me back into the 1980’s… What’s this tune called?
quodlibet by Groo
Thank you SIRIaX <3
Indeed great design!! 😀
pretty cool design and very short scroller.