It has been 4 years now since the release of Mindcandy Vol.I, which featured PC Demos and was a huge success.
The waiting is over and it was absolutely worth it.
Mindcandy II – Amiga Demos – is now finally finished as well. I was on their notification list for years and didn’t trust my eyes at first when I got the email that it is available to order now … at last.
The Demos were originally written for the Commodore Amiga Computer and are available for download on the Internet for free.
You can enjoy them paying absolutely nothing, if you have the hardware to run them. Most people don’t, including myself and even the ones that used to have one don’t have a working one anymore (that includes myself too hehe).
The Demos
- Megademo by Red Sector Inc.
- Mental Hangover by Scoopex
- Enigma by Phenomena
- Voyage by Razor 1911
- Hardwired by Silents & Crionics
- Human Target by Melon Dezign
- World of Commodore by Sanity
- State of the Art by Spaceballs
- Desert Dream by Kefrens
- Groovy by Lemon
- 242 by Virtual Dreams (Fairlight)
- 9 Fingers by Spaceballs
- Arte by Sanity
- Friday At Eight by Polka Brothers
- Love by Virtual Dreams (Fairlight)
- Nexus 7 by Andromeda
- Deep – The Psilocybin Mix by CNCD & Parallax
- Closer by CNCD
- Tint by The Black Lotus
- Sumea by Virtual Dreams (Fairlight)
- Captured Dreams by The Black Lotus
- Killer by CNCD
- Relic by Nerve Axis
- Smokebomb by Ozone
- Klone by Dual Crew – Shining
- Concrete by Ephidrena
- Perfect Circle by The Black Lotus
- Lapsuus by Maturefurk
- Fate Fits Karma by MadWizards
- Silkcut by The Black Lotus
The two demos I care about the most are on the disk. I was probably not the only one that was demanding to have them on the disk during the pre-selection process 3 years or so ago. The two demos are my alltime favorite: “Hardwired” by Silents & Crionics and “Desert Dream” by Kefrens.
“Hardwired” won the 3rd prize at the very first “The Party” Demoparty in Denmark in 1991. The Demo “Odyssey” by Alcatraz won 1st prize but did not make the disc (you will understand why, if you get the chance to see this 40+ minute demo 😉 and “Voyage” by Razor 1911 was second. “Voyage” made it on to this disc as well.
“Desert Dream” was the last great Demo on the Amiga 500 IMO, after that did the AGA Demos on the then brand new Amiga 1200 dominate the Amiga Demo Landscape. Ironically was “Desert Dream” only released a bit before “Second Reality” from Future Crew was released for the PC and closed the huge gap in quality between AMIGA and PC Demo Scene. For a period after that were Amiga and PC Demos head by head in quality but the PC eventually surpased the Amiga Demos and eventually dominated the scene.
When Commodore closed computer production at the end of the ninetees a lot of great Amiga Demosceners switched to the PC which was more and more becoming a normal household item and continued their great creative work there.
The only minor “bummer” is the fact that “9 Fingers” by Spaceballs was selected instead of the surprise winner of “The Party 1992″ – “State of the Art”, also by Spaceballs. “State of the Art” was new and different. “9 Fingers” is maybe better than “State of the Art”, but it was only a naturally improved version using the same concept as “State of the Art” and thus less revolutionary. I will be able to live with that though.
Update 12/26/2006: The DVD finally arrived today. The List of Demos on the Mindcandy Website is incomplete and so was the List in this blog post. The disc has 30 demos and not 29. I fixed the list above. The missing demo is “State of the Art” by “Spaceballs” 😀 . Yeah! Okay, that means: No Bummmer anymore as stated in the previous paragraph … Now it is only A.W.E.S.O.M.E!
The Disc was made for the Demosceners of the early and mid nineties, but that does not mean that it is only something they will be able to enjoy. No, for them is this DVD a “must buy” (or they were no real scener anyway).
For everybody else is this a small piece of computer history. Pleasant designed with matching music running in the background. Not a boring book that gives you the tech details like “imagine this, the computer this was designed for had less than 10 Mega Hertz tact frequency and was 8 bit. Today’s home PC’s have 2, even 3 GIGA Hertz and are 64 bit” … yeah, whatever that means :).
If you watch the DVD together with a old school scener and you see him suddenly overly excited about a specific part of a demo that might not get you excitement up to the next level don’t worry. It only means that it was hard to do back then. Say something nice like “fascinating” and continue to watch the show.
If you are still undecided, download for free the Trailer and/or the preview disc for free to get a glimpse of the complete disc which is packed to the roof with OVER 3 HOURS of old school entertainment.
If you are from the US, then you can order the Mindcandy Volume 2: Amiga Demos DVD from Amazon.com, Germany Go64.de, UK David Poves, Canada SceneStuff and Hungary Tomcat’s T-shirt Shop.
Cheers,
Carsten aka Roy/SAC
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