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breakpoint 2003 report by rob
mindblasting headaches, high-fidelity ear-pressure and xxtreme noseblowing
friday:
didn't sleep very well. the slight cold, that showed up first on monday
became worse at thursday evening. not the best start for a four-day party. but nevertheless
i moved my ass in the early morning to the train-station from where i drove to the party
with crest again. the bad thing about the trip down to bingen was that i had pressure on my ears
(like when you fly by plane), which did not go away. in frankfurt/main i had to buy a big pack of
handkerchiefs. at around 2pm we finally reached bingen. the sun shone and everything seemed
great. after some minutes of waiting the shuttle arrived and brought us to the party-place. at
this time it was pretty crowded yet. we got two places in the middle of the hall and unpacked our
stuff. for myself, i did not just have my ear-pressure, but also a nice headache was coming along.
at this point i tried to get some sleep on the grass outside. didn't help. so i grabbed my sleeping-bag
and went to the sleeping-hall. at 10pm i decided to get up, because this time i was supporting crest's
demoshow with some fine amiga-demos (i hope, anyone noticed ;-). after the show i almost immediately
went to bed again. this time in the party-hall, because the night was cold and the party-hall
was at least heated by the people and their equipment.
saturday:
but in the morning this hall was cold, too. it took some time until the heating-tubes
(which released a flow of warm air coming from generators) started to work. this day i watched the 4k-compos
and the 96k-game-compo. and probably the 4k-compos alone were worth all the problems i had to deal with!
i was especially looking forward to the amiga-compo. there were just three entries, but "timur lenk"
from ephidrena and spaceballs totally rocked da house. so far, for me it was the best 4k-intro i have ever
seen. the quality of the pc-entries was all the time at least a bit behind, until they showed the last one.
"mojo dreams" from rok and frenetic did beat everything! surely they have set a new standard for
4k-intros. a nice rendered landscape-picture with some music was just the beginning. some more pictures followed.
and finally they even started some flybys! great stuff. the game-compo consisted of two lowlights, one average
and two highlights. after that i had to sleep again. and, of course, i missed the scene.org-awards. same with the
wild-compo. i just heard the music. i will check the entries shortly. some are said to be really cool.
sunday:
huh, _the_ day. 64k- and demo-competitions ahead :-). at least the weather was becoming better
again (the whole saturday had been damn cold). because there were no amiga-64k-entries, this compo was cancelled.
in the pc-64k-compo we had again some impressive entries. subversive from black maiden and bypass was really nice.
candytron from farb-rausch was a great preview for their winning demo. and finally "project genesis" from
the hungarian group conspiracy set a new level for "demos in intros"! the amount of effects crammed in
that little file was amazing. what i disliked a bit was, that this intro consisted of three or four independent
parts. subversive and candytron used one style for the whole intro. nah, anyway, first place was absolutely ok ;-).
for me it was now time again to go to sleep. my headache was over at last. the ear-pressure was a good way down,
too. but the use of around 100 handkerchiefs made my nose go dry. it looked like after a sun-burn. at least elend
lend me some skin-cream, which helped a lot. in the evening it was time for the big stuff. the c64-demos were
only average. i had hoped for more. the amiga-compo started with a nice introduction, where sceners from
amiga-groups went on stage dancing and jumping while playing some song (from which i didn't understand the text).
but again there were just three entries. "lights 2" didn't really had a chance. haven't checked it on my
system up to now (030/50), but i just read in the readme, that it really wants a 060!?! anyway, "fate fits
karma" from madwizards came second. nice thing, of course, but ppc only. magia from tbl came first. and i'm
pretty sure that madwizards get really in trouble, if tbl someday starts using ppc, too ;-). after that (or before -
can't remember exactly) followed the console-demo-compo. i liked these gameboy-intros. phloam from unique was
a great one (let's see when they start converting amiga-demos to gba ;-). ah yes, one x-box-demo was released.
next came the pc-demo-compo. because no seats were free, i tried to sit on the first desk, which was luckily
empty. but one line of people had to stay in front of me, so that i couldn't see very much. to be honest, after
the first entries i nearly had enough from this compo. boring techno-demos with super-simple sound and flashy
pics, from which every epileptic would probably die. i went to the organizer-area and watched the following demos
from there. except the first three, i remember that i liked also "dismal prospeckts" from speckdrumm
(the first good entry in the competition). "squoquo's mansion" from squoquo (of course) also got my
attention. perhaps because of the dark atmosphere. "still sucking nature" from fan was the only demo
with sw-rendering. but the quality was nevertheless outstanding. the last two demos shown were "fr025: the
popular demo" from farb-rausch and relais from kolor. both would have been worth to win the competition. but
in the end farb-rausch made it. i must say that their demo is the first one that gives you what the group's
name is all about - a real farb-rausch. and that's how the day ended for me. for the night i decided to use the
sleeping-hall because of the better air.
monday:
nothing special happend. everyone was more or less waiting for the prizegiving. the winners got things like money,
gfx-boards, harddisks, cubase-packages, mindcandy-dvds and other stuff. bad thing was that me and crest missed the
last bus to the train-station. but yoda helped out by playing taxi. thanks a lot for that, yoda! the trip home
went fine (as always), and at 10pm we arrived in berlin.
what else?:
about 500 sceners found the way to their new mekka. ok, mekka/symposium had more visitors, but i think
that the number of attending sceners will grow with the years. the only problems at the party were the heating-probs and
that most of the time one half of the toilets was out of order. but the great organizing-staff was working out these
problems as fast as they could. oh yes, i should also mention the shuttle-bus, which was driving several times every
day down to bingen and brought the people to specific locations like supermarkets, the train-station or the
shower-facilities. nice thing (even so i didn't use it) and included in the entry-fee of 40 euros. and the
sound-system was really fat (at least for what i have seen/heard so far). bingen-citizens can be happy that the party took
place some kilometers away from the town ;-).
a last word:
the music in some of the released demos: why don't use a module with < 100kb for this umpf-umpf music
instead of a mp3? i would accept mp3s if the music is very complex or if you use real singing, but i think it's
just a waste of space to use them for this monotone techno-stuff.
conclusion:
breakpoint 2003 was for sure a great party with cool releases, even with my illness preventing me from having too
much fun. easter 2004 i'll be back ;-).
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