Posts Tagged ‘amiga’

  • Whattaheck: The HTML5 demoscene

    Anyone who knows me knows about my love of all things linked to the Atari ST and Amiga demo scenes, going back multiple decades now. The site We Are Back has been actively converting lots of famous demo screens to html5. It’s great to see it has bought about the resurrection of some long since idle demo groups too. So here’s a very quick round-up of some of my favourite recent entries on the site:

    D.O.C. Demo by SpeedStar

    wab-doc-demo

    This is a legendary Amiga classic and very cleanly recreated.

    Whattaheck by NewCore

    wab-whattaheck

    This is one of the earlier Atari ST mega demos created by The Carebears (and friends). As was common with Atari ST demos you used the space bar to move from screen to screen rather than the mouse. On the main menu, as seen in the screen shot above, move to the DEMO NO. section and use the left/right arrows to change the screen and then space to load. There are 13 in total. NewCore has literally converted the entire demo, minus a few scroll texts, very impressive work indeed.

    Hemoroids Rebirth by Hemoroids

    wab-hemoroids

    This is different in that it’s an old Atari ST demo crew coming back from the grave and flexing their muscles with html5 instead. This is a brand new demo, made in a mostly old-skool style, but with new music, graphics and effects. Lovely to watch and even better in full-screen.

    A La Melon by SoLo and TDK

    wab-melon

    Another new creation this time by SoLo and a bouncey chip track by TDK that’s a great tribute to the Amiga group Melon Design.

    New demos get uploaded on an extremely regular basis and there is a very active Facebook group around WAB too. So if you have the desire to see some demoscene pixels blasted across your browser then I’d strongly recommend joining in.

     

  • Flod 4 Released for JS and AS3 – New tracker module formats supported

    For those unfamiliar with Flod, it is a set of JavaScript and AS3 libraries written by Christian Corti, that can accurately playback lots of different Amiga, PC and Atari ST music formats natively. It supports all of the common formats: FastTracker II, Ultimate Soundtracker, ProTracker, NoiseTracker and lots more including DeltaMusic, David Whittaker, FredEd and Jochen Hippel format tunes.

    There are download packages for HTML5/JS using the Web Audio API found in Chrome. Also available are the AS3 class files for Flash.

    Check it out on the Flod page.

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  • Amiga Demo Gallery and JavaScript MOD/XM Replay Source

    I’m a massive fan of demos, both old-school and new. There’s just something elegant, creative and raw about them. A while ago I downloaded the complete Break’s Amiga Demo Scene Collection. And I’ve been pouring through them file by file, taking screen grabs of the bits that caught my eye! I’m not very far through but already I’ve taken over 600 screen shots. I find them quite inspirational as well as containing some amazing pixel art work here and there.

    So I’ve opened an Amiga Demo Grabs Gallery on this site to collect them all in. Feel free to browse the collection, 100 images per page! There’s a lightbox script with easy slide-show if you’d like to sit back and just watch. Each image also has a permalink should you wish to share it. I’ll be updating them irregularly, dropping another 50 or so images in whenever I can. They’re ordered by “most recently added first”, so check back from time to time for the latest grabs. Incidentally the screen shot above is from Ilija’s very first Amiga demo artwork 🙂 Say no more.

    FlodJS 1.0 – MOD / XM Replay in JavaScript

    Remaining on an Amiga theme Christian has recently released FlodJS 1.0. This is a JavaScript port of his famous set of AS3 libraries that replay a massive variety of Amiga format music. From the original Ultimate SoundTracker, to NoiseTracker, ProTracker and more esoteric formats such as SidMon and Future Composer, he’s covered them nearly all. There is also a JavaScript port of his FastTracker 2 player meaning XM file playback in your HTML5 games is now totally possible. Full details can be found on the FlodJS page.

  • Flod 3.0 and FlodXM Source Released

    We’re pleased to announce that Christian has asked us to release the full source packages for FlodXM and Flod 3. So we created 2 new github projects and spent a lot of time collecting, sorting and populating them! Our Flod page on this site has also been drastically updated to reflect all of the changes and provide clear download links and examples.

    FlodXM was previously only available as a SWF to test XM file playback quality. Thank you to everyone who did this and submitted broken modules. With the source now available you’re free to replay XMs in your own games and demos, as well as fork the project and build your own players or fix missing effects.

    Flod 3 was Christians attempt to merge all of the various Flod classes together. Previously Flod had been dedicated to Amiga mod replay (so common Soundtracker and ProTracker files) where-as the FlodEx package was for the more unique formats like SidMon and Future Composer. Flod 3 brings all of those together into one set of classes, making life for developers much easier and cleaner! It’s only a Release Candidate however, so we’ve included it along-side the packages on which it is built.

    Finally we’ve also released Flym which is an Atari ST YM music replay library. YM files traditionally come from Atari ST emulators, and are raw Yamaha soundchip register dumps. There are hundreds of them available online and while this is a very niche replay class, I for one appreciate the fact it exists! 🙂

    So head on over to the new Flod page to snag the downloads, and play your hearts out!

  • Immortal 4 Bitjam Podcast – 18 Great Amiga Game Tracks

    I love listening to the BitJam Podcast. It’s always full of great demoscene and game music, both old and new. But the other day they released podcast 136 which contains 18 tracks from the Immortal series of CDs. BitJam explain it best:

    “The acclaimed “Immortal” project started to take shape in the mind of Portuguese game music composer Ruben Monteiro in 1997. The idea behind this project was (and still is) to release the greatest soundtracks from games released for the Commodore Amiga computer on CD – newly arranged and recorded in the studio, but not necessarily in a chart-compatible way. Instead, the “Immortal” producers aim to work with the original artists whenever possible: Chris Hülsbeck, Allister Brimble, Bjorn Lynne, Barry Leitch, Jason Page, Tim Wright and many others contributed exclusive tracks in the past. As of April 2011, four volumes have been released in the “Immortal” series, featuring music from classic games such as Shadow of the Beast, Turrican, Speedball 2, Pinball Dreams, Wing Commander, Alien Breed, Lemmings, or Cannon Fodder.”

    “Immortal 4 enriches the world of computer game music, featuring remixes of the music from 35 Amiga games in newly arranged studio productions. BitFellas pays tribute to the fantastic Immortal project and presents a selection of fine music from the Immortal CDs in BitJam Podcast #136, including a previously unreleased track.”

    What more can I say? Download and enjoy! And if you want to buy the Immortal 4 CD it’s on sale at Maz Sound along with the previous 3 CDs. It’s well worth it, the inlay and cover art is always beautiful. A lovely thing to actually own.