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UCM 25
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                           "Fantasia" by Dune
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system ... STfm, STe, STEEM, RGB, 512 KB RAM

credits .. code - Chuck, Corbeau, ST Ghost, Frost, Terence, Zerkman
           gfx  - Mic
           msx  - Sector One

size ..... one disk

release .. 12/2oo3, first shown on EIL # 3

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And here  we have another  late release  of an Error In Line demo  and I have to
admit, I don't know  what parts are changed and which not since I saw it for the
first  time over a  half year ago. But  now at  least  the subtitle  of the demo
matches, a winter tale :)

It's again a selfbooting demo disk, one of  the things we knew from the past and
that are so damn seldom nowadays and so it starts with a little info screen with
hints about  copying the  demo and so on and then the effect rain starts, a nice
vector square  is changing the  screen and a  nice chip tune by DMA SC starts to
play that somehow  sounds like a medley-remix of some old demo tunes so be right
prepared for some flashback moments :)

The screen turns  violet, another  vector square  appears changing into a little
Dune logo, a small gelee ball  comes up, bounces on the logo and makes it swing,
and  then a vector  object flies  over the screen  while a presents logo scrolls
upwards on the right border and the screen reveals the title logo screen, a very
colourfull and  wonderfull drawn picture by Mic, using the  advanced features of
NeoChrome Master to include more colours via raster palette splits. This feature
was quite seldom used in demos but I remember some other Dune screens using this
feature as well if I'm right... It isn't that easy to paint that way, I tried it
long time ago too, but the result was a laugh :)
Anyway, well done!

We go on with a vector  tunnel, telling  us that the "Dream just goes on"... and
we get a  cute picture with  some text and a little girl saying "Hi". It goes on
with some delayed  splines and a vertical Dune logo scrolls upwards on the right
border again.

We get some  small picture, telling  us that the  following thing is "oldschool"
and so  it is, a  big 4 plane  sprite Dune logo, that  transforms  into a vector
square and finally into a small grey vector cube.

Hell, Corbeau knows how to code 3d stuff! Ofcourse the next screen should be "newschool" then, as the nice little picture tells us, while a small sprite is flying over the screen, and so we get again vector cubes, but texture mapped ones, and not one, two or three, nope, four of them, nice textured and quite fast moving. They fly around on the screen untill only one is left, this one zooms in and stops to move and a gouraud shaded torus is coming up, as this one vanished, the cube starts to movem, gets smaller then and starts to distort very smooth. He zooms in again, still disting, and in the end we see the cube together with the gouraud shaded torus. Surely a nice effect even though it is stretched a bit too much and the back ground colour is really -not- newschool :) The next screen looks more stylish then, showing some animated stuff, saying to be the inner machinery of Fantasia, this screen looks very strange but somehow also very cool, like it.
Hum, very stylish thingie! Then an Atari logo jumps in on the right side of the screen while the rest of it gets filled up with a 4 plane rotating zoomer, that falls obviously back behind the one in the winning demo "Posh" by Checkpoint, but still is nice to look at. After all is faded away we see a gelee cube flying around that gets stable then and gets mirrored on a vector square in the end, followed by the credits screen, that shows the names of the heroes (but not all) of the demo again in a nice raster coloured picture, followed by a little logo for Sector One that deserve a special hi here as they were hard involved in that demo again. We then see a vector star flying over the screen that is followed by some old but always nice effect, interferences, followed by another nice one, as the screen gets sprayed with dots objects in different styles. This small screens get followed by a more complex one, showing a turning ground on rasters and a load of sprites that jump around and then move in the way as the ground turns around itself. A bit hard to describe but nice to look at, as well as the next one, a strange disted background picture, that gets shown in original style after this. And then we have reached the end of the demo, showing us a nice blue screen with a huge info scroll and small comic sprite fishes swiming over the screen, looks very nice. If you now press space the demo starts again... What a nice show! But... somehow I have to admit that I was in hope to see even more stuff... Final words ... Dune did it again, somehow, and again together with the chaps of Sector One even though the main works are now done by themselves in comparison with "Odd Stuff"... This demo features a big load of different effects, "old school" and "new school", a very nice soundtrack and a bunch of very well done pictures by an old hero of pixel painting on Atari... but, damn, still some "but"... I have to say that it didn't kicked me from the chair in the end as it didn't matched it to deplace "Odd Stuff" really. Without any doubt it is a nice demo but it misses the special "whoa" effect, sorry to say so. It features all the things we know from Dune demos, nice design, well chosen colours, nice pixels and good effects but in the end it still misses some special spice.. _______________________________________________________________moondog_o1/2k4___
UCM 25