1991 marked the end of the Commodore 64 era of out little democoding group “Heatwave”. We didn’t know it at the time but we must have felt we wanted to go out with a bang, and make a megademo in which we made everything ourselves.
It was quite common practice to ‘borrow’ resources like music and fonts from other demos or games. We didn’t want to do any of that this time. So all the code, music and graphics came from our own hands.
At the time we were really impressed by the demos of Crest. We were particularly inspired by their demos that had a theme and a menu, like McDonald’s Restaurant. So we came up with a theme of our own: Eddie is at a demoparty for the first time and can look around, LucasArts point-and-click adventure style. Then, when he looks at one of the screens, he sees a demo part.
This was really Bas’ demo; he coded all of the main parts. I (under my handle Mad B) did the intro and the menu, and some of the music.
It was released at the Silicon Limited Summer Party in 1991, where it came 6th in the demo competition. You can download it here.
Intro and menu Link to heading
“Intro”, a logo stretcher and a simple scrolltext. By Mad B (code and music), Trooper (music) and Dandy (gfx).
“Menu”, A LucasArts style click-and-point adventure giving access to the different parts of the demo. By Mad B (code), Dandy (gfx) and Trooper (music).
The monitors Link to heading
On each of the TV’s or monitors at the party place, a demo part is running. If you “look at” it, it shows you the part up close. When you press the spacebar, you end up at the party place again.
“Mega DXYPPer”, A wavy scroller with rotating letters. By Bas (code), Dandy (gfx), Trooper (gfx) and Mad B (music).
“Amiga filled vectors”, A wavy scrolltext with more than 40 characters, and a rotating cube in full hires. By Bas (code), Trooper (music and gfx) and Dandy (gfx).
“Circle DXYCPer”, A scrolltext moving in a circle, with a regular scroller moving over it. By Bas (code), Mad B (music) and Dandy (gfx).
“The Whuppie Tale”, A little upscrolling game. By Bas (code and gfx) and Mad B (music).
“Tech-tech DYPPer”, a wavy scrolltext waving up and down, and left and right at pixel precision. By Bas (code), Trooper (music and gfx), Mad B(music) and Dandy (gfx).
“Turbo Assembler”, showing the screen of somebody that is coding assembler on the c64. The whole demo was coded like this. By Mad B (code).
“Finishing Touch”, upscrolling credits. By Bas (code) and Trooper (music and gfx)
Easter egg part Link to heading
This part is not behind any of the monitors, but happens when you pick up the floppy disk from the floor.
“Commercial Break”, a hidden part announcing a new edition of our disk magazine “Total Recall”. By Bas (code) and Trooper (music and gfx)