4Sceners - Special, Sonstiges, Spielkultur, PC

Demosceners: Magnus Sjöberg (Pantaloon/Fairlight), Kenny Magnusson (Louie/TBL), Olof Gustafsson (Blaizer/TBL), Mikael Kalms (Kalms/TBL), Andreas Axelsson (Goofy/The Silents), Fredrik Liliegren (Animal/The Silents), Johan Dohl (Rubberduck/TBL), Markus Nystrom (Chevron/The Silents), Mattias Gruvman (Offa/TBL), Daniel Hansen (Equalizer/TBL), Magnus Isaksson (Confidence/Balance), Torbjorn Malmer (Phase/Essence), Thomas Andersson (Rayban/The Silents), Gustav Tilleby (Calladin/Subspace), Erik Hemming (Spite/Sonik), Patrik Bergdahl (Terminator/The Silents), Mikael Rudberg (Deezed/The Silents), Per-Olof Romell (Blade/Subspace), Robert Runesson (TmX/C-Lous)

Overview: There's probably no other games producer with that many scene idols as employees. The demo-prehistoric Pantaloon/Fairlight or the boys from TBL Rubberduck, Louie, Blaizer, Offa and Kalms who produce brilliant Amiga demos every year. Founder and CEO Fredrik Liliegren managed the local branch DICE Canada (Battlefield Vietnam) which was closed after the company was took over by Electronic Arts. In the meantime, he founded a new studio named Red Jade . Amiga- coder Kalms is taking a break from business life and finishes his studies (but still helps out with DICE here and there). It's even possible he'll return to DICE once his got his degree.

Games (excerpt): Battlefield 2142 (2006), Battlefield 2 (2005), RalliSport Challenge 2 (2004), Battlefield Vietnam (2004), Battlefield 1942 (2002), RalliSport Challenge (2002), Motorhead (1998), True Pinball (1996), Pinball Illusions (1995), Benefactor (1994), Pinball Fantasies (1992), Pinball Dreams (1992)

Demos (excerpt): Starstruck /The Black Lotus (Amiga, 2006), Ocean Machine /The Black Lotus (Amiga, 2005), Silkcut /The Black Lotus (Amiga, 2004), Magia /The Black Lotus (2003), Little Nell /The Black Lotus (Amiga, 2002), Perfect Circle /The Black Lotus (Amiga, 2001)

Overview: It was a long way for Starbreeze to arrive where they are today. The first steps in the games industry were mostly unsuccessful. Either, they haven't found a publisher for their projects. Or the project was stopped during the development. With the technically impressive fantasy action game Enclave however, the breaktrough was made. Further hit-games followed: Knights of the Temple or the fantastic The Chronicles of Riddick. With The Darkness, the next big thing is already in the pipe. The branding mark of all games of Starbreeze is the great technique, for which mostly Magnus Hgdahl is responsible. Gustaf Grefber is not only one of the best scene musicians of all times, but he established himself as a leveldesign and story writer too.





Battlefield 2142 (2006)



Pinball Dreams (1992)



Amiga-Demo: Starstruck (2006)

Games (excerpt): The Darkness (2007), The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), Knights of the Temple (2004), Enclave (2002), The Outforce (2000)

Demos (excerpt): Tac 2 /Tazadum (Win, 2000), Crystal Dream 2 /Triton (MS-DOS, 1993), Crystal Dream /Triton (MS-DOS, 1992)

Overview: Boris Fronefeld, responsible for coding at Ascaron, was involved with the space action game Darkstar One, or the Port- Royale-series. The German soccer manager game "Anstoss 2 " was the first game where he got attention for. In the demoscene mainly made himself a name with the Amiga demo "No! ". Kay Struve has been active for T.R.S.I and Anthrox for years. He was the project manager for Darkstar One.





The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)



PC-Demo: Crystal Dream 2 (1993)

Games (excerpt): Darkstar One (2006), Sacred Underworld (2005), Sacred (2004), Port Royale 2 (2004), Port Royale (2002), Ballerburg (2001), Anstoss 3 (2000), Anstoss 2 (1997)

Demos (excerpt): No! /Polka Brothers (Amiga, 1995)





Darkstar One (2006)

continue to page 2 (49Games, Remedy, Lionhead, Techland etc.)

Demosceners: Dierk Ohlerich (Chaos/Sanity & Farbrausch), Thomas Mahlke (Fiver2/Farbrausch), Peter Cukierski (Mr. Pet /Sanity & Einklang.net), Florian Knappe (Sol/Artwork), André Adam (Tiberius/Artwork), Ronny Pries (RP/Farbrausch)

Overview: 49Games evolved from the Amiga demogroups Sanity and Artwork who released their first PC demo Alto Knallo back in 1996 under the label Team FEB. They took the first credit in the games industry with their Sega-Saturn port of Tunnel B1 and the wipeout clone Killer Loop . Later on, they managed to become the German number one for winter games with"Skispringen" for the TV channel RTL. Nowadays, their portfolio has games like "RTL Skispringen 2007", "Ski Alpin Racing 2007" or the official game for the olympic winter games in Torino 2006. Most of the employees in 49Games are still active in the demoscene (and mostly working for Farbrausch). With the freeware game ".kkrieger " they created a technically impressive shooter in only 96kb.

Games (excerpt): RTL Skispringen 2007 (2006), Ski Alpin Racing 2007 (2006), RTL Winter Games 2007 (2006), Torino 2006 (2006), RTL Skispringen 2006 (2005), Killer Loop (1999), Tunnel B1 (1997)

Demos (excerpt): fr-030: candytron /Farbrausch (2003), fr-025: the popular demo /Farbrausch (Windows, 2003), fr-019: poem to a horse /Farbrausch (Windows, 2002), fr-08: the product /Farbrausch (Windows, 2000), Roots 2.0 /Sanity (Amiga, 1995), Arte! /Sanity (Amiga, 1994)

Overview: With its very compact story, the Bullet-Time and the technical finesse, Max Payne pushed 3d shooters to a new level. You can see from the first glimpse that there's a lotof demo-specific knowledge in both Max Payne games. The guys from Future Crew were among the first to do stunning things in the PC demoscene and managed to get great things out of the pre-Pentium processors. That's what you can see in their games too. In the beginning of 2007, the new action adventure Alan Wake will mark a new climax. Remedy is the parent company of FutureMark (producer of benchmarking software like 3DMark 2006). There are many demosceners at FutureMark, too.





Ski Alpin Racing 2007 (2006)



PC-64k Intro: fr-019 (2002)

Games (excerpt): Alan Wake (Anfang 2007), Max Payne 2 (2003), Max Payne (2001), Death Rally (1996)

Demos (excerpt): Final Reality /Remedy (Windows, 1997), Second Reality /Future Crew (MS-DOS, 1993), Unreal /Future Crew (MS-DOS, 1992), Mental Hangover /Scoopex (Amiga, 1990)

Overview: Yoghurt is the only licensed demoscener at Techland - but he's among the most known demo coders from Poland. Zilog and Tesla are milestones which are the base for his publicity. He's also responsible for the great 3d engine which works under the hood of Techland games (as seen in the western shooter Call of Juarez, lately). Scorpik works as a freelancer and is not an employee of Techland.However, his music can be found in Call of Juarez as well as in other games like Gorky 17, Painkiller or Gorky Zero.





Alan Wake (2007)



PC-Demo: Final Reality (1997)

Demos (excerpt): Tesla /Sunflower (Windows, 2000), Zilog /Sunflower (Windows, 1999)

Games (excerpt): Call of Juarez (2006), Xpand Rally (2004), Chrome (2003)

Overview: Peter Molyneux managed to fished a few design kings out of the demoscene pool. With Moral Hard Candy and Alien Sex Clone , the danes Rune Vendler and Kaspar Daugaard showed what they're capable of and since then, they were involved with Black and White as well as with Fable. Alex Evans is one of the most known scene coders from the UK. Over the years, he created many brilliant demos like Square and 303 . With his long time companion Vic, he even created a demo which was released under the Lionhead-label: Bleam ! In the meantime, Alex went waway from Lionhead and is now a co-founder of Media Molecule .





Call of Juarez (2006)



PC-Demo: Zilog (1999)

Games (excerpt): The Movies (2005), Black and White 2 (2005), Fable (2004), Black and White (2001)

Demos (excerpt): Moral Hard Candy /Blasphemy (Windows, 1999), Kkowboy /Blasphemy (Windows, 1998), Bleam /Lionhead (Windows, 1998), Alien Sex Clone /Fudge (Windows, 1998), Clone meets Clone /Fudge (Windows, 1998), Square /Pulse (Windows, 1997), 303 /Acme (Windows, 1997)

Fable (2004)



PC-Demo: Square (1997)

continue to page 3 (Digital Reality, Bugbear, Akella)

Overview: Bugbear has established itself in the racing games genre since quite a while. It started with the rally simulation Rally Trophy and had its climax with FlatOut 2. This terrfic arcade race doesn't only look brilliant, but it also features a splendid physics engine. An interesting fact: The creative heads in this finnish company work together since they were teenagers. Known as Byterapers, they released vast amounts of demos. Among them, you can find the classical Hyperventilation . By the way, in the first game from Bugbear, the legendary musician Jonne Valtonen had a guest role: He provided the funky soundtrack.

Games (excerpt): FlatOut 2 (2006), Glimmerati (2005), FlatOut (2004), Tough Trucks (2003), Rally Trophy (2001)

Demos (excerpt): Recycled /Byterapers & Doomsday (Windows, 2001), Hyperventilation (Windows, 1998), Sexadelic (Windows, 1998)

Overview: It's not a well known fact, but Digital Reality already exists since 1994. At that time, the hungarians released the strategy simulation Reunion for Amiga and PC, under the name Amnesty Design. Since 1997, they have today's name and got powered by prominent scene people. Asterioda pushed the hungarian scene, among others with one of the first 3d accelerated demo Origin . Origin won the demo competition at Antiq'99. Nowadays, Digital Reality stands for great strategy games like Haegemonia , Imperium Galactica 2 or Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps.





FlatOut 2 (2006)



PC-Demo: Sexadelic (1998)

Games (excerpt): D-Day (2004), Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps (2004), Haegemonia (2003), Platoon (2002), Imperium Galactica 2 (2000), Imperium Galactica (1997), Reunion (1994)

Demos (excerpt): Origin /Astroidea (Windows, 1999), Mutha 2 /Astroidea (MS-DOS, 1998), Angeldust 2 /Astroidea (MS-DOS, 1997), Prostate 666 /Astroidea (MS-DOS, 1996)

Overview: Sea Dogs and Pirates of the Caribbean : These are the names of the first two gameswhich the russian game developers Akella is known for. It's no one less than Ramzai from T-Rex, who's responsible for the main coding fo these games. Ramzai is known for demos like Broadband and Sinum .





D-Day (2004)



PC-Demo: Origin (1999)

Games (excerpt): Age of Pirates (2005), MetalHeart (2005), Pirates of the Caribbean (2003), Sea Dogs (2000)

Demos (excerpt): Sinum /T-Rex (2001), Electric /T-Rex (2001), 74293945 /T-Rex (2000), Broadband /T-Rex (2000)

This list is just a small overview and names some of the most important commerical games where sceners were involved. It's not necessary complete. There might be further lists and articles on this topic, because there are still plenty of studios left that are employing demo coders. Not only among PC games, but also in other parts of the entertainment business, such as Mobile games.





Pirates of the Caribbean (2003)

The english version of this article was originally published in Pain Issue 58  and lousy translated to English by Unlock.