³½     Andromeda
Production  reviews
¼
²            Author's note:
   In  this  article we review most of
major productions from Andromeda since
their start.  We must send a big thank
to Hydra for his cooperation with this
section  and  the  rest of our special
report on Andromeda.

³          Decaying Paradise

¹   Another  Jekyll/Hyde  demo released
in  the  year  of  1991.  This demo is
also   filled   up  with  vectors  and
textscreens,  but many new effects are
to  find here especially variations on
the vector-theme.
   The  most  noteable  effects  are a
"Star  Wars"-like  scroller  with  the
memberlist and a lightsourced 24 faces
object  inside a "window"-cube.  Other
effects:   a vector-movie, scroller on
the    faces   of   vectorobjects,   a
bubble-fountain and some more effects.
   The  design is, wierdly enough, not
very  good  but keep in mind that this
is a 1991-demo and is three years old.
Three  years  of enormous developement
on  the  design  field.  Still I can't
say  that  this  demo  has ana amazing
design.   Especially  the vector-movie
could be better on design. 
   Music  is done by Interphace and is
a  typical Interphace-tune.  The start
is  awful  but it improves a lot after
about a minute.
   Graphics  was  done  by Archmage or
The  mage  as  he was titulated in the
credits of "Decaying Paradise".  These
pieces  of  art  are not the best from
him,  only  the  "Irda"-picture  taken
from  the  AD&D Dragonlance Saga is of
good  quality,  the  others  are  just
average.
   Not  Andromedas best demo, and then
I  have  also  included the age in the
comparison!

³             Suffocation

¹   Andys  first demo for Andromeda was
Suffocation.  It's a demo of it's era,
filled with vectors and textscreens.
   This  one-filedemo  competed at the
Razor  1991/IMP 66 party in 1991 where
it actually WON the competition before
both    Talent    and    Stone   Arts.
Andromedas  only  victory  except  the
recent "Sequential".
   Combined    glenz/blenk    vectors,
copperbarvectors   (really   ugly  but
still  nice at those standards), a lot
of   inconvex   vectors  mainly  in  2
bitplanes (4 colours), a tunnel, and a
lot  of  other  vector-variations  are
some   of   the  entertainment  you're
offered in "Suffocation"
   The   graphics  are  just  amazing.
Quest,  compared to 1991 standards the
graphics    in    "Suffocation"    are
excellent!   The  end-picture by Facet
(at  that  time a member of Vision) is
also nice, but shows that it has taken
time for facet to reach the top.
   The   overall  impression  is  good
after watching "Suffocation" but a bit
more   variation   when  it  comes  to
effects  or  we  could  end  up  being
suffocated by vectorobjects.


³                D.O.S.

¹   Demonstration  Of  Superiority,  or
D.O.S.   for  short,  is hard to place
within   the   usual  demo-categories.
It's  not  trackloaded, and it's not a
one-file demo either.
   D.O.S.      begins     with     the
AmigaDOS-window     from     Kickstart
versions 1.2 and 1.3.  Suddenly we can
hear  some  music, and the demo starts
but   the   AmigaDOS-window  is  still
there.   In  the  "DOS-part"  of  this
demonstration  we  can  observe  among
other  things:   A  vector-tetrahedron
with exploding transparent faces and a
road with lightsourced bouncing balls.
Then,    after    some   effects   the
DOS-screen  itself  explodes and gives
room  for  a nice raytraced animation,
and    of   course,   the   compulsory
glenz-vector.    This   time  with  60
faces,  which  was  a  world-record at
that time.
   The  graphics  are  generally quite
nice   throughout   the   demo.    The
soundtrack  is  not 100% in my opinion
but  it  suits  the demo very well and
also  includes  some  soundeffects  as
e.g.  explosions.
   Andromeda  is  a quality brand when
it  comes  to  design.   Everything is
bound together nicely but still it has
got the irritating textscreens between
some  of  the effects that luckily has
disappeared during the last two years.
Some  parts  are  really  outdated but
others   again   could   be  parts  of
highranked demos today.  Still, a high
quality  designed  demo which does not
stand   far   back   for  other  demos
released nowadays.

²¢      >> Continued next page <<