http://www.bitfellas.org/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.513 Page 1/4 08. Japanese Demo Scene Got, Fri 31 Aug 2007 Japanese Demo Scene By Got/Eldorado & Adok/Hugi The beginning of the demoscene in Japan was when Yukinori Yamazaki got his hands on demos from Future Crew. That was back in the year 1995. He founded a demo group named "Golden Weed Project". Soon after that, the group released their first (and only) demo. A year later, Hideo Ikeuchi founded a demogroup named "A20". Their first demo was released at the first online demo party in Japan - Horic96. A20 remained active until about 1998; however, nowadays it is inactive. Another group was active around 1997. It was called "Radium Software". They released two demos. Their member "^c" was in charge of code, gfx and sfx, and released the demo. More recently, he entered the Music Compo at 2chparty01 with about five entries. The site, 2chparty, is still active. There's also a related community site called "2channel", which is now famous in the Japanese scene. There was a thread about "mega demos"; it's basically the people who contributed to this thread that make up today's Japanese demo scene - members of eldorado, SystemK, 301, n.h.k., viep, volvox and other groups. Trends In the years 1995 to 2000, the demos focused on software rendering. At the beginnng of the 21st century, eldorado released an accelerated demo using OpenGL. In general, game making is very popular in Japan, whilst demo making is not that popular yet. However, it has gradually begun to improve in recent years. Recently, some established groups (eldorado, SystemK, September. kry-Ant) have begun to make a demo for the next online demo party. Moreover, "301", who was not able to participate in this year's 2chparty, will do so next year. In addition, there will be hope that newcomers will join the competition. 2chparty was founded by "42" in the year 2001. It actually became inactive soon after that, but it was resurrected in 2005. This was partly due to "42" discovering eldorado at pouet, which was enough motivation for him to reactivate the "online party". In total, four editions of 2chparty have been held so far (one in 2001, two in 2005, and another one in 2006). The releases can be found at pouet. http://www.bitfellas.org/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.513 Page 2/4 Japanese demos 1995 Golden Weed Project: "Super reality" 1996 A20: "otokoumi" 1997-1998 Radium Software: "phormula", "minimal" 2000 "demo no kuni kara 2000" (some "notitle" demo release) 2001 Eldorado: "Cybernet", "RobotCurnival" volvox: "proto" KEY Depth: "k-demo project" 2002 Eldorado: "Sinnen", "666" 2003 SystemK: "sdemo [ Rohm Ver. ]" 2004 Eldorado: "H.A.L.T." SystemK: "Kyoto", "NengaDemo2004" http://www.bitfellas.org/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.513 Page 3/4 2005 Eldorado: "Ancient Times", "Psychederic Episode I" SystemK: "HalfEx", "FullEx", "GreenWave" 301: "Second Impression" n.h.k.: "Blue Embodiment" mocodeng: "MOZAIK.DOM" volvox: "demo" 2005 (cont'd) viep (64KIntro) daisy/TAM: 2chparty05summer Invitation September. kry-Ant: "wor-hyde" TOBY/WAZA: "the distillation tower of toby" 2006 Eldorado: "S.O.R.", "H.A.L.T.II" SystemK: "TERA-coding your life" n.h.k.: "Red Alert" September. kry-Ant: "MAD GEAR" viep: "Deep in forest" ka-i (first contribution) miURA: "code segment wonder land 256" Related websites 2chparty Scene Research Station demo99 archiplum scene.jp.org (site has been closed) megademo download (site has been closed) eldorado (group) viep (group) http://www.bitfellas.org/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.513 Page 4/4 SystemK (group) TOBY (group) WAZA (group) RadiumSoftware (group) KEY-Depth (group) A list of Japanese scene productions can also be found at pouet. Cheers! Got / Eldorado Editor's note: In order to make screenshots for this article, I've watched many of the more recent Japanese scene releases which are available from pouet. My impression has been that the quality is variable. Some are clearly beginners' productions, while others are definitely worth watching. In my opinion, two of the best Japanese releases are 'Full Ex!', a rather long 64k intro by SystemK released at 2chparty05 summer, and the demo 'Sinnen' by Eldorado from 2002. Other good productions are '2nd impression' [a 4k by 301], 'TERA - Coding your life' [a 64k by SystemK], 'Green Wave' [a demo by SystemK], 'Psychederic Epsode I' [a 64k by Eldorado], 'RobotCurnival' [a wild demo by Eldorado], and 'Red Alert' [a demo by N.H.K.]). As said, all of these productions can be found at pouet. Adok/Hugi .