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The demo scene is dying, but that's alright

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Re: The demo scene is dying, but that's alright

#61

Post by squigz »

abnercoimbre wrote: post #59
squigz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Early access for a terminal... $60 for a (year subscription???) file explorer... I expect more MBs if I'm paying for these things!

That got a loud laugh from me. Also joining early access for a set period grants you a lifetime license - check the fine print :)

Tiny files and tiny text?! What can't this person shrink

Re: The demo scene is dying, but that's alright

#62

Post by countWSS »

Perhaps its the lack of appeal, in the past, the idea that you could squeeze performance into an old machine was cool, but the gap between current hardware and "demoscene limits" feels like artificially crippling: if you have 64GB of ram, the appeal of 64KB demo is far less than if you have a 64MB 486DX. It would be far more cooler, that instead of ancient hardware and artifically limited PCs, they would run demoscene on embedded stuff like Raspberry PI and modern microcontrollers, that would align with current DIY trends instead of chasing retro clout.

Re: The demo scene is dying, but that's alright

#64

Post by DaSHacka »

djmips wrote: post #56
roskoe wrote: post #50

In all fairness, the conditions that saw the demo scene rising are so remote to be almost incomprehensible to the new generation. "You see, when a cracking crew beat the protection of a new game, they would upload their hacked version to an elite BBS and repackaged it with a little intro and a trainer. They had to be very creative and skilled, often working directly in assembler, in order to achieve impressive imager…

I love it when they would rewrite portions of the game with better compression tech then the original devs in order to get room for their cracktros or just make it a better download from BBS or later Internet.

In fairness, Fitgirl still does something similar, and continues to repack games to this day

Re: The demo scene is dying, but that's alright

#65

Post by npteljes »

satisfice wrote: post #29

I didn’t know what the demo scene was before I read this. I still don’t. Is it hackathons?

It's a kind of a coding competition, indeed. The goals and the circumstances differ from a hackathon. The demoscene events are not for coding, although I'm sure it happens, but rather for showing off the work that was prepared beforehand. Usually these works are multimedia, so visuals and sound go together, but the main focus is the visuals, the rest of it is supportive. Works are nominated in different categories, which are usually set up to be very restrictive, for example, the work should be a single 32-bit Windows executable, no additional files, and the EXE should not exceed a certain byte size. The point of all this is to create the most impressive work within the restraints.

Wrt/ terminology, one submission of such a work is a "demo", and "demoscene" is the name for the culture itself (people, events, submissions, associated works like websites).

For an easy example, the all-time most popular work is this one: https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=30244 (according to the site's own ranking). You can download the software to run yourself, or you can watch a youtube recording of it, which is much more accessible. The entirety of this work (visuals, music) is compiled into a single 177k executable.

Re: The demo scene is dying, but that's alright

#67

Post by hollowonepl »

The only people who still pitch demoscene dead are those with unrealistic expectations or who just returned and are surprised it’s still alive, ran by a number of 40+ people while they remember themselves joining at the age of 15. But the conversation about new generation is missed by solid 20 years and all of us who just stay focused on producing don’t waste time on rants, only to have 5 mins on hacker news that by default won’t get the idea of demoscene anyway. Way too many different scenes here to focus only on one that finally turned into a hobby, not a life changing experience.

/hollowone^oftenhide

Re: The demo scene is dying, but that's alright

#68

Post by karel-3d »

satisfice wrote: post #29

I didn’t know what the demo scene was before I read this. I still don’t. Is it hackathons?

People creating interesting visuals in a very, very small computer program; often with some artificial constraints. Often it was put together with cracking scene, I guess the skills involved used to be similar (lot of low level hacking?).

My personal involvement with this scene is nil - I always just saw some interesting thing playing with crack.exe that I got from some dubious source, thought "huh it's neat", and went on with my life.

I have no idea what are the constraints do they have in 2025, or what platform do they even target. How are you gonna do demos on iOS that's all locked from top to bottom and you can't even run anything without involving Apple in the process?

Re: The demo scene is dying, but that's alright

#69

Post by npteljes »

abnercoimbre wrote: post #24

The demo scene inspired me to keep my next‑gen terminal [0] tiny: it is under 5MB (Mac download was once 900 KB) and my aim is to get all downloads down to ~1MB. If demosceners can do it, regular indie devs really have no excuse. This scene isn’t dead; we should just look beyond 3D glitter. See File Pilot [1] for another compact, clever example. [0] https://terminal.click [1] https://filepilot.tech

Regulars devs don't need an excuse, they have a good reason: their optimization targets are different. The people that turn their work into their salary, and mostly the people who buy into those software, don't go away because of how large the thing is, so, why sacrifice other goals, to further this particular goal?

"If demosceners can do it" is not a good argument to talk about software, because demosceners are the cream of the software crop, when it comes to the specific thing that the demoscene is all about. It's like saying if racers can make that corner doing a 100, regular drivers have no excuse. Or I'm greatly misunderstanding your point.

Filepilot looks great. I wouldn't pay, as Double Commander serves me just fine, but an 1.8 MB download is impressive. DC is 10 MB in comparison. Still perfectly fine.

Re: The demo scene is dying, but that's alright

#70

Post by NKosmatos »

The scene is not what it used to be, but it's still alive and will remain for decades. We "old-timers" were lucky to be around the 90s when the demo groups and parties were on full swing.

There are many groups and parties to mention, but for those interested have a look over at: https://www.pouet.net/toplist.php

https://files.scene.org/

https://assembly.org/en/articles/assembly-summer-2025-demosc...

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