SV 2016
It’s another Sillyventure past times report. Another one that remained hidden in the archives until now. This one was mostly made, as it happened.
It was a pretty faithful diary of my alcohol consumption and state of intestinal health during that period. Oh, and quite a few party happenings as well.
I liked my writing from that period, seemed to be livelier back then and less, tired, than more recent efforts.
CiH - April 2025
#This bit is not in realtime!#
Good morning, evening, or dead of night, whenever you are reading this new Maggie issue. This is the official CiH authored realtime party report, with non-realtime later on additions, for the eagerly anticipated Sillyventure 2016 party. (Not to be confused with the realtime article, which is an entirely separate document created by a lot of people, sometimes in co-ordination with their fingers and brains, but often not!)
So is this going to be another party of our dreams, or a never-ending silicon nightmare? Well read on and discover.
#Right this minute!#
First words on the text. It's 12.46 on Friday the 11th November 2016, and the old gang are back at a new and revamped scene of the crime in downtown Gdansk. The Sillyventure 2016 edition is upon us once again.
Immediately to my left, Felice is struggling to set up his loan STE. This apparently comes pimped up with extra memory, a Veloce accelerator capable of unreal speed (in 68020 terms). And a mouse port that does not accept button clicks. Until now, as the problem has been traced and it looks like he's finally up and running.
It was a neat machine, but alas, we never got anywhere near the Veloce 68020 accelerator.
Ok, what to say now?
#Day's Zero to One#
This party has been planned for some time. I even promised to do a 'thing' for it. The last few weeks has been occupied in getting the 'thing' finished. This has happily been done with time to spare. I even found some time to prepare and submit a supplemental extra 'thing' before the dread day of departure.
Non_realtime note:-
The 'thing' was the un-eagerly awaited ASCII abomination "I'm Loving Angels in Bread". On reflection, this should not have been entered into a Falcon demo competition with such a high standard of productions. The second 'thing' seems to have been missed altogether, being intended properly for the wild competition. Maybe I can re-work that a little and slip it in discreetly at another party?
Departure day itself holds few surprises. We've opted for a late flight and allowed practically all day to get here. Luton Airport is a building site, and has been forewarned as a source of many potential delays. Fortunately, prudent versions of us are in charge today, so we make it in plenty of time, and with no life enriching cock-ups. It is myself doing a dog-leg trip to Cambridge to collect the Felice in my new(er) CiH mobile, and hence to sunny and joyful Luton.
The journey down is memorable only for a couple of sudden cloud-bursts and the sort of winter sunlight that sears your eyeballs at inopportune moments, namely those moments when you're trying to share a tricky junction with other cars coming from different directions.
The whole airport side of it goes remarkably smoothly. From the transfer via our helpful airport parking, even through the dreaded "Luton Airport Security Services Interactive Experience" (TM). We're in the terminal and can relax. Indeed, bragging rights can be assumed over fellow travellers, Tronic and Soeren/Front 6, who are making their way here with a much slower mode of transport, namely Thameslink Train, or possibly a camel train. I'm not sure which would be quicker?
Time passes, with the help of a free but erratic wifi connection. Luton itself does indeed resemble a building site, with parts of it being expanded and developed. I'm not sure why, as if the deluded Narnia version of Brexit does take place, there won't need to be much space required for 'arrivals' at all?
Some more time passes with the help of a very busy restaurant. The food is very satisfactory so we both opt for dessert. There is no sign of the second half of the travelling party, who appear to have been sucked into the maw of Thameslink, or else they've been invited to go an extra round with the Luton Airport Security Services Interactive Experience (TM)?
We're getting quite near to the sort of time where we need to be close to a departure gate, and still no sign of them. Eventually a text trickles through to Felice that they have arrived. They are found in the bar area, ruefully confirming that a camel train was indeed quicker than a Thameslink train.
Tronic has carefully considered the prices of the airport bar, made a purchase and is gently squeezing every last drop of juice from his slice of lime, into his gin and tonic.
Departure is called..
The flight isn't a disaster either which fits the easy relaxed tenor of the day. We're sitting in the right sort of seats that allow for legs, the two hour flight time passes very quickly, and we arrive in Gdansk, as if no time at all had passed.
In reality, quite a bit of time did pass, and we're staring hard at Euro-timezone adjusted midnight by the time we leave the airport. Midnight stares back. It has those bleary bloodshot red eyes which indicate a lack of sleep. The four of us regroup and seek out a willing taxi to take us into the town.
Once we get to our super luxurious temporary accommodation at the Novotel Hotel, some of the others still have energy to spare and head off into the old town. An unwise Facebook status update later on, reveals that they attended a place known as the 'Red Light Bar'. The rule that 'What happens on tour, stays on tour' being forgotten perhaps? As for myself, I'm calling it a day right there and adjourning in a bedwards direction.
6.30am?
Idiot drunken noises from the corridor, from someone with a drink disabled volume control. Ah well, sleep was good whilst it lasted.
#Realtime article, not this report#
Yes, there is one, it's on a completely sideways choice of platform this year, namely a PeeCee. Not just any old PeeCee mind, but an Atari badged one back from when they made a batch of 286's. The realtime is using a very basic DOS style editor, there is no sign of Windows, so this machine won't spend half the party updating itself at least.
The feature that deserves a really big thumbs up, is it features a new keyboard, as in pristine condition, and English language as well! Happy typing!
#Breakfast#
Was provided by the hotel and attended keenly by me and Felice. I'm not so sure about the others as they stopped out until very late hundred hours?
This was extremely leisurely and prolonged, huge and filling. It is only in the last couple of hours that we have finally reached the party. On the plus side, I'll be digesting this breakfast for some hours, so I'm not massively hungry until the evening.
#The Party#
This appears to have nicely survived its transfer to the new premises at the Economic Trade School at Seredynskiego Street. The party hall is yet another school gym. This one is a tad bigger than the old one. The expected numbers will be a bit bigger too, with over 200 people expected.
Probably most of the surviving Polski Atari 8-bit scene, and a fair splash of overseas 16/32 bit fans, better known to us, will be here for the weekend.
Other features seem to be on a more 'professional' footing this time around, with wi-fi provision included, and access to a 'modern' voting system. I guess that 'writing in the dark without luminous ink' didn't work out so well? There is a food service, no longer our friends at the California Baja Grill, but operated by the family of Grey. This is the first time we get to see his wife Sylwia at the party for a prolonged period. Time will tell how this all hangs together, but the first signs are encouraging.
#The Bells, the Bells!#
As mentioned a minute ago, this party is in another school. Some of the scholarly bits may still be working today, as an electric bell pierces through the hall full of chip tunes and loud conversations from time to time.
"Stay in your seats class, the bell is the signal for me to finish the lesson, not for you to leave (in Polish)."
#Sun is over the yardarm#
Felice has located some wine, it's been opened. I'll have to go vodka shopping sometime. Yes it is only 15.00hrs, but winter sunset times and all that..
#Sun now back over the other side of the yardarm!#
Following the last alcoholic interlude. I've investigated the nearby off-licence. It has one harassed Polish lady trying to feed the alcoholic frustrations of a constant queue of locals. It also has cherry flavoured Zytnia vodka, which I'm going to try tonight, right now in fact..
In other news, the expanded hall is bustling with activity and more chip tunes. I've obtained my name tag of doom and official party attendance from Grey and got the party t-shirt, I've eaten of the bean soup, as breakfast has finally worn off and Felice is running the TalkTalk 2 demo, 'The Church of Excellence in Art' on the loan STE. This seems a good time to pause and have a reflective and relaxed drink.
Zytnia Cherry Vodka. It has effective alcohol delivery at 32 percent ABV, a pleasant experience, albeit with a slightly musty aftertaste. I suspect the longer I keep at it, the less of an issue this will be.
#Rob Cowell#
A 'name' on Facebook has made himself known to us, along with Paranoid, 505 and RA of Paradox. I hear more from people about the strangeness surrounding the current status of Checkpoint and what may have happened there recently.
In other news the wi-fi is fine, unless you want to access some really prolonged sites. I guess things like Facebook will need to wait until the very early morning, when things are quiet, as 200-plus people at once might overwhelm the connection?
Tonight, there is an official opening ceremony somewhere else, and a chiptune concert. This should have been happening a little while ago so probably delayed, but no-one is minding.
#Weather report#
Cold, we have even had a little bit of snow outside. This is in the category of decorative, rather than life threatening.
#The rest of yesterday#
After that last text, proceedings decamped across town to a previously visited venue, namely the 'City of Angels' restaurant that hosted some party members on an informal basis at previous Sillyventure parties.
The opening ceremony kicks off here. A notable highlight is a short parody movie about the famous Commodore 64 found in a garage workshop after 25 years, still balancing wheels and covered in decades of accumulated workshop grime and muck. Grey and company opt to do something about this, swapping in an Atari XL in its place, hastily smearing a token amount of dirt on the unit, and carefully informing the media to change history by showing off the Atari XL's multi-decade ability for sitting in a dirty workshop instead of the C64. For some reason, it is running the Sillyventure invitro.
Food is available and ordered as we are hungry. Felice opts for expensive (for Poland) wine and the waitress somehow turns this around to a joint purchase of a whole bottle at 100 zl. The food and the next part of the formal entertainment, the 'Devils Show' arrive at the same time. Depeche Mode was played, blurry pictures were taken, some have been kept. They are blurry, but still NSFW. The dinner got just a little colder. Felice videoed the entire show, he even had his proper camcorder to do this with.
Always prepared for any eventuality, is our Felice!
Then there was a dose of musical mayhem from Adrien Dangha, the guest musician. His thing was classic, as in Mad Max era soundchips, but with these being heavily embellished with modern instruments.
(The Devils Show, ah, the Devils Show! (It was acceptable in the mid-2000’s!))
We eventually link up with Rob Cowell, Tronic, Front 6 and Samurai at another table. They didn't get to test out the City of Angels menu and are seeking food elsewhere.
We tag along into the centre of town and head towards a likely looking restaurant. To avoid feeling like a spare part, I indulge in a delayed dessert and expensive (for Poland) cocktail, which is three parts whisky to one part of everything else.
A little time passes and a passing Norwegian joins us. He is unconnected with the party, wants to join in with our conversation, does so for a short time, but soon leaves an unexpected parting gift in the form of the triple scotch that he mostly did not drink and left with me. So I was perfectly content.
More time passes and we eventually leave. Felice pulls off a killer move with one of the bar girls in the main square who is that little bit more persistent than the others, in trying to lure passing punters into their establishment. His question to her, "Do you strip?" had the desired deterrent effect.
We head back to the hotel. The others are all going "Whoo, nightlife!" and will be stopping out for some more. We find out how late the following morning, when we meet with the sole survivor, Hagen, at breakfast. Something about a 5am return was mentioned, along with very heavy alcohol consumption being involved.
Non_realtime note:-
We did not get any sighting of Tronic, Front 6 or Rob until the evening, Maybe we're all getting a bit older?
For my part, sleep followed, along with a reawakening cycle every couple of hours due to a raging thirst from the drinks I did have from the day before. Anyway, I survived the night and I'm sort of rested.
The smug remnants, myself and Felice have breakfasted once again, and I'm back here right now. Samurai was the only other Novotel based scener who made it down to breakfast. We stayed right past the official ending of breakfast. The restaurant staff were noticeably twitching and waiting for us to leave at the end.
I might mention as of now (12.12hrs) that the mouse port on the loan STE is in dire need of resoldering, as the mouse is very unresponsive. But the owner probably knows this.
In other news, the main hall is still relatively quiet, apart from the noises that are being dumped into the atmosphere from half a dozen diverse sources.
And there will be competitions today!
#Day two to two#
14.19
Today has been quiet so far. Someone has taken over the big screen with an Amiga demo show. There is free beer, which seems to be mostly froth and gas at the moment. Felice has returned bearing a couple of bottles of tomorrow mornings headaches, so we're sorted for alcohol. I've still got most of that cherry vodka to go as well.
I've spotted the Frenchies in town briefly, specifically Thadoss and Zerkman, but no sign of Tronic or the two members of Inter. We await their stories with interest!
#Things to do in the afternoon waiting period#
15.53
I did have half an idea of doing something else concrete for the next issue of Maggie. This gave way to the post-first day wave of tiredness and ennui.
Instead, I have been throwing myself on the entertainment resources found within my emulated (H)atari whilst waiting for the evening to develop. Highlights include the abstract but cool 3-D game 'Simulcra', made speedily good at with a pretend 16 MHz cpu and an old favourite, the Pipemania clone 'Pipedream'. Holding up the Falcon emulated end of things was the 1995 sci-fi coloured racer 'Rave'.
Thanks to Felice, I now have some coke for my cherry vodka. Alcoholic cherry cola ensues!
Front 6 has re-emerged blinking into the daylight, but of Rob or John, there is still no sign of these.
#Thoughts on Maggie#
Last year, we said that the next one wouldn't be another 15 years in the making. We're going for a new issue rather sooner than that in fact.
The next Maggie issue is slated to appear in 2017. I've already had suggestions from Wietze about things to write about, namely the traumatic restructuring of a well known demo group in the Atari scene. Felice has already started a couple of articles himself, which puts him one ahead of me (this report!)
Now that I've remembered how link-filing works, the next issue should use the final Tat (Steve Tattersall) version of the menu shell. I'll need to ask him about compatible music formats, as we'd like a new and original tune in there as well.
As for a theme, that already decided itself with recent events. It'll be known as 'Maggie, the Dogs Brexit issue'.
There are a number of things to be said on that subject, I've come up with all sorts of pithy ideas. None of them are in my head right now.
There ought to be something said on the election of The Donald to the ultimate top job in the world. We'll see how that one works out over the coming weeks and months. If it all goes horribly wrong, then there may not be a next Maggie issue, or electricity to make it with, and we'll be eating cockroach and rubble stew cooked over an open fire made from the remains of our former lives.
(“There will be a new Maggie in 2017.” Aha, hahahaha! Also we’re now on the second incarnation of Orange Caligula for some reason?!)
#On the subjects of food and people#
Felice is going for a large edition of the party standby, Pizza of course. He will be back soon. The Frenchies, at least Zerkman and Exocet have rocked up and said hello. I've also spotted and spoken to Britelite, who confirms he is entering a 'quickly made' intro for the STE.
#Ominous note from compo organiser#
"Excuse me, is your demo without music?"
Me - "Err, no..."
I seem to remember that the last release, '2wice Knightly' played the Musicmon tune back very quietly on my CT2 Falcon, but was otherwise okay when doing the same thing with Hatari?
#Vote sheets are handed out#
Grey is wandering the hall, issuing vote sheets that were very familiar from the last editions of the party. It looks like some sort of pen and paper based interaction is needed? Not sure how the 'modern' part of the voting system works?
In other news, Rob and Tronic have finally, finally re-emerged. Rob ruefully states he is taking it very easy tonight. I've also caught up with Thadoss, who has a Falcon demo entry, along with 505 and Mic doing sound and graphics for it. So good, a likely first place winner there.
#Pizza is handed out#
Felice has returned with a whopper of a pepperoni. This has been shared and any hunger pangs nicely killed for the evening. The compo team seem to be getting organised too. I've prodded around and found the electronic part of the voting system. There are production names already pre-loaded there, but not all of them yet, as the Falcon sections seem to be unpopulated right now.
Also the lack of music/very quiet music question with the demo seems to keep re-emerging, with more questions being asked?
Sqward announces to us with palpable relief, that his Falcon demo is all done as well.
We're ready to go!
#Compo time excerpt 1#
19.58
We've had the first two parts done, both ST music categories. There was one exceptional entry in each of the YM and Protracker categories. The rest were pretty good. Organisers tired out, so feel it is time for a break already, Still lots of music and graphics to go. There's a lot of demos, with up to five entries for the Falcon, four for the ST, and a shedload (six) intros for the ST/STE.
The 'electric voting' thing seems to be holding up okay, until at least now, when the network appears to have disappeared. (Grr!)
#Compo time excerpt 2#
20.52
Still marooned in music compo entries. How many categories does the 8-Bit Atari need? Still, a couple of exceptional entries, and none of the others dipped below the level of 'good'.
Electric voting is still working.
21.06
Now needing extra time to connect up the VCS. Hopefully they'll run through the entire catalogue for that machine, before swapping over and calling for yet another break.
#Compo time excerpt 3#
23.20
This seems to be moving better now. Got all the (hem!) non-interactive categories out of the way. A brace of nice game entries follows, with a top notch 'Pang' conversion for the XE series, and a satirical take off of the Mario platform series on the ST standing out particularly. The graphics entries on both the XL and ST did not disappoint either, and there were a couple of nice ones on the Falcon, including a welcome return to pixelling from Exocet, who is here at the party.
So it's just demos and intros left to go.
Let's see what that brings, sound or no sound with my entry.
#Compo time excerpt 4#
The time since the previous update has brought much Atari XL goodness.
There were a couple of outstanding 16k intros, and a great demo, 'Unec'. This might be beaten by the first authentic 'Holy Fuck 10 points!' moment of the night, namely the preview, yep, the goddam preview version of a future great demo of the Atari 8-bit scene, 'Prozac Dream' from the Lamers. Look out for the finished version of this at a future party near you. It'll be worth the watching.
Now, they're setting up for the Atari XL demos. Then ST, Falcon, and a lonely Atari Lynx entry left to go.
Oh yes, it's now Sunday, 00.25 hrs.
One minute until we get to see some 2600 demos..
#Compo time excerpt 5#
A refreshing blast of VCS demo goodness, with the clear winner being an entry called 'Chiphead' This pushes the art of VCS into both outstanding and bonkers categories. This is the most hyperactive VCS demo ever. The coder has complete mastery of his hardware, he is squeezing its little testicles for sheer amusement?! So this is the second "Max points WTF!" moment of the night, Dominating a brace of decent releases for that platform generally.
So what's next?
It's Just the 16/32 bitters to go now. Now on the big screen, something that looks like, AdamK's Gmail inbox?!?
Nope, try again, They're playing around with installing the Handy Lynx Emulator.
Yes, it's the sole Lynx demo....
There's some nice work there, possibly the most ambitious thing made as a 'Lynx demo' yet. It's pushing lots of fairly high spec polygons out.
Moving on to the ever popular ST demos and intros. Some of the entries were slightly underwhelming. There's a bit too much here of mugging "oldschool" heritage and the 'coded in two days' factor. That said, we've had a great intro from Britelite. He's been 'ecological' as a coder, cunningly reusing things he'd done before, but wrapped in some really nice 'design'.
Getting on to the more heavyweight demos, there's a couple of very good ST demos, with a top spec Sommerhack invite from Dead Hackers Society and friends precision targeting the STE, and then another oldschool entry, titled "Back to Oldschool". with some great design and solid execution from Mystic Bytes.
#Compo time excerpt 6#
It's the Falcon, finally.
The best appears to have been saved to last, as the Falcon demos were owning the 16/32 bits category and owning it hard! Sqward has entered the DSP hard core 3D demo he wanted to release three years ago but didn't quite carry off at that time. Then Dune and company have taken us on another wondrous journey into demo history.
It's a shame that the demo coolness meter does not go over ten!
There's still a couple of proper demos to go, then my shit at the end.
Pause to update text due to technical glitch and company.
The other two proper Falcon demos are also fine, if not quite reaching the same heights as those first two entries. There's a nicely made Lamers release, which features a lot of sly humour and good effects subordinated to better design, then Emphii is pushing his portfolio of cool things coded on the Falcon a bit harder.
Then it's my thing at the end. The less said, the better. On reflecting, this ought to have gone into the wild compo, it would have been a much better fit there.
Compulsory protective headgear was provided for viewing the Wee Knights demo!
Thadoss, post compo, has disclosed what we viewed was not the final version of their demo, as some graphical changes and a proper ending have yet to be added in. This will be another couple of months or so. We are waiting keenly!
Non_realtime note:-
Some views on the different sorts of 'goodness' in demos to be found at parties.
In my opinion, finely honed by many years of demo watching, there are three main categories of what can be termed as 'good' releases.
The first of these is 'Good'. These demos don't necessarily break any new boundaries or limits, but do what they are asked to do, flawlessly and nicely. You may get a smart repackaging of familiar effects in a better design for example. The best example of this for 2016 was Britelite's 96ktro, 'Arsenite', which won that category.
The next category is 'Great'. These sort of demos push the limits hard, very hard, but don't necessarily break them. They can involve quite advanced coding techniques and/or strong design and story elements and possibly a little bit of crowd pleasing. Examples of this type of release include Sqward's code in the third placed 'Decode' demo for Falcon, and the second placed 'Polygon Discount' by Lamers. Most parties that have these sort of releases can consider themselves fortunate.
However, it it the final category that we are all hoping for. These are the very rare releases that are 'Outstanding'. These properly transform your expectations of a particular platform, either with new and unseen effects, or a revolution in design and storytelling, or even a combination of all of these. Nothing can ever be the same old thing again.
The Sillyventure series, certainly since 2011, has had at least one entry in this category, sometimes more. Who can forget Cyg's 'STreet Art' for the humble stock STFM, which seemed to make the Amiga 1200 and Falcon obsolete. Not to mention kicking party releases in following years like 'Muda', the art of redefining the possible in 96K on the STE. And of course there were Defjam's various excursions into awesomeness over past years.
This time around, we were lucky to get such smashers as 'Chiphead' on the VCS, which really tore up the art of the possible there. For the Falcon, we were very pleased to get Dune amazing us with their opus for this year, 'Electric Light' (Which is still unfinished!) There were also signs of future greatness, with the preview of a potential monster for the Atari XL series, 'Prozac Dream' by the ever versatile Lamers.
When I've seen these entries, I know the various Atari scenes are thriving and I can go home happy.
#Day Three to three#
10.29, and the prizegiving ceremony rumbles on in the background.
We've returned from the hotel for the final act. I've also carefully avoided the hotel breakfast, as something eaten there may have been possibly implicated in an episode of digestive dodginess that fully manifested itself last night after I got back to the hotel. Still, I'm ok now, but taking things very carefully.
For anyone who might think they are downwind of a dog food factory breaching health and safety regulations from time to time today, that might be down to me, sorry about that.
Non_realtime note:-
Actually, nothing further happened 'down below'. Things remained very calm and easy for the rest of the day, and I was able to get home without any incident.
The Falcon demo compo results are in. The Lamers entry, 'Polygon Discount' got second place, beating Sqward's demo 'Decode' into third position, but Dune deservedly gets the top spot, as they are the far and away winner.
I got an unsurprising fifth spot, but still received an amazingly keen oversized calendar, and a normal sized pen from Grey (To write my resignation letter from the Atari scene perhaps!)
The calendar has been left with Grey to arrange postage, as it will not fit into our teeny bags for the journey home.
#Anyway, what did we think of the party?#
Cool stuffs indeed:
The party spirit has nicely survived the transfer to the new venue. This is another school gym, but noticeably bigger. This meant that the comfort factor was better than recent previous parties, which were somewhat packed. Otherwise, it feels like all the other Sillyventures that we have enjoyed.
The famous atmosphere has remained intact. It is easy and convenient to locate and get to, and even closer to the old city centre than the previous venue.
Most of the familiar faces were there. It was good to re-meet 505, Paranoid, RA, the Frenchies, Delta99, Wiztom, Britelight, not to mention Tronic, Samurai, Front 6, F#ready, and for the first time, Rob Cowell, who is a cool and affable guy and whom we'd like to see again at another party in the future. He's rationed to one a year, apparently. And of course there were the many Polish friends who were present at the party as well.
There is a separate shout-out for Grey, for making it all happen in the first place, and his family and friends for rallying around with the organisational parts.
For catering, we have duly mourned the lack of the California Baja Grill, but Grey's family did a good job of standing in during the day. Due to the easy availability of the Novotel breakfast, I did not get to try out their breakfast buffet, which might be something to explore better for the next time. We didn't really miss the lack of a full evening meal option, as there were plenty of alternatives a short walk away. (We enjoyed full-on blow the budget restaurants and cocktails the first night, with that old demo party standby, takeaway pizza for the second evening.) I tried the home made soups and stews during the day and both of these were faultless.
UPDATE:- I did in the end try a modest version of the party breakfast for that final Sunday morning, which proved to be both up to the job, and perfectly suited to a ravaged post-party digestive system.
We thank the generosity of the donor of Felice's loan STE, even if it does needs its mouse ports desoldering. We still managed to get a share of decent oldschool real hardware action from it, even if we didn't find the 'on' button for the Veloce accelerator card.
The rest of it was covered nicely by the new and revamped Hatari 2.0 emulator on various modern devices.
Gdansk is as characterful and lively as ever. We even got to sample a bit more of the restaurant and night life this time around. Some sampled a fair bit more than the rest of us, to the extent they weren't seen again until very late the next day! The City of Angels club is an ideal place for an opening ceremony, as well as other (cough!) activities!
There's a good word to be put in for the competition team, as they managed to bring the competition showings to a close at around 02.00hrs. This is a world record for them! The earlier stages seemed to be full of fumbling and unscheduled halts, but this picked up the pace and sorted itself out later on. So a successful evening for these guys. Maybe the practice from the previous years paid off?
The realtime article has benefited from the change of platform. A clean and English language keyboard was a bonus. I overheard German sounding complaints about the 'damn QUERTY keyboard' and smiled.
Electronic voting, this was a success, even with a couple of moments where proceedings sort of got stuck temporarily. This is definitely one to develop and repeat for future events.
Of course, there were the demos to make this evening memorable, especially the excellence that was 4/5th's of the Falcon demo competition.
Room for improvement:
The toilets at the venue were clean but lacking toilet paper! In certain easy to foresee toilet emergencies, this could be a potential disaster.
My demo, sadly. It was only intended to make up the numbers, perhaps it should have been shown at the start of the Falcon demo compo, and not closing it when the expectation bar had been shoved into Geosynchronous orbit by the preceding excellence.
Some people we did miss, such as gWEm, and Defjam, also some of the other Frenchies such as Orion. Most sadly of all, bOd didn't make it through pre-deceasing. (Although the party may have had a lucky escape with reference to the free beer consumption and aftermath from same, based on my previous STNICCC 2015 experiences?)
The international 16/32 bit representation felt a little bit on the light side, but I guess we've been spoilt with STNICCC last year, where nearly all the greats from the olden days and many people from the current scenes turned up. At least we got a fair number of remote entries from our absent friends as well. The Polish scene, especially the 8-bit guys certainly did respond enthusiastically.
We really were missing Defjam. What the hell happened there?
My digestive system, in having a funny turn on the main party day. Looking back, I think it was a thing eaten from before the party, so something from the hotel breakfast is the main suspect. The food eaten at the party place is above suspicion. After an interesting hour when I first got back to the hotel, this seems to have cleared up. The alcohol consumption was constant, but fairly low level, so I managed that better than certain others did!
#Closing down signs#
The realtime article machine has been decapitated! (No screen) and then taken away, presumably to be quietly buried in a mass grave of commodity hardware somewhere? We've also said goodbye to Rob and Tronic who are on an earlier flight back than us. Let's hope the Thameslink trains are working for them today?
Most things are now packed here as well. We're just adding to the article solely off the laptop battery, for which there is 62% remaining. I've summoned up the courage to try the party place version of breakfast, which seems to have gone down without any issues from the gastric department.
#Going Home - This is non-realtime now#
There was a results and prize giving ceremony, which I just got to the party place in time for, having checked out of the hotel.
A lengthy round of farewells with many people slowly departing follows. A plan is made to head back to the airport with Samurai, via a taxi from the hotel. This is duly done, the trip back encountering a covering of snow on the ground, the nearer we get to the airport.
We're in plenty of time, so there is little to do, but wait around. A second encounter with food at the terminal cafe goes off without incident, and we eventually slouch through the security checkpoint to gain access to the airside part of the terminal. If anything, the security people are stricter than their Luton equivalents, which is a bit of a role reversal.
On the other side, we meet up with a couple of the returning 8-bitter fans.
They are on an easy internal flight to Warsaw. We pass a bit more time with Felice freely distributing copies of his 'Devils Show' camcorder footage, at the insistence of Samurai.
All too soon, he's boarding what looks like a half-sized scale model of a Lufthansa passenger jet, on his way to Vienna. A very indirect route home. So Felice and I relocate to the 1990's vintage budget terminal for our flight home.
A final meal, something more substantial was attempted, still no issues here. Then we're off home. The flight is very straightforward and without incident, arriving at around 19.30hrs. The arrivals hall is crowded to the ceiling at Luton Airport. The electronic scanners are slow to recognise my passport. However, the escape from the airport itself is flawlessly carried off via our friendly airport parking people.
A car journey later, sees us back at Cambridge, where I receive a belated birthday present and card from Felice and his wife Paula. I am safely home before midnight, adventure concluded and bed beckoning for me to sleep in it.
So I do.
And that is the end of this story, but there will be others like it in the future.
CiH, For SMFX Diskmag, Nov 2016..
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