Here we are in 2025 and this is the second (third?) of my unseen Sillyventure reports from times past. It finally gets its chance to shine on the hallowed pages of Atariscne. (How do you hallow web pages?)
Apart from the painstakingly time-stamped in-party alcohol consumption, this edition “enjoyed” a more dramatic journey home than usual. Want to find out more? Then read on! - CiH - April 2025.
DAY 1 - 12.36hrs, Friday 8th December.
Scene setting vignette from inside the party piece
We're at the party place, I've had coffee, there is Slivovitz and wine for later on. We've got front row seats, there's power there, and the Cuddly Demos are playing on the big screen on stage. Sitting on the left hand side is the Germanic presence of Front 6 and Samurai and the less Germanic presence of John 'Tronic' Cove. To the right sits my usual travelling companion and joint sharer of various (mis)adventures, Felice.
Right now, the party is in its early stages, with new arrivals trickling in. We've spotted Wiztom and various Finns, Rob Cowell, gWEm and shared a hotel breakfast room with Fready, of the Dutch Atari 8-bit cult. As all hotel made ‘eat until you burst’ style feats go, it was delicious.
We arrived in .PL this morning, very early this morning. Fortunately, there were pre-booked hotel rooms at the Hotel Zatoka nearby, to cover the many hours between our arrival and the party place opening. It was a freezing night. Our journey over counted as one of the more easily managed and trouble-free travels, even taking into account Luton Airport security closely scrutinising Felice's shoes as potentially hostile.
"Lovely" Luton Airport on a cold pre-departure morning.
Regarding potentially hostile things, one of these could be the power supply to the tables or intermittency of this. Currently, it is in an 'off' state. The top table is 100 percent laptop, which eases things for a while. If all else fails, there is a mighty grand piano in the nearmost left corner, which could be played for an 'unplugged' soundchip music compo?
In a spirit of catching up to see 'what all the fuss is about', I've spent the last hour speeding through Marco Breddin's spectacular ST demo scene anthology 'Breakin' The Borders' (part one). I don't know if it is the party spirit, Xmas spirit, or even the lightheadedness of having significant time off work for the first time in months, but I was quietly impressed with the sheer amount of work involved in making this book and I'm not inclined to nitpick or naysay.
Well there's one sentence which got lost in translation and is desperately pleading for a lift back home, "Uridium on the ST is a complete disappointment. What on the C64 was still a buttery shattering space adventure, turns into a ridiculously lame space parody on the ST.
"Buttery shattering?!" - Insert your own cream related puns here!
I'm going to be more actively involved in part two, which takes the story from 1991 to 1995, as an interview questionnaire awaits my completion of it, sometime over the Xmas period. The answers I'm giving will either be very short or very long, possibly a mixture of both of these.
16.56
A small update.
The balance has tipped from an uneasy 'before the party' mood, to 'definitely at the party now'.
A realtime article has sprung elsewhere into life. This is on top of the wild compo grand piano in fact. It features a sensible keyboard this year. It has an autosave function that will probably chew up the disk in the early morning period tomorrow.
There has been satisfactory deliveries of food and drink, including a helpful security guard who explained the workings of the Polish coffee machine. Also Felice has declared 'wine o'clock', which is friendly and obliging.
At Da Party!
It looks like the first official party happening will feature lots of soundchip music and fake smoke. I've got a picture of a smoke assailed Tronic, frantically waving his arms to clear the fake smoke. A caption competition beckons. Otherwise this tableau resembles a surrealist thrill ride, not featuring at Alton Towers, called "Trapped inside a burning building and about to die from smoke inhalation."
Aaaand Breathe!
Of pre-compo rumours, nothing overheard, although I seem to remember up to eleven (!) expected ST demos. One of those I've seen running on Felice's laptop, and it owes a certain amount of inspiration to the Demo Construction Kit. Rob Cowell informed me that his placeholder standard Atari Lynx demo has been outclassed by someone else's Atari Lynx entry, which is encouraging. There is something else that is pitched as a wild compo entry previously uploaded by 'people I know about' which could end up on the Falcon and Tronic is expressing doubts about the current state of his entry, suggesting that it may need to be cut down in parts.
20.37
About to get total darkness for a while and lose sight of the keyboard.
Grand opening of Sillyventure takes place.
I've picked up a couple of pieces of prerelease demo news. Namely one of the Atari Lynx demos is the main effort of Britelite, with the possibility of a further party coded 'filler' ST entry a distant possibility. Also I've seen Emphii of Xtream running something fractal on his Falcon which looks fresh and unseen before now.
Various Frenchies and Paradox have arrived and the hall is looking busy. Also outside of the hall as well. We've had a couple of performances of the soundchip variety, one of those from gWEm. Whose last exultation of his gig was a peeved sounding "Attention water pumps!" (as in U96 Das Boot). It's as if he's got enough working knowledge to command an actual Type VII U-Boat sailing under the Atlantic in WW2, albeit in song form!
(gWEm, somewhere in the Bay of Biscay, 1943. “Aircraft overhead! Crash dive!” (How to do it? Fast-forward the song in my head, get to the chorus, Aha! We’re there!) So he lives to play another gig.
Attention water pumps! I said, WAKE UP water pumps!
There have been a couple of videos for the opening ceremony, the second of which contained words and moving images of Nolan Bushnell himself. He says he would like to attend a future Sillyventure, which would be quite a coup for Grey if this does happen.
Food highlights for today include a capacious hotel breakfast, and Sylwia Michalowski Catering Enterprises stepping into the shoes of the sadly departed California Baja Grill.
Drink highlights from today. Plenty of wine for those who crave it. The box that Felice got is also a good improvised camcorder docking station. There is also the Slivowitz, which is the consistency of a strong sweet liqueur, rather than the double proof 'head blower off' that I sampled a few years ago.
Venue notes:- We've had yet another change for this year. We're a fair distance from the old town, but in a lovely purpose built venue with proper facilities, an actual stage and loads of soft fluffy areas to crash out in, if things get a bit too much. The Gdańsk Archipelago of Culture is a new step upward in the evolution of Sillyventure.
21.46
Now located the outdoors area, aka 'smokers corner'. It has a wireframe unicorn as a conversation piece, cowering in the cold air. In other news, Tronic has given me literally the whole of creation as a subject matter for a scrolltext in the Effect trackmo. So I had better get on with fifty pages of randomness then.
Here it is! For people who can't be bothered with reading actual scrolltexts in situ.
Here it is, Merry Trackmo, as the popular music beat group Slade, would have said, if a demoscene was available back in 1974. However, it wasn't, so they had to make do with Xmas instead. Many decades later, Effect are making good the lack of scrolly Xmas cheer on the Atari ST with their new production, *Whatever John is going to call it* it features, well I hope to find out about that sometime as I'm writing this scrolltext completely blind at the moment. Tronic wanted a scrolltext, so he's getting a scrolltext. He may be under the mistaken presumption that there are going to be some valuable insights and wise words on the current state of the Atari scene, but in that assumption he's sadly mistaken!
It is I, CiH, the stringer together of many strange and random words on the Atari keyboard reporting from Sillyventure 2017, or is it now 2018? We've got a new venue, but everything else feels reassuringly solid and unchanged from last time.
I'm sure there are floods of releases coming tomorrow, maybe a select few of these have that once in a lifetime specialness as we've seen in past years. Maybe this is the year that Effect shoot to the number one position, leaving other groups gasping with astonishment and envy? There's nothing to cause amazement coming from me, as hobby time has taken a big hit last year, with work, work, work dominating. Still, maybe in 2018 we can ease back a bit, relax, and actually get something done with the next Maggie issue that we promised some time ago. Anyway, I think there's enough words for this trackmo, any more and we could be pushing a size limit of some kind. It's time for Calzone (Pizza wrap!)..........
23.46
Probably the last log entry for today. Tomorrow is a brave new day, with competitions to enjoy (actually, many of those are going to be on Sunday as these things run on!) Have we learned anything from the new 'Born to be mild' approach to the party? Well not really, apart from managing to avoid misadventures. It's been a peaceful day, albeit one with lots of loud noise and happy drunk people (as in nicely buzzed but not lying in a pool of vomit.) Right now, they're playing the 2001 hit, the 'Hmm' demo on the big screen, which has a certain noisy presence of its own.
I'm off from here tonight. We've done enough for a good start to this report. There will be more adventures and coded happenings tomorrow!
SATURDAY
11.58
Llatest Llog entry in Llama style!
It's the longest day of the year for me and many others, which will probably not end until 4-5am tomorrow morning. Then it's a painful restart on Sunday to get to the airport for our mid-afternoon flight.
Overnight, nothing much happened and sleep wasn't all at the same time. Luckily there are plenty of places to crash, should we need to do this. The Tronic and Hagen duo have reappeared and Felice is also at his work station. The realtime article hasn't broken apart into a hot mess of sundered bytes and even managed to pick up a little more text overnight. Right now, I'm debating laziness, writing something else, or exploration of the surrounding area whilst it's still relatively quiet and ease of movement is a thing.
Might do that then, see you later.
13.34
I opted for a wander, which got as far as the front door and a chat with a couple of members of Lamers. Then I did some work. After my speed- browsing of it yesterday, some assessment of Marco Breddin's scene history (part 1) 'Breakin' the Borders' was started.
Right now, the onscreen distraction is some 1970's Polish police procedural show, which is proving extremely amenable to improvised dialogue.
IN THE INTERROGATION ROOM, PART 1.
"When you hit the prisoner, take care not to punch his face, the bruises show and all sorts of awkward questions get asked!"
IN THE INTERROGATION ROOM, PART 2.
"But I can't go to jail, I'm young and pretty!"
"I know, the other convicts are looking forward to meeting you!"
IN THE GRAVEYARD.
"There's loads of dead bodies here, surely there must be at least one of them that's been murdered?"
“Well off you go and find him then, Mr Great Detective!”
AT THE POLICE HQ.
"You look like Grey!"
"That's amazing, so do you!"
DURING A FAIRLY LIMP CAR CHASE.
"Emissions tests, we don't need no stinking emissions testing!"
AT THE JAZZ CLUB WITH THE PRETTY LADIES.
"We've all got cigarettes, but there's a non-smoker in here, who is it? We need to know now!“
"I think it's that bloke who looks like Grey!"
“Which one?!”
“Sooo ,when's the Devils Show due to start?"
"That'll be in the next scene with the murdered prostitute and her equally murdered client."
(Amazing what a wandering mind can do in that mid-party afternoon ennui period, when nothing much else is happening?)
15.32
We've eaten of the ATARI CAKE!
There was a 'surprise' mentioned for this time of the day. This was it. A Coliseum of a cake, a section of the Great Wall of China made into cake, and it was themed for Atari's 45th birthday. It was fresh and creamy and promptly eaten by the ravenous Atari horde.
I've just blagged a second slice, as has Zerkman, and many others.
(2025 note:- I think this party was the start of the ‘Atari cake’ tradition.)
16.56
I have spent much of the time since the last time here getting to know the game 'BeGEMed' a bit better.
This is a Columns-like game, a Candy Crush play-alike. It is being made by Bonus, who has development timescales only exceeded by New Beat and geological erosion. What we have currently on the Hatari emulated hard drive is a 90% version, which plays nicely, even on a crippled emulated Falcon on a slow laptop. Review to follow for next Maggie, but not this evening.
I've also purchased a new pad-style controller for my various Atari hardwares at home. It claims to be one of those fancy multi-function things, but on something as basic as I've got, the extra buttons will just A: Fire, B: Fire and C: FIREFIREFIRE! It's locally manufactured too, hmmm!
18.54
Compos to start in two (party) minutes!
Online voting is up, most of the entries are there and some numbers appear to be down from what was previously stated. Not all categories are in view as yet, as Falcon demos appear to have come and gone, I guess there are some very late entries being updated?
And we start with the audio compo's, Atari VCS is going first. The first and last of these seem to be the most promising.
It looks like the missing categories have reappeared, the ST demo's have split off into a couple of 96ktro's, so numbers maintained after all and some very small sizetro entries appearing from nowhere. The Falcon has four, including my execrable effort and a 4ktro. There are a couple of Lynx things and the Jaguar has a demo and a game as well.
19.07
VCS demo time.
A bit later on..
There were a couple of promising entries and a couple that were making up numbers. Of note was an ancient Egyptian themed entry from 2600 years ago by the not completely obscure Genesis Project and a definite 40 years celebration demo with some Frenchies in there who were 'Flush' with success.
There were a selection of generally very good Atari XL graphics entries, with the best of these fitting on a postage stamp, or virtual depiction of such on a screen.
Pokey music now, not one of my areas of having a strong opinion, so time to sit this out.
The electronic voting system, after an initial sulking fit, appears to be cooperating.
20.20
Going over to Atari ST graphics and sound next. Time for the organisers to fiddle with hardware and settings.
20.42
Some impressive Atari ST graphics entries this year.
20.52
What is this Aceman tracker, sounds like a mixed sample and YM replayer. Completely unlike anything I've heard before! There has been a cool track from Stu, from whom we've not heard from for far too long.
21.15
A small but appealing selection of 4 channel modfiles, either going for maximum energy in performance, or most cunning Protracker tricks and techniques.
21.29
There's a Falcon desktop on screen, just a handful of entries in the audio visual categories, a single funny raytraced picture on the Falcy. Some music, do we go straight into demos after, or is there more fiddling around with changing hardware?
Ace Tracker, that's promising...
21.40
First results just in..
Ace Tracker United 2 - Digital Tracker Athletic, troublesome! All okay there, but nothing to really set your balls ablaze.
21.49
We can see!! - We can type!!!
XL game competition starts with a nice Sinistar inspired space shooter.
Second game is very easy to die quickly from!
Third game is on VCS and has elements of Sokoban and Atik Atac.
The ST entry looks fun, but has "How the fuck do you survive THAT! enemy shot patterns.
Theres a Jag entry bringing up the rear, a fun platformer, Uwol, the Quest for Money which I think has been seen on other platforms.
We're moving over to the Atari XL compo at least, so starting to get into the meat of the matter at last.
22.36
Fairly unspectacular 256 bytes apart from a superb twister at the end.
Fready comes up with a little smasher of a 16ktro
What has the demo compo got?
THAT LAST XL DEMO! The first 10 of the night! Who really transplanted an Amiga into that XL? Nir Dary on code.
23.10.
Ah, we've also got the finished Prozac Dream from last years preview as well, Those two demos have justified me paying for a big chunk of my air fare to .PL. I hope there's at least one production on the ST or Falcon that breaks the limits as well. It won't be coming from my hands, that's for sure.
And then over to the ST and Falcon. And Lynx and Jaguar. It looks like the consoles are going next.i
23.21
Dekadence manage to reproduce a flawless smooth copy of effects they've shown elsewhere on Lynx, and one or two new things as well.
Jagwar is next up. And over and done very quickly.
Atari ST intros, now we're getting closer.
23.35
The second 128 byte entry is 32 bytes and more trouble than its worth.
The solitary 4k entry is an oldschool screen hogging megascroller done perfectly.
23.42.
Coming up shortly are ST 96k, many ST demos and the Falcon. So I'll switch off my brain for a while, enjoy the show and relax. Thoughts on these later on.
SUNDAY
00.39
Competitions have got stuck. Badly stuck.
Paradox are back, with a new super version of their medium res truecolor mode. It kills beamers. We're halfway through the ST compo's and keep breaking at the same point. I'm sure it rules, but we can't see it yet! Still the beamer failure to cope Benq splash screen is in high res, far more than a normal STE could be expected to display, so I guess the ‘hi res’ part of the remit has been met?
01.01
ST demo compo was full of glitches, but the best was definitely saved to last. Mystic Bytes pretty much pulled off a Falcon demo on an ST. They pushed the ST demo compo to the hoped for greatness levels. Now time for my shit and hopefully some better productions on the Falcon too.
01.19
This is getting to the point where if I ever see the Benq logo on anything ever again, I'll throw bricks at it! I'm being subliminally programmed to associate it with failure and disappointment tonight! It's adding CT60 to the list of things it objects to, along with high res STEs and special mode colour displays.
01.28
Dune saved the demo compo again!
They produced a top end Falcon demo, on a Falcon!
01.30
Preliminary thoughts on the competitions. The VCS and XL crews seemed to be well organised and their productions ran through without issues. The ST and Falcon productions seem to challenge the organisers somewhat more, defying the organisers to try to show them at all in some cases.
I'm looking forward to seeing a working version of Paradox's new demo. The organisers managed to get all of the Falcon demos to talk to the projector, including my shittiness.
Of the demos, of special note were Effect's first multi-part, which came with some nice design tricks and a positive upbeat spirit. They should do more multipart goodness. There was a return to oldschool ways from the Hemeroids. The ST finally got its own full version of the 'Bad Apple' video, which was in a decently high resolution with the proper soundtrack. Checkpoint came to these competitions with something completely different, more of a music video with a very wistful atmosphere. Possibly personal demons being battled here? The hoped for winner for the ST competition was the Mystic Bytes successful attempt to carry off a Falcon demo on an ST. The pirates and skulls subject matter being well matched to the slow pace of that demo.
For the Falcon, Emphii definitely exceeded expectations and previous productions with an energetic nordic themed multipart. I'll draw a veil over the second entry. There was a tasty scrap thrown to the CT60 as well by Lamers previewing their CT60 3D engine, and Dune returned to smashing form with their winning entry, albeit with something which may get some additional post party tidying up.
And Nir Dary, who is a very friendly dude, really pulled out something special on the Atari 8-bit tonight with the help of some friendly people.
Also, look at the time, we're into the wild compo, and it's not even 02.00 yet!
I'll come back to this report later on, as some sort of packing and repatriation of our goods will feature shortly.
CiH at 01.44hrs
More Sunday!
It’s after the party, some time after the party (18.12.17 to be precise) and it’s time for the story of our dramatic journey back home!!
We didn’t leave it too late to get back to the hotel. In fact it was something of an achievement to get to bed around 02.30hrs, when previous editions of the Sillyventure compos were still thigh-deep in ST demos and a couple more hours from finishing. The mood of fatigued but elated self congratulation maintains itself through another well-stacked several platefuls of hotel breakfast in the morning. Although we don’t realise at the time, this comes in very handy for later on. Most of the post party survivors put in an appearance here. Eventually people start to drift over to the party place, expecting a prize giving ceremony to take place.
More and more people gather, but by the time we’re getting close to some sort of prize giving and closing ceremony, it is bearing down hard on the time left to get to the airport. A first attempt to get a taxi for several people is abortive. A prospective vehicle turns up fifteen minutes early, so by the time we are aware of it, it drives off in a cloud of vexation. A further taxi carrying me, Felice, Tronic, Rob Cowell and assorted Germans does turn up at the archipelago and gets us to the airport. It is a very cold day, time is getting short.
On reflection, if we were able to catch one of these all the way back to Luton?
We clear the busy security channels quickly, some of the travelling party did not have breakfast, and are trying to get lunch in a very crowded airport terminal. After being informed by the restaurant staff, that the waiting time for food is likely to exceed the departure time of our aircraft, the hungry party members rethink a preference to snacks and sandwiches.
Fond farewells are exchanged, the UK departing party members make their way to the cheap end of the airport, just in time for the departure gate to open and let us downstairs to the waiting aircraft.
We were aware that there were potential ‘weather related issues’ awaiting us back home. I’d opened Facebook back at the hotel first thing, and was greeted with pictures of various Northampton based non-scener friends showing off their amateur snowscaping skills. But there is nothing at this stage to lead us to suspect a problem with getting back home. Wizzair has arrived from the UK on time, and will depart in the same manner. Indeed it does, so we expect a leisurely arrival at Luton for around 15.30hrs, UK time.
Some concentrated flying later, and we arrive in what we suppose is the right place, but do not land. So consider if weather and delay gremlins have got hold of Luton Airport. More time passes, then an apology from the cockpit, where it is announced no landing is possible today at Luton, but we are diverting the best part of 150 miles to the next Wizzair compatible airport at Doncaster. Even then, we figure that this is no more than an inconvenience. A previous Sillyventure had a similar airport failure at Gdansk, but we were retrieved by coaches laid on from the diverted airport. Even the cabin crew confirm this, as they have no overnight accommodation at Doncaster and have to get back to Luton themselves.
Landing at a rapidly darkening Doncaster Robin Hood airport. There are three other flights that have also diverted there. It takes some time to process them all. We are waiting for an hour before someone gets around to unloading our flight. As we sat at the front, clearing immigration is very quick indeed. Entering the main terminal area, with a confusion of people milling around in a directionless manner, sharply checks our previous optimism.
From a hastily delivered and barely heard announcement, it turns out that there are NO arrangements for onward transit to Luton! The advice given to countless confused non-UK travellers is to get to the railway station, some distance away, and travel to Luton from there, claiming back the expenses incurred from Wizzair. This is barely helpful, as it is unclear if any other transport links are working further south, and involves several changes of modes of transport with extra time needed even if everything is still working. It is wild and wet, with increasing flurries of snow blowing around outside, so waiting around outdoors for the infrequent buses to town did not appeal.
Felice and I have teamed up with a third person who lives down south. ‘Stavros’ as I remember him. We manage to book a taxi, initially to get us to the railway station. When the taxi is to hand after several attempts to locate it, a further discussion ensues, where the taxi driver is willing to take us all directly back to Luton himself without any further faffing around needed!
Our luck holds, the motorway remains clear all the way down. We manage to steer our driver clear from his satnav suggesting that Luton Airport can be found near Milton Keynes (it’s about another twenty or so miles further south). About two and a half hours from leaving Doncaster sees us arrive at a very snowbound Luton Airport. The final bill is just over two hundred pounds, split between three of us. We obtain receipts from the driver, as we would like to get this money back from Wizzair.
Luton is interesting, as it seems that many people are now arriving, and we find our way back to the long term car park, where Felice’s car is hidden amongst several snow-huddled shapes that cannot be immediately identified as recognisable cars. We get lucky again and locate the errant vehicle, before we both freeze to death. Much snow is cleared from it, and we finally stagger off back in the direction of Cambridge.
Some of the route choices are pretty brave on Felice’s part. We dodge past a couple of abandoned cars, and one section of road where tree branches were brought down by the weight of snow. However, the A-Road system is just about clear, even those bits that barely qualify as A-Roads. Our luck even continues to hold in the final stretch, going down the very steep Bar Hill to Felice’s house, as there is just enough road to get a firm grip and avoid slip-sliding to oblivion.
So it is, that our journey home through darkening skies and epic snowy wastes, finally completes at around 23.30hrs.
Paula is up and waiting for us. The first proper meal since breakfast is seized and practically inhaled off the plate with the help of a really large bore straw. In a rare outbreak of common sense, I’ve kept the following Monday free, so opt to stay there overnight and leave the journey back home until the following morning. It is not hard to fall asleep, and no-one is in a hurry for the next day.
2025 note.
And the report seems to finish there.
I usually add some thoughts about the party. This is generally done from a perspective of minutes, or days after the party has finished, not several years later.
I guess I enjoyed it, re-reading this report and looking at some photo’s taken does bring back memories. I also recall the journey home, which ended in a snowscape disaster, and the improvised solution to get to the correct airport.
This did not put me off, as I have visited subsequent editions of Sillyventure since. There has been less of a motivation to write any kind of report in recent years, namely because of a lack of publications to publish these reports in. Not aided by my own lack of motivation.
Recent editions have been different. There has been a visiting party of four of us, now including the female contingent, often described and left behind in previous reports. They are going to attend for the forthcoming 2025 Summer Edition too. We have spent a bit longer in Gdansk post-party and actually properly sampled some of the touristy stuff.
This may go back to a traditional two member boys only attendance in December. One thing for sure in the future is, that PARTY REPORTS ARE BACK ON THE MENU!
CiH in 2017 and 2025.
Comments powered by CComment