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[CosMind]

Okay, a better question: even if it'd be hard to make independent games that look this good considering that demos are not games and are not restricted by the restrictions of gameplay: couldn't we at least make *intros* and *endings* to our games that looked this good?

sure you could.  but, are you willing to sacrifice development time, energy, and resources for an ultimately superfluous intro/ending?  wouldn't those resources be better spent on rocking on an amazing game with amazing gameplay and presentation?  the interactive parts that actually make our medium unique and the greatest in existence 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I don't think those would need to be sacrificed. It's not like you'd be taking time away from other aspects of the game, it'd just be you're spending more time on the game.

Pixel probably spent a lot of time and effort on those ending graphics in Cave Story. They were totally non-interactive, and they were nearly full-screen pixel art, and there were many of them, painstakingly created. Was that wasted time? I think that without those the game would have been weaker (still great, but not as amazing).

[Anthony Flack]

Be very careful when dealing with those little extra details that make your game take longer to develop. They can eat your soul. You might well end up making a great game, but you run the risk of burning out and never wanting to do another one.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Yeah, you have to do what you can do in a reasonable amount of time without becoming frustrated. If something would take months and add nothing to the gameplay it should be rejected, but a few weeks delay to make some nice ending screens is reasonable.

[kronholm]

I miss the good old demo scene It's so small now

[siiseli]

It is so not :O demoscene is well and alive. Come to Assembly this year, youll see!

[kronholm]

Compared to what it used to be, yes it is dead.. Last I heard Assembly was pretty much nothing but a big gamer's LAN, screw that. If you want a scene party go to Breakpoint. Unfortunately it was just held this easter so you gotta wait a bit. Here's in Denmark there's only a handful of groups still active, if you can call it that, and there's only a couple parties each year worth, if even that anymore. Not at all what it used to be.

[siiseli]

yeah I know theres a shitload of game players at asm it sucks. The organizer crew tried getting gamers out of asm by arranging another asm called assembly winter, it is an pure LAN-thing. I don't think it's gonna work ,I just wish asm was only for demosceners, all cs-teens are to be kicked out of the arena

[FARTRON]

Thread revival!

Robotic Liberation was made on a an unexpanded commodore vic-20.  Hardware revival!



!

Exclamatory!

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

"Note that there are only 5120 bytes and 1024 nybbles of RAM available, and the total disk size of the demo is a mere 16 KB. No one had ever pushed VIC-20 programming this far before the new millennium."

BTW, in reference to your signature, here's some more debord quotes I collected way back when: http://rinku.livejournal.com/849730.html

[FARTRON]

Off topic, but I gotta go for the bait..
Debord wasn't a communist:

The world will be happy only when the last capitalist is hung by the entrails of the last bureaucrat.

You can find a lot more on the Situationist International here, here and especially here where Ken Knabb has made some of the best translations from the French around.  The Society of the Spectacle should be required reading for anyone interested in modern art, politics or philosophy.
EDIT: Also, you can watch the film version of The Society of the Spectacle (scroll down, in two parts) thanks to the marvelous ubu web, which also has some of his audio work.

ON TOPIC:
nybbles!

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

He wasn't a member of the communist party, but he was a socialist -- at least in the loose sense of someone who doesn't think the free market's more good than bad, someone who takes Marx seriously, someone who spent a lot of time talking about the evils of capitalism, etc. Besides, there are plenty of communists who don't believe in bureaucracy and statism.

I'll check out some of the links, but I already know a fair amount and have already read Society of the Spectacle. I don't think it's as important as you claim, though -- certainly it's influential, but it really only has one basic idea, and I'm not even sure if it's a true idea. I mean, it's true enough that more people passively observe the world than engage in it, and that the medias and arts have played a part in that, but I'm not sure people and society were ever any different (even cavemen had myths and legends). I'd put it in the 'useful to read, but not required reading' category.

[FARTRON]

There are plenty of non-socialist view points that think Capitalism is bunk.  As for taking Marx seriously, his writings have influenced nearly all twentieth century socio-political-economic discourse and those who don't take him seriously are preemptively writing off a vast and insightful library of work that derives from him.  Debord supported Revolutionary Marxism, but he spent as much time criticizing communism as capitalism.  He grouped them together as slightly differing modes of enforced labor.  Ultimately he was a Situationist (until he wasn't anymore, but that's another story) and when asked what "Situationism" was, he called it a non-sense word made up by anti-Situationists (or stormed out of the room, refusing to answer such "cuntish questions".)

When the Situationist influenced student riots and the occupation of the Sorbonne spilled into the streets of Paris, and eventually spread through many factories and towns of France in 1968, what existed was essentially a form of anarcho-syndicalism.

[sega]

Yeah, the demo scene is great.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Of course, Marx is influential. That doesn't mean he wasn't a cult leader. I treat him the way I treat any leader of any religion. Debord criticized communism but Christians probably criticize other Christian sects more than they do any other religion too.

But yes, that 1968 event is the main reason I am interested in him. Small circles of artists can create large changes to society, even short-term, and his group was one examples of that.

[moi]

When the Situationist influenced student riots and the occupation of the Sorbonne spilled into the streets of Paris, and eventually spread through many factories and towns of France in 1968, what existed was essentially a form of anarcho-syndicalism.

What's funny is that most of these 68 revolutionnaries made a come about and now they are the worst of conservatives
In short they rebelled against their parents and they oppressed their children. It's the destiny of the "baby boomers" (demography pressure explains a lot of things IMO).