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Breakpoint was an annual demoscene party held in Bingen, Germany during Easter from 2003 to 2010. The successor to Mekka & Symposium, an annual German demoscene party that had ended in 2002, Breakpoint grew to become the largest annual event focused solely on the demoscene. It attained over 1000 visitors at its height, attracting demosceners from Germany, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Spain), Australia, and Canada, among others. It was also the host of the Scene.org Awards ceremony from 2003 to 2010.
Mekka & Symposium had been an annual demoscene party held in Fallingbostel, Germany from 1996 to 2002. Hosting of the event ended in 2002 following internal tensions among its organizing team. Later that year, several former members of the Mekka & Symposium organizing team announced the creation of Breakpoint as a successor demoscene party in collaboration with other German demoscene party organizers, including ones from Dialogos, Evoke, and the Ultimate Meeting. It would held annually during Easter at an abandoned military depot in Bingen, a small town near Frankfurt.
The inaugural Breakpoint 2003 event was a success among the demosceners who attended, with both veterans and newcomers praising its atmosphere and freedom. Although criticisms of the party were minor, the failure of one of the building's heating pipes led to the event being dubbed "Freezepoint" by a parody demo. The event was also hosted the inaugural Scene.org Awards ceremony.
ATI Technologies became the main sponsor of Breakpoint starting in 2004, providing the event with funding for prizes, seminars, workshops, and a helicopter flight over the hills of the Rhineland. [1] While the event was a success, the inability to resolve the building's heating issues from the year prior deterred a number of visitors. Due to the deteriorating state of the military depot building, it was scheduled for demolition by the German government later that year.
Due to the demolition of its original venue, Breakpoint 2005 was moved to the Bingen city gym, a choice some demoscene members feared would diminish the atmosphere of the event, including the loss of its symbolic bonfire. The event proved to be a success nonetheless, with seminars, demo releases, and four live demoscene music concerts occurring in the heated, carpeted room of the new venue. It was later voted as the "Best Alltime Demoparty" in the PAiN diskmag.
Breakpoint 2006 was given a jungle setting—its venue adorned with torches, rocks, skeletons, and vines—to contextualize sceners competing to search for and regain their scene spirit. The event featured the annual Scene.org Awards ceremony in a much more formal and ceremonial setting, along with seminars and live music, including a performance by Welle:Erdball.
As a result of AMD's acquisition of ATI Technologies in July 2006, Intel became the primary sponsor of Breakpoint 2007, rather than secondary as it had been in prior years. Left with a deficit in its budget to host the 2007 iteration of Breakpoint, the event's organizers raised the entrance fee to 60 euros [ compared to? ] and abandoned its tradition of allowing women to attend the event for free. Despite the financial challenges, Breakpoint 2007 featured the usual array of competitions and seminars, along with live music from BASS and the Danish Commodore revival band Press Play On Tape. The Scene.org Awards ceremony was restructured with shorter screening times to reduce its length.
Breakpoint 2008 added Nvidia as a major sponsor, allowing event organizers to lower the entrance fee to €55 and acquire two 1080p projectors to screen demos on a 70 m2 (750 sq ft) screen. Nvidia did not return as a sponsor for the 2009 iteration of Breakpoint, leaving it without a major sponsor to cover the majority of costs. Although donations and the sale of €250 supporter tickets made up for some of the lost windfall and enabled regular tickets to remain at €55, Breakpoint 2009 lacked features such as seminars due to budgetary constraints. 20th Century Fox was added as a major sponsor for the event on short notice, resulting in the inclusion of a contest for demos, videos, art, and music featuring the character Wolverine as a means of promoting the film X-Men Origins: Wolverine . While Breakpoint was unable pay performers, Xerxes, Romeo Knight, and Bendik returned to perform in a free concert.
Breakpoint 2010 was the final Breakpoint event, holding a record attendance of over a thousand visitors. As the last day of the event coincided with NASA's launch of the STS-131 space shuttle, the launch was streamed at the event prior to the award ceremony.
Several months after the Breakpoint's conclusion, a successor demoparty entitled Revision was announced. Launching the following year in the same Easter time window as its predecessor, Revision would be hosted in Saarbrücken, Germany by an organizing team consisting mostly of former Breakpoint organizers. [2]
Year | Platform | Demo | 64k intro | 4k intro |
---|---|---|---|---|
2003 | Amiga | Magia (The Black Lotus) | Cancelled | Timur Lenk (Ephidrena & Spaceballs) |
C64 | Beertime 3 (Dekadence) | N/A | Voyage Sans Fin (K2) | |
PC | FR-025: The.Popular.Demo (Farbrausch) | Project Genesis (Conspiracy) | Mojo Dreams (Frenetic & R0k) | |
2004 | Amiga | Silkcut (The Black Lotus) | A Dream (Scoopex) | Ikanim (Loonies) |
C64 | You Know The Routine 2 (Camelot) | N/A | Bar4kode (Plush) | |
PC | Winnerdemo (Metalvotze) | Saturday Night Scener (Conspiracy) | Ex-Fabric (Frenetic & KB) | |
2005 | Amiga | Ocean Machine (The Black Lotus) | A Dream 2 (Scoopex) | Noxie (Loonies) |
C64 | RCC 2005 Invitro (RCC Team) | N/A | Pico (Dekadence) | |
PC | 195/95 (Plastic) | Binary Flow (Conspiracy) | Parsec (Frenetic, r0k & Sonic) | |
2006 | Amiga | Kilofix (Iris) | Planet Loonies (Loonies) (combined 64k/4k compo) | |
C64 | Non Plus Ultra (Singular Crew) | N/A | Artefacts (Plush) | |
PC | Deities (mfx) | Meet the Family (Fairlight) | Origami (Kakiarts) | |
2007 | Amiga | Senzala (Madwizards) | Leon (Elcrew) | Swex ([S]carab) |
C64 | Desert Dream (Chorus & Resource) | N/A | Cancelled | |
PC | FR-041: Debris (Farbrausch) | Phantom Eye Syndrome (Brain Control) | Sprite-O-Mat (Alcatraz) | |
2008 | Amiga | Twenty (Drifters) | Psylteflesk (Loaderror / Ephidrena) - 4k (combined 64k/4k compo) | |
C64 | Cauldron (Resource & The Dreams) | N/A | Cancelled | |
PC | Masagin (Farbrausch & Neuro) | Pimp My Spectrum (Ate Bit) | Atrium (TBC & Loonies) | |
2009 | Amiga | Jesus Christ Motocross (Nature & Traktor) | Superkewl (Supergroup) | Luminagia (Loonies) |
C64 | Das Gottler (Extend) | N/A | Cancelled | |
PC | Crush (Anadune & Floppy) | 060659 (Rebels) | Elevated (RGBA) | |
2010 | Amiga | We Come In Peace (Elude) | Charger (Focus Design) | Ikadalawampu (Loonies) |
C64 | Snapshot (Glance) | N/A | Dramatic Pixels (PWP) | |
PC | Agenda Circling Forth (CNCD & Fairlight) | Imagine (CodingCat, Hel, Turri & TGGC) | Darwinism (Archee) |
Demogroups are teams of demosceners, who make computer based audio-visual works of art known as demos. Demogroups form a subculture collectively known as the demoscene.
The demoscene is an international computer art subculture focused on producing demos: self-contained, sometimes extremely small, computer programs that produce audiovisual presentations. The purpose of a demo is to show off programming, visual art, and musical skills. Demos and other demoscene productions are shared at festivals known as demoparties, voted on by those who attend and released online.
Future Crew was a Finnish demogroup that created PC demos and software, active mostly between 1987 and 1994.
The Assembly demoparty is a demoscene and gaming event in Finland. It is the biggest demoscene party. The main organizers of the event are Pekka Aakko and Jussi Laakkonen. The Summer event takes place every year between late July and early August, and lasts three to four days, and the Winter event is held in January or February. Edition 2020 was online. The most recent Assembly was held from 3 to 6 of August 2023 at Messukeskus in Helsinki.
A LAN party is a social gathering of participants with personal computers or compatible game consoles, where a local area network (LAN) connection is established between the devices using a router or switch, primarily for the purpose of playing multiplayer video games together. LAN party events differ significantly from LAN gaming centers and Internet cafes in that LAN parties generally require participants to bring your own computer (BYOC) and are not permanent installations, often taking place in general-use venues or residences.
The Gathering is the second largest computer party in the world. It is held annually in Vikingskipet Olympic Arena in Hamar, Norway, and lasts for five consecutive days. Each year, TG attracts more than 5200 people, with attendance increasing every year.
Farbrausch, or Farb-rausch, is a German group of demomakers who became well known in the demoscene in December 2000 with a 64k intro called "fr-08: .the .product". The demo achieved its small size through the use of procedural textures, a custom MIDI-based software synthesizer V2, and a modified version of UPX executable compressor, ".the .product" is an 11-minute 3-D show featuring complex scenes of computer generated imagery.
Pilgrimage was a demoparty which took place annually in Salt Lake City, Utah each summer between 2003 and 2006. The event was founded by Rich "Legalize" Thompson of the demoscene group Polygony. Pilgrimage was, at the time, the only active demoscene event of its kind in all of North America, while many demoparties take place annually throughout Europe.
keWlers is a Finnish demogroup, formed in the early 1990s, originally called Mewlers. After smaller releases such as Tripfish 2 or Another High-Caliber Mechanical Complication, their breakthrough came in 2002 when they released their critically acclaimed demo Variform at Assembly 2002. Despite only achieving third place, the demo became one of the most widely known and top rated demos ever released, winning three Scene.org awards. Further major demos to be released later included Protozoa and A Significant Deformation Near The Cranium, released at Assembly 2003. Kewlers have been nominated for at least one Scene.org Award every year, except for 2004. The group disbanded for a while in 2006 directly after the release of their final demo, 1995. But since 2010 Kewlers have returned from their hiatus, with possibly Variform 2, released at Revision 2012, as their most influential demo since their comeback.
Scene.org is a non-profit organization, providing the currently largest demoscene file repository. It was founded in 1996 by Jaakko "Mellow-D" Manninen, though originally it existed as ftp.fm.org, an FTP-server for releases from the group Five Musicians. In 1997, it re-opened as Scene.org. After the Hornet Archive closed on September 22, 1998, scene.org became the only prominent demoscene-FTP available and quickly became the host of many other releases as well.
Hugi is one of the longest lasting, frequently released demoscene and underground disk magazines (diskmag) for IBM-PC.
Static Line was an email-based ASCII Ezine that focused on the PC demoscene. It was a monthly publication with strong roots in the music aspect of the demoscene. It ran for 52 issues starting in July 1998 and finishing in March 2004.
Andromeda Software Development is a Greek demogroup that was formed in 1992. They produced a number of small intros and demos in the mid-1990s for the PC, most notably CounterFactual and Beyond. ASD was quiet for the following years until 2001, when they presented Cadence & Cascade - their first accelerated demo - and won the Digital Nexus demoparty, held in Athens, Greece.
Moppi Productions was a Finnish-based demogroup founded in 1996. It is mainly known for their story-based demos and the demo authoring tool Demopaja. The demo ix, released in 2003, won a total of three awards in the Scene.org Awards gala.
Very Important Party (VIP) is an annual demo party held from 1999 to 2002 in Saint-Priest, near Lyon (France) and from 2008 in Thoissey. It is organized by PoPsY TeAm, a French demogroup from Lyon area.
The Nullarbor demo party is a combined game development and demoscene event in Australia. The event takes place at the beginning of every year in Perth, Western Australia. It was named Nullarbor in reference to Perth's physical isolation from the rest of Australia. Like other similar demo parties worldwide, it provides a platform for game developers and graphic artists to showcase their skills.
Wired was a Belgian annual demoparty which ran from 1994 to 1998. Typical competitions included PC and Amiga demos and intros, handmade and ray traced graphics, music and surprise competitions.
Kindergarden (KG) is an annual demo party first organized in 1994 in Fjellfoten, Norway. During the first few years it was held irregularly, eventually settling into being an annual event. Since 2001 it has been held in Haga, Norway, the location also used for Kindergarden 4 and 5.
Revision is a demoparty which takes place on Easter in Saarbrücken, Germany. It is the successor of the Breakpoint party series, and retains many of the organizing staff. The event was established in 2011, after Breakpoint had announced its end in 2010.
Phenomena (PHA) was a Swedish Demogroup making Amiga demos that was productive during the formative years of the Amiga Demoscene founded in 1987.