When I was in highscool I was part of the Romanian demoscene subculture under the “PuthreGuy” nickname and I was part of the “General Failure” demogroup. I was also the SysOp of InfoVox BBS (FidoNet 2:531/10). “General Failure” was later renamed to “Float Entertainment” then to “Float|FX” when it merged with “Brain Damage” group. As of 1997, “General Failure” had 4 members:

PuthreGuy – code
Little Kopsha – code
PhM – music
Foaming Creature – code

GeneralFailure
Our first demo was named “X-Act” , was written in Borland Pascal and we participated with it at the Reunion Demoparty in Costinesti (aka Generatia Pro Computer ’97). Here we met again Ser and Mega from Brain Damage group (which we knew from a programming contest held in Galaciuc). We took the second prize which consisted in 500.000 lei (~=60$ at that time). We also submitted the demo on Hornet for evaluation and we received two stars out of five (we were very proud of this result given the fact that this was our first demo). It can still be downloaded from the Hornet mirrors.
Visions Title

Our second demo was called “Visions” and it took the second place at Reunion ’99 Demoparty in Bucharest. It featured 3D software rendering with trilinear filtering, perspective correction, transparency, gouraud shading. (Written in C under DOS using DJGPP)

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Out third demo was “Spreadsh*t” and we made it in cooperation with Ser from Brain Damage demogroup and we won the second prize at Dracula 2000 Demo Party in Brasov. I remember that we did it in a few days, basically reusing my “Rottweiller 3d” engine (previously used in “Visions”) and adding object morphing capabilities and lightmaps to it.

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Reunion2k

Together with Andrei(gfx), Mistia(music), Mafler(music) ,Ser(code and gfx) and Benny (code) we created the Reunion 2k ad-hoc team to code the only demo at the Reunion 2k demoparty – “2dnow!” .

2dnow!2d_1.jpg2d_2.jpg

We created the demo from scratch at the party place and we took the first place (of course 🙂 ).”Suntem cei mai buni” (“We are the best!”) said Ser when we took the prize 🙂

The “General Failure” demogroup merged with “Brain Damage” to create the “Float | FX” group. The idea was to continue coding in the Game Development area. Some efforts have been done to create a Racing Multiplayer game and we succeded to code 90% of the game engine, but the idea was abandoned due to the lack of time, motivation and maybe other reasons I cannot recall. Our dream at that time was to create a Game Development company and publish our first game. As of today, some of us still believe that this would be the way to go.

It’s very sad that most of the information about the Romanian Demoscene got lost. I was not able to find the name of the winning entries on neither Reunion or Dracula Demoparties. If anybody still has them, please write me.
Demoscene links:

http://tomaes.32x.de/text/faq.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene

Romanian Demoscene links:

r2k pictures

r2k impressions (web archive)

Some of the guys that participated to the Romanian Demoscene can still be found on undernet IRC network, #rdemoparty channel.

You can find valueable information about the Romanian Demoscene on Minier Zsolt site at http://cs.ubbcluj.ro/~minier/other/demoscene.html

Here is the scan of the bbs list in 1995.bbs-uri pcreport 1995

14 Comments

  • Wow, I accidentally found your page, and I’m glad, I should google my name more often. Nice to see your take on the good old things. Is your Dracula 2k demo downloadable from somewhere, haven’t seen it since day 0, and I’d definitley check it out? We should bug Benny about scene.ro a bit more. 🙂

  • I think I have something on one of my CD’s but it’s definitely not in the state to be distributed. If you want it, I will search and email it to you. I cannot even guarantee that it will start (though, it worked for me in dosbox to take the screenshots 🙂 ).

  • I was very curious about that demo at the time. It would be nice to see it. Also it seems like the most technically advanced Romanian demo to me, so it would be nice to check out just what was in there. 🙂

  • I could get it to run only with about 2 fps in dosbox, I think I’ll have to wait a few more years to enjoy it fully. 🙂

  • With the newest dosbox (0.70) it works quite okay. Nice demo. But that splat was fake, wasn’t it? :)))

  • It was the 3D object morphing feature we added to our keyframer. Nothing more, nothing less 😀

  • heh 🙂
    dupa ce am lasat cateva comment-uri pe site-ul lui max salutam scena si aici.

    1000 de ani pace
    –amo // former dracula cco

  • Nu trebuie sa ne gandim ca sunt doar amintiri. Sunt lucruri care au fost facute si care, intr-o forma sau alta exista! 🙂

    Salut tuturor celor ce au format demoscene-ul romanesc.

    Pris / Virtual Eagle — reunion demoparty series 97-01

  • Tocmai am vazut postarea astea — in timp ce frunzaream si eu internet-ul dupa ceva “vestigii” ale vremurilor trecute.

    Ca ex-demoscener, impartasesc ca si voi aceeasi melancolie. Poate insa cineva sa imi spuna si mie cum de s-au schimbat asa de radical vremurile ???

    Anii ’90 au fost ca o “luna de miere” a programarii, dupa care brusc lumea IT-ului a devenit un business foarte dur. De cand au intrat “marile capitaluri” pe piata i-au ras complet pe cei mici si au instaurat o dictatura a marketingului si a productiei de masa. Cel mai mult au de suferit developerii talentati …. Nu mai prea inteleg care este logica acestui domeniu ?!?

    Voi cum simtiti atmosfera actuala ?