Assembly (demo party)
The Assembly demo party is a demoscene and gaming event in Finland. The main organizers of the event are Pekka Aakko (Pehu of Accession) and Jussi Laakkonen (Abyss of Future Crew). The event takes place every year between late July and early August, and lasts three to four days. The most recent Assembly was held from 30 July to 2 August 2015 at Messukeskus in Helsinki.
In the beginning of the year 2007 Assembly Winter was announced. The new winter party is a more gaming oriented event where as the summer events continues the traditions of the original demoparty under the name Assembly Summer. Both parties will be held once a year. Assembly is the world's largest gathering of demo programmers.[1]
History
The first Assembly was held from July 24 to July 26, 1992, in Kauniainen. It was organized by the Amiga demo groups Complex and Rebels, and the PC demo group Future Crew. The staff grew into a large non-profit group of individuals known as Assembly Organizing. Through the 1990s, Assembly grew so large that even exposition halls no longer sufficed, and only the largest of sports arenas met the partygoers' needs. In 1999 they rented the largest sports arena in the country, Hartwall Areena in Helsinki, with over 5000 visitors and 3500 computers on the ice rink.
The 2004 edition of the party also set up a record: in July 2004, QuakeCon announced it was holding the world's first Doom 3 competitions on the event starting on August 12–14, roughly a week after the game's release on August 3.[2] Assembly, however, managed to snatch the first place after acquiring copies of the game via FedEx with the help of some contacts in the United States and holding the competition during August 5–8.[3]
As of 2012 the party has been held for 20 consecutive years.
Competitions
The party includes multiple competitions, or compos including but not limited to:
- Demo
- 64k intro (discontinued after 2011)[4]
- 4k intro
- 1k intro
- Vocal music
- Instrumental music
- Drawn graphics
- Oldskool music/graphics/demo
- Fast graphics
- Short film (which replaced the wild compo and animation compo in 2004)
- Video game developing compo
For the first eight years of Assembly, the demo and intro competitions were split into separate PC and Amiga categories. Starting in 2000, the platforms have been combined, with PC (Windows or Linux), Amiga, Mac and even high-end consoles competing in the same demo and intro competitions. Similarly, Commodore 64 competitions were replaced with "oldskool" competitions that also allow entries for some other old platforms, such as various 8-bit systems and older Amigas.
Entries are submitted by demogroups and individual artists and are rated by judges. All demos which are deemed to be of a high enough standard are then shown on a big screen. Entries which break the competition rules (e.g. use copyrighted material, or aren't suitable for the category to which they are entered) are disqualified. People who are present at the arena vote for the entries, and the results are published on the Assembly website. The entries are usually made available by the artists at scene.org or on the artists own website.
Assembly's demo competitions generally hold a very high level, especially for a party that is not specific to the demoscene. Notable winners include Lifeforce by ASD, Panic Room by Fairlight and Frameranger by Fairlight, CNCD and Orange.
Demo and intro competition winners
| Year | Amiga demo | PC demo | C64 demo | Amiga intro | PC 64K intro |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | Sound Vision (Reflect) | Unreal (Future Crew) | Gunnar 2 (Dual Crew) | Repo (Vectra) | N/A |
| 1993 | Extension (Pygmy Projects) | Second Reality (Future Crew) | Four years (Origo Dreamline) | Bananamen (Stellar) | Eclipse (EMF) |
| 1994 | Mindflow (Stellar) | Verses (EMF) | Attack of Stubidos 3 (Beyond Force) | G-Force (Pygmy Projects) | Airframe (Prime) |
| 1995 | ZIF (Parallax) | Stars (NoooN) | Extremes (Byterapers) | Fad (Sonik Clique) | Drift (Wild Light) |
| 1996 | Sumea (Virtual Dreams) | Machines of Madness (Dubius) | Follow the Sign 3 (Byterapers) | Pure (Sonik Clique) | Blind (Eufrosyne) |
| 1997 | Pulse (Nerve Axis) | Boost (Doomsday) | Speedway (Panic) | 911 (Limbo) | Mainstream (Moottori) |
| 1998 | Relic (Nerve Axis) | Gateways (Trauma) | Speedway 2 (Panic) | Edit 0.5 (Haujobb) | Oxygen (Coral) |
| 1999 | Beats (Loveboat) | Non-3D:Gasoline (Recreation) | Speedway 3 (Panic) | älä ota sitä vakavasti (Da Jormas) | Viagra (Mewlers) |
| 3D:Virhe (Maturefurk) | |||||
| Year | Combined demo | Oldskool demo | Combined 64K intro | ||
| 2000 | Spot (Exceed) | Oldskool Trippin (Haujobb) | Dead Flowers (Haujobb) | ||
| 2001 | Lapsuus (Maturefurk) | Riyadh (Bandwagon) | Sonnet (Threestate) | ||
| 2002 | Liquid... Wen? (Haujobb) | Impossiblator 2 (PWP) | Squish (AND) | ||
| 2003 | Legomania (Doomsday) | Robotic Liberation (PWP) | Zoom 3 (AND) | ||
| 2004 | Obsoleet (Unreal Voodoo) | Halfway There (Dekadence) | The Prophecy — Project Nemesis (Conspiracy) | ||
| 2005 | Iconoclast (ASD) | Boogie Factor (Fairlight) | Che Guevara (Fairlight) | ||
| 2006 | Starstruck (The Black Lotus) | Fruitcake (RNO) | Dead Ringer (Fairlight) | ||
| 2007 | Lifeforce (ASD) | High Hopes (Aspekt) | Basic Facts About Design (Immersion) | ||
| 2008 | Within Epsilon (Pyrotech) | Renaissance (Byterapers) | Panic Room (Fairlight) | ||
| 2009 | Frameranger (Fairlight, CNCD, & Orange) | 3½ Inches Is Enough (Unreal Voodoo) | Transform (Ate Bit) | ||
| 2010 | Happiness is around the bend (ASD) | Grind (Dekadence & Accession) | x marks the spot, Function-X invitation (Portal Process) | ||
| 2011 | Spin (ASD) | Chaotic (Dekadence) | Cancelled due to lack of entries[5] | ||
| Year | Combined demo | Oldskool demo | Combined 4k Intro | Combined 1k Intro | |
| 2012 | Spacecut (CNCD) | Conservative Megademo (PWP) | Fireflies (Blobtrox) | Embers (TDA) | |
| 2013 | return (pyrotech) | Norwegian Pillow (Dekadence) | Highway 4k (HBC) | Tendrils (Traction + Fit) | |
| 2014 | Black And White Lies (One Studio Off) | Sliced & Diced (Dekadence) | Splash (Unknown Artists) | Superstructure (TDA) | |
| 2015 | Monolith (ASD) | Carbon Based (Dekadence) | Hydrokinetics (Prismbeings) | BLCK4777 (p01 / ribbon) | |
AssemblyTV
In recent years, Assembly has broadcast content from its in-house media effort AssemblyTV to local and national TV networks, as well as producing web streams for people to watch live over the internet — spots for hundreds, if not thousands of viewers are catered for and these streams have been watched all over the world, not just in Finland. In addition to the opening and closing ceremonies, the competitions and party reports, the educational sessions that are being held during the party are broadcast via AssemblyTV as well.
ARTtech seminars
ARTtech seminars are free to attend educational seminar sessions that are being held during the party at the venue location. The sessions cover various subjects that are usually related to the main party theme and idea, including sessions about programming (coding), graphic design, music composition, game development, hardware hacks, scene history and more.
References
- ↑ "Girls Dig Demos Too" by Steve Kettmann of Wired magazine. (August 3, 2001)
- ↑ http://www.quakecon.org/forums/showthread.php?p=20891 Archived June 26, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.
- ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20110719154204/http://media.assembly.org/press/assembly2004_doom3_eng.pdf
- ↑ "What's new in 2012". Assembly Summer 2012.
- ↑ "64k intro compo cancelled - replaced by Demo compo!".
External links
- Assembly.org — Official website
- Assemblytv.net — Official media
- Assembly 2006 — MBnet The Official Ezine of Assembly 2006.
- Assembly on Pouët
- The ARTS Radio (MP3) contains an interview with the primary organizer of Assembly, Abyss of Future Crew.