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Beginners > definition of demo?

#9563 - josser - Fri Aug 08, 2003 9:01 pm

i am just wondering at what point is something a demo and not a game? in terms of the dev competition...

#9564 - Lord Graga - Fri Aug 08, 2003 9:46 pm

A demo is like a music video.
Basicly, it shows what the hardware can do, and it is usualy pushed to the upper limits of the CPU and the RAM. A lot of optimization is done to make the demo as smooth as possible, so that it looks as impressive as possible. A demo can also be simple sprite movement, or a dot on the screen :)
Usualy, the demos are cheered up with some funky music that fits well into the movement of it all :)

#9574 - sgeos - Sat Aug 09, 2003 7:28 am

Is a demo strictly defined as non-interactive?

-Brendan

#9578 - Lord Graga - Sat Aug 09, 2003 10:43 am

Not necesarily, but it usualy is. The reason for this is that the demo will follow the flow of the music, and if you make 10-20 different effects that you can skip around in, the music might even end before you are finished :P

#9581 - Sweex - Sat Aug 09, 2003 1:30 pm

The only interactivity you can have in a demo, to still be it a demo is when you can control certain effects when they run. Think of a scrolling text where you can alter the speed.

I reckon if you make a game, but make it a running demo (like many games when you leave them on title screen for a while) then that would still be a *demo* I'd say.
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#9596 - tepples - Sat Aug 09, 2003 6:18 pm

Lord Graga wrote:
Not necesarily, but it usualy is. The reason for this is that the demo will follow the flow of the music, and if you make 10-20 different effects that you can skip around in, the music might even end before you are finished :P

Well, if the game scrolls at the same rate as the music such that the player would necessarily either lose or reach the "goal" after 99 seconds when the music ends, then you have DDR, especially if the player can "skip around" on a platform containing buttons.
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