Survey submitted: Tue 28 Jul 2009

Handle, ex-handle(s):
PulkoMandy

Name, birthday, origin:
Adrien Destugues, 1988/5/7, Pau, France, Earth

Group, ex-group(s):
Shinra

What was your first group, your role in that group and what did that group produce?:
Shinra. Musician, coder&graphist (and quite bad at all of them). Nothing really interesting out yet. I did a musicdisk featuring only covers of "classical" tunes from C64 and others. Everything on Amstrad CPC, of course.

What motivates you to spend time on the scene?:
I like playing with old computers, I like coding. Where could I mix these apart in the scene ?

What is your favorite color?:
Blue. Why not.

On what platform(s) did you begin your computing journey, and when was this?:
Amstrad CPC in 1995 was the first I owned. (yes, I was only 7 years old). But I had been playing with some other people PC's before that.

What platform(s) do you use now?:
Still Amstrad CPC, and PC/Linux for all the serious work. But I enjoy a lot of other computers now (atari, amiga). And I want to have a look at console demomaking one day.

What is/are your favorite piece(s) of music(s) - from a demo production or a scener (released outside of a demo)?:
I like Octopus from Targhan (DemoIzArt endpart). But there are quite a lot of good tunes

What is/are your favorite picture(s) - from a demo production or a scener(released outside of a demo)?:
I can't think of one in particular. Sorry.

What music program are you using the most to express yourself? Why?:
Starkos on Amstrad CPC. Because it's powerful and not so hard to use. Or maybe because I learnt tracking with it and just got used to it.

Which composer, artist or group of the real life did inspire you most?:
I listen to a lot of things, but I'm not sure any of them can ocunt as inspiration.

Do you play any instrument? Which?:
I played Jembé (african drum) for some time... but had to stop for lack of time. Sad.

Which project that you worked on was the most exciting and interesting for you? And why?:
GrafX2. But that's not music related
It's great to feel useful for the scene (and other people).

Well, other projects at Shinra were all made just for fun, and we had fun doing them. Being a member of Shinra can be the best project I had, in some sense.

What is your favorite demo, intro, megademo, retrogame, slideshow, musicdisk, diskmag, wilddemo?:
Demo: Second reality or Jesus Christ Motocross
Retrogame: Jazz Jackrabbit 2
Nothing particular for the rest.

Discuss: minimalistic demos, cracktros, fucktros, joke demos, lamers, compo winners at big parties, demotools, diskmags, chiptunes, glenz vectors, programming languages, photoshop, textmode:
Well... demos became quite pointless on the technical side when computers became able to download and play a video easily. So lets talk 8/16-bit here.
Minimalistic demos: the idea is to do something impressive. any design allowed. Think jaw-dropping factor.
Cracktros: as long as they are good. But why do you bother adding a big game with them ? it make download time longer.
Fucktros: lame. you'd better make the scene run by yourself instead of asking other to improve.
Joke demos: fun. but don't do too much.
Lamers: improve.
Compo winners/big parties: cool for them.
Demotools: as I said, demoing on modern platforms is pointless. The idea is to make something that no one managed to do before. So if you do a demo using a demotool, and go further than any other demo, fine for you. If you spend 15 years coding something and end up with a result you could achieve in 15 minutes using a demotool, then you failed. I don't care about your code. Only final filesize and result count.
Diskmags: avoids waste of paper. May have good content from time to time.
Chiptunes: do it on the real chips. Or call it size-constrained music. Or whatever.
Glenz vector: i guess they would look nice on an 8bit machine.
Programming language: I don't care as long as the final result looks good and is as small as possible.
Photoshop: that's a demotool for graphicians. see above.
Textmode: add a constraint to make demomaking on modern platforms more challenging. But limits the final result heavily. You'd better go 8-bit.

What percentage of modern demos are 3d flybys?:
Everything on PC, I guess.

What percentage of older demos are the same effects recycled?:
There has to be a "first time" for each effect. But it's often a bad use of the effect. Changing the palette is bad. Using the effect in a clever way so you don't see it's the same all over is good. Add some random algorithm bugs to get some differences.

What platform(s) needs more demos?:
Atari Lynx. And a lot of other consoles and handhelds.

Which parties do you intend to go to, and which parties would you like to go to? Please describe your personal experiences with your most favourite or impressive party you have ever been at.:
I'm more in the CPC part of things which keeps it's own parties. But I'd like to go to one of the big ones one day. I'm always quite far of them. I guess that's because I live in Bretagne, France, which is far from everything except the sea.

How did the scene alter since you are taking an active part in it? Can you explain why?:
Now I want to make a demo on every platform I can think of, including my fridge.

What are your dreams/goals in life, did scene help you and have you achieved them yet?:
Nothing special. Have fun and see how it goes.

Finally, do you have some special greetings? Feel free to add links to your graphics, screenshots of effects, modules or other pieces of your work.:
Well, greets to everyone. So I'm sure I don't forget to list some.