1992-93 were great years for the Atari ST reaching a climax of demos both technical and very stylish. As it happens, some of them have already been highlighted in another coup de coeur, such as the Flip’O démo or Synergy’s megademo. It cannot be a coincidence ! 🙂 Ironically this time also rang the bell of the end of an era with many bands leaving for other platforms or better horizons….
Anyway Froggies Over The Fence was the last demo produced by 3 French democrews : St Connexion, Legacy and Overlanders. They worked together on their swansong and as a result they gave us a huge demo spread over 3 floppies (you know what a floppy is at last?) featuring 4 totally different and independent parts. Even today this demo remains a true milestone in Atari ST demos!
The first part features a huge pack of demos effects of all kinds : 3D objects, distorters, dots, plasma, zooms, rotozooms, bobs, scrollers and also a sequence with pictures changing shape, maybe my fave part as it implied graphics from a dozen different people. To put it in a nutshell this part is incredibly rich and very stylish at the same time! It is about 10 minutes long and fully enjoyable from the beginning to the end.
The second part is a short and classic demo in which you will find a lot of fashionable effects of that time, yet thanks to nice pictures, great design and a perfect choice of colours it is also a very pleasant show.
But don’t think it is over yet as now comes a story told through 3D sequences, something unseen in the early 90s. Quite impressive! This could have been the introduction of a commercial game with any doubt !
The third part is a huge music collection, maybe a hundred (or hundreds ?) chiptunes composed by one of my favourite ST musicians, Jess of democrew Overlanders ! I don’t think I am wrong when I write that actually ALL tunes composed by him on Atari ST are gathered here ! Oh and by the way there is a nice Tetris game to keep you entertained while you listen to music.
The fourth and last part is a picture gallery but not your everyday gallery ! It features pictures created on more powerful computers, in other words PCs, that are displayed with thousands of colours instead of the 16 colours limitation bound to the Atari ST. Please note that the video doesn’t look as good as the original because of a nasty flickering effect that doesn’t show on the Atari ST. Anyway it is a wonderful show supported by a soundtrack of high quality by Delos! All in all this is the perfect ending to an already amazing demonstration!
The Encyclopedia Of Atari ST Demos 