I'm Loving Angels In Bread by The Wee Knights
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-=; Oh, you again ;=-
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Yes, us again..
The Wee Knights return, to darken your screens once more, with our
latest take on Ascii-sort-of-demo concepts, our third release, and
probable masterwork, 'We're Loving Angels in Bread!'
> Third release??
Yep, the third demo we've made. You may recall the somewhat compo-
filling prop-the-door open effort 'Freak in the Window Cameo' shown at
the 2016 edition of Outline. There was a second prod, which was first
unveiled at the Sundown 2016 party, known to a select (very) few as
'2wice Knightly'. That one seems to have dropped out of sight.
Maybe a re-release is due?
> This ascii malarky is all very well, but it does bear an uncanny
resemblance to something quite awful, that was infesting a lot of demo
parties back in the early noughties?
Well, you might be onto something there, as our next section will
reveal more.
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-==; A hysterical historical background ;==-
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Back in 2003, a lonely sometime diskmag botherer was looking to widen
his portfolio of things to do for the Atari Scene. He convinced himself
that he had a future in producing graphical material of an ascii
persuasion. The major stumbling block to doing anything further, was a
lack of talent of the coding persuasion.
Fortunately, there was an ace coder to hand, who was able to lend his
considerable ability to the deficit. In order to protect the good name
and reputation of that person, I will not reveal anything further about
the identity of that person, apart from the fact he now lives in Canada
and keeping very exalted company, or perhaps working for a very exalted
company?
And he was inordinately fond of the colour pink..
In his spare time, he was able to prepare a demo engine that could
manipulate Atari ascii created graphics in a small number of cunning
ways. This is coded with a custom language in a script file, which is
placed with the ascii graphics contained in a separate text file.
The first result of that endeavour came to a stunned Error in Line
party (2003 edition), when 'Bud the Chud in Ascii Minor' burst onto an
uncomprehending world.
Other releases followed on in quick succession, all with the
trademarked cheesy cheap ascii graphics, and very low humour. (In
retrospect, there is definitely one release, that we would have done
differently now.)
The fevered energy that characterised these early releases died down
gradually, with the last flare of activity in 2008. Since then,
silence..
The tools used have lain around, gathering dust since then, certain
satanic incantations, used to raise the undead, have not been muttered,
no plastic bags have been filled with bodily waste products.
Until now.
Which is where we are heading for the next part of the story.
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-=; A bit about the demo ;=-
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'Angels' is intended to be the ultimate expression of what is possible
with the very limited demo engine described above. People who are
familiar with previous Wee Knights releases, and especially those
things made by the "other" group may have certain (low) expectations.
Namely something that runs in ST low or medium resolution, with ascii
or Degas pictures featuring, with chip tunes made by an obsolete music
composer and the odd clicky STE sound sample, if you were lucky.
In fact, you'd probably expect something a bit like this.
.- - - - - -.
.######. : Poo! Wee! :
.### ######.: Paedophile : .--.--_ .- - - - - - - - - -.
.### ######; jokes! : .' ( '_. : Dildo Fatwa demos :
### \__. ._/ )' - - - - -' (______/\ \ : in a nutshell since:
{ ( @ : @)( // (@ / @) '. ): the last 13 years! :
'# \ )/ ' (_ } .'/ /- - - - - - - - -'
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) / ' ' /
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This time, it's going to be different.
If you set eyes upon the second Wee Knights release,'2wice Knightly',
then you would get some clues from there. We've played it straight,
there's no grotesque cartoon people there, the general impression would
be something that you would be happy for your grandmother to watch.
> But will it be any good?
As to why we consider Angels to be 'better' than anything that came
before, that is an entirely subjective matter, down to the viewers
judgement. We hope there are things that make you smile at the very
least, even if not going "Wow!"
In our opinion, it looks better than anything that came before, a large
part of that is due to extensive usage of (hem!) third party material.
That will get its own section, a bit later on. It is a bit more
polished than previous prods too.
> So, it runs on the Falcon, where are the Falcon 030 specific
features?
Not that question again, there are no Falcon specific bits here!
Technically, it runs on anything that can deliver 16 MHz and upwards,
and has an STE level of hardware. This time around, we've not even used
the STE DMA sound, or any non-ascii material. There are palette fades
which use the STE 4096 colour palette in places, but that's it.
As to what it runs on best, it is tailored for a standard Falcon 030,
or else Hatari set up as a base model Falcon. The brand new Hatari v2.0
does a very nice job with it.
You're welcome to try it with faster configurations, but I would not
try it on a slower system. There lies the road to hell..
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=; Used tools ;=
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Much of this part of the text has been cribbed from the previous demo
read me text as pretty much the same things apply this time around too.
After a little casual experimentation, and working out where some vital
but well hidden ascii characters were hidden on the Mac keyboard, it
turns out that the Mac's own default 'TextEdit' program was up to the
job of initial creation of the ascii goodness. Once that was up and
running, we were away
Which leads nicely to the next stage, which is getting them into an
Atari friendly format. Hatari, the friendly Atari emulator is extremely
convenient for all sorts of reasons. Including creative stuff like
this. Pretty much all further tools needed were to be found here.
The Everest text editor is the final destination for my previously
created ascii text files. It converts the raw plain text into something
that an Atari ST series is at home with. Also, the overwrite mode for
final editing is very very handy indeed.
The chip tune side of the audio was composed on 'Music Mon', and not
just any old Music Mon, but only the original and crusty V1.0 itself!
This has a nice tracker style interface and is very easy to work with.
You can get lost for hours playing with the sound editor on its own.
I'll have to have a play with the latest version sometime.
A few websites played a part in the creation of this demo, but specific
mention flies out to patorjk.com/ This is where all the kickass fonts
used here and in the earlier demo came from. They have a neat text to
ascii font converter. This also helped in the creation of some
additional non-text graphics as well.
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=; Third party credits ;=
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As mentioned previously, some of the graphics used in this demo
originated from third party authors.
This part of the text credits those, for whom we have details or else
as 'author unknown'.
- Second spirally thing was by Normand Veilleux.
- Spinny splat by 'VK'
- Globular spiral by 'DH'
- Also the crossed vector line thing in the same screen was by 'DH'
- The raised finger in the Windows, say no! screen, unknown author
- Planet Saturn style by 'hrr'
- Both Albert Einsteins, unknown author
- Awesome spinning torus, unknown author
- Various light on dark background images, eagle/eye, unknown author
- Skull by 'Gilo95'
- Awesome flickering candle, unknown author, well I made it flicker!
- Heart / ace of spades at start, unknown author
If we have overlooked anyone which is quite likely, then apologies fly
out unreservedly to you.
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=; So what next? ;=
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From the Wee Knights, not much else.
The call of the diskmag is echoing in a deep and majestic manner,
through the hills and vales. I will be working towards a new edition of
everyone's favourite diskmag, Maggie!
This has an intended release date for 2017. Don't ask about anything
more precise than that right now. There is a lot to write about, much
of it from an Atari scene perspective, and even more from outside. The
word 'Brexit' will get more than a few column inches from me, and I
daresay others have their own views too.
As for the Wee Knights, I've pretty much reached the limits of what can
be done with that one. If there was going to be any further
progression, I would need to learn some proper coding, or else get
someone else to completely revamp the tools that I have got.
Unless I get a quick idea for a humorous cartoon series that can be
rendered in ascii, such as "Billy Brexit cuts his face off accidentally
whilst trying to make a point", or something like that.
It might happen.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to shoving this out at Silly Venture 2016
and enjoying the legendary Polski hospitality in the fair city of
Gdansk.
Until the next time, baw sie dobrze!
C!H - 7.11.2016..
[ back to the prod ]