Yesterday, The Ultimate Meeting 2007 ended, so it’s the right time to review the best and most interesting demos of 2007. Read on for a short summary which demos I would personally recommend to someone interested in the scene.

The absolute must-see demos

Let’s start with the two most important, most famous, most celebrated demos and certainly best demos this year. If you are a demoscener, there’s a 99% chance that you know them already; if you’re not, they are the best starting point to become addicted. I promise you will like at least one of them :)

Farbrausch — fr-041: debris.

ASD — Lifeforce

Other remarkable demos

Still can’t get enough? No problem, the next ones I can recommend are:

• Cocoon — Sweet Home Under Synthetic Clouds, the moral winner of Evoke 2007
• LKCC & Bauknecht — Above, a perfect example that a demo without shaders can still look good
• Speckdrumm — The Unreasonable Deepness, an equally good example of how shaders can produce a completely unique look when used properly
• Youth Uprising — Aesthetic Distance
• SQNY — Chronosphere
• Still — ISo9241
• Traction & Brainstorm — Into The Neon Rain
• Fairlight & CNCD — Halfsome, just because the robot guy is soooooo cute :)

64k intros

Here is where we come to a sad realization: There just was no really good 64k intro in 2007. Last year, we had instant classics like Dead Ringer and Chaos Theory, but this year, there were “only» decent intros, but no great ones:

• PlayPsyCo — Mupé
• Ümlaüt Design — Träsh
• Inque — Antiphore
• Youth Uprising — Purple
• Limp Ninja — 제목없음
• Brain Control — Phantom Eye Syndrome
• Brain Control — Mercury

4k intros

The situation is exactly reversed with 4k intros: There was so much good stuff that it’s hard to pick the really outstanding ones. I try to pick a few, but this list is really not authoritative:

• Pittsburgh Stallers — Candystall, which is visually a remake of STS-05 in 4k
• Alcatraz — Sprite-O-Mat
• Alcatraz — Horde 2007 Invitation
• ALLien Senses — Quantum Chaos
• RGBA — Stiletto
• Northern Dragons — Step Back
• Outracks — My Boobs are 4k
• TBC — Tracie (1k!)

Alternative Platforms

Finally, let’s leave the confined paths of PC/Mac demomaking and have a look at the platforms where programming is not only fun, but also adventure. Again, I won’t give a guarantee that this list is exhaustive, but I think it covers some of the most important non-PC demos this year:

• Chorus & Resource — Desert Dream (C64), a perfect remake of the legendary Amiga demo with the same name. This may sound like a simple and small thing, but in fact, it’s more than impressive how the small early-80s machine shows the same effects as its successor that came out three years later.
• The six Atari VCS 2600 demos by wAMMA and Trilobit: Lasertime, (core), Gehirn, HARD, Tom/Jones and Tricade. It’s amazing what can be done with this 30 year old device.
• Shitfaced Clowns — Matt Current (Gameboy Advance) is easily the best demo for this platform so far.
• The Black Lotus — Suicide Barbie (PlayStation Portable) is very disputed because TBL ripped parts of the music and copied almost all concepts, but these objections aside, “Suicide Barbie„ is a really nice demo.