Midwest Gaming Classic 2011

Midwest Gaming Classic 2011 is a homebrew demo by Marshallh, released on 30 March 2011. It’s a 3D animation showing off some landscapes, floating logos and other effects, much in the same vein as those classic demos from the N64 scene in the 90’s.

You can get the ROM from its download page by using the password classigmidwestgaming.

About Midwest Gaming Classic 2011

This is one of those demos that strings together a series of 3D objects and effects for you to look at.

The first of which is a farm at dawn (you can tell because the wind vane shows the sun at the east). It also has a silhouette of a tractor pulling on some kind of equipment and raising up a lot of dust against the horizon.

The second part Shows off some more of the 3D modelling. It’s a landscape of some mountains, this time against a clear blue sky. It’s much less stylised than the farm section.

Now we start moving into abstract effects. We start off with… I’m not too sure how to describe it, but a “cube of circles”. The cub rotates, and the circles pulse around in a rhythmic motion. The cube then explodes. Boom!

Next up is what looks like one of those 360° cameras, of what looks like a grassy field with some trees along the edges. It’s likely some kind of rotating skybox.

The music ramps up and we get to the DJ station. A gray, textured ‘black hole’ background decorates a central stage with a desk, chair & laptop surrounded by large speakers and a trippy disco light screen. There is a checkerboard floor, but the whole thing seems to be just floating through the twilight zone.

Nearing the end now, we move back to the sky and find the Commodore, N64 and Amiga logos dancing around a mirrored grid.

The demo then ends with the creator’s logo and the Midwest Gaming Classic screen as well.

Review and Conclusion

I feel like this demo by Retroactive serves as the bridge between the old and the new. It’s probably one of the later homebrew projects done with the original scene tools and original scene team. You can even see a few familiar faces in the greetz from the readme file.

runderwo, Acey, kevtris, ReaperSMS, LaC, pinchy, jovis, oman, Calpis, casm, arbin, spinout, emu_kidid, mpeg4codec, moogly, drgnmud, OzOnE, FH, skyone, triton, lameboy, radorn, Tatsujin, hcs, hyarion, seniltai, all the others whose work allowed me to code this demo

And my inspirations — TBL, Fairlight, farbrausch, melon dezign, conspiracy, doomsday, ASD, and others

I really liked the first farm section, it felt unique and atmospheric. The rest of it felt a bit like standard demo fare from the late 90’s. It kind of feels like Marshallh dug up the ancient grimoire of how to make these kinds of demos and built one out himself.