Demo Fun #12

Remember this? I used to have a recurring post where I would look at demos made for the Commodore 64 and I would make fun of them. These particular demos had scrolling text where the programmer would brag about their skill. They all inevitably had a poin where they would list a bunch of other hackers and it would usually be the longest part of the demo. I've been wanting to bring it back since I last did it, which was May of last year. Today's demo is titled "Pretending to See the Light" and is one I've been wanting to do for ages. It was made in 2002 by Fairlight and the programmer is named Hollowman. Sadly, it wouldn't work properly on the emulator which kept me from turning it into an avi file. I'm using my oldest C64 emulator now, which is on my Window 98 computer.

This demo is different from pass ones I did in that it's more of a picture story. This one is very angsty, so I may come off as an ass for making fun of it. Hopefully the author has long ago grown up after making it, and is laughing or cringing at his past teenage projects while working at his high paying job.


Our demo starts with a couple kissing.



"Life" our narrator begins. "Life is all about love." Really? I thought there were a couple more things, but what do I know. And as we'll see, the author doesn't really believe this. Next we see a mind-blowing picture of two men kissing. Or maybe it's just a bad picture. I can't tell.



Take that, squares! This is followed by a picture of a heart. It's made of pulsating circles. This is followed by a picture of a nerd girl.



"I think I like her" says Hollowman. But do you know for sure? "I think she might like me". Yeah, that look just screams affection. By the way, is this a picture of her? Poor gal. Hollowman proves that he's a big nerd by next saying "Ok, let's try that conversation thing that people seem to enjoy so much." Like watching a butterfly come out of it's cocoon.


Here our H-man starts with a good opener.



Really, girls don't like horses, no matter what they tell you. Sadly, this ingenious line is met with only a "ok." Meanwhile the word "you" flies by and is eaten by the mouth. Huh. Hollowman follows up by claiming that he saw "this movie". Sadly, the chick doesn't dig his lack of details, and simply replies "ahuh." The mouth eats a "why". Because you're not trying hard? Because you spend too much time writing code for C64 demos several years after they were popular?


Hollowman tries to ask the nerd girl what she's thinking. Not much is the obligatory nerd response. I've had phone calls with girls that went just like this. True story. We see nerd girl again, and hearts float toward her forehead and make her colorful momentarily. "I am no good at giving compliments." Seeing how that involves that conversation thingie you just discovered, I can see the truth in that. "I usually don't tell people how beautiful they are because I don't want my tongue to turn black." Excuse me for a second...



Thank you. We see a picture of some kid, quite possibly our hero. Arrows are flying at his forehead.



"For some reason she don't believe me. I don't like insults thrown at me." Oh boy, here comes the goth poetry. "I may be a bad actor, but I am no liar." That doesn't even make sense. I may act like a jerk, but I don't say it! I may act like a stalker, but I don't talk like one!

Now we get some imagery. We see a blocky guy standing up with balls being shot at him. Each one hits him and knocks a block out. Finally one takes out his leg and he topples over.






No, I'm not making this up. And things are going to get weirder. Under the toppled bad graphics guy, the next caption reads "if I care that much about what she says that I must have some feelings for her, right?" Honey, I'm not paying attention to you, but I care what you have to say. Please don't dump me! "but when I could not show her love, I atleast managed to show her tears." Look, shut up! Can't you see I'm crying? "that was good enough, at least for a while." Until she found out that you were putting her picture into demos you made and shared with a hundred nerds and now the internet.

Now the demo goes back to imagery. It's bad graphics guy again.







Again, I'm not making this up. "Honey. How was it for you?" You stupid woman! Can't you tell that this artist is aching!?

Next is the part that really puts this over the top. When I first saw this scene, I knew that I had to do this in a Demo Fun someday. Nerd girl and HollowMan are standing next to each other with a heart background.



The author sets this photo as an idyllic scenario. Then he blows our minds by revealing that this isn't really the truth. "Do you like me?" "Sure I do, why do you ask?"




OBJECTION! If you like me, than why do I suddenly have a hole in my chest? A hole... where my heart was! That is a contradiction!

Hollowman reveals what he really thinks. "But to know how people really feel about you, you must push them so far that they drop the nice and caring facade that they put up." Yeah. Huh. This attitude? Not healthy or mature. Life is all about love, but the author thinks that love includes paranoia. Then, and I'm still not making anything up...











What can you say about that? Then we see our programmer fall into an open grave.



And people dump fortune cookies on him.





"Bury the dirt in the dirt." Jeez, why don't you just start wearing black already.

Naturally, like many a lonely teen, he turns it into an "Me vs the Global Conspiracies" thing.



THEY have been fooled? Look who's dating Joy Behar!

Our final picture is of bad graphics man looking all sad. "I won't be fooled by anyone again especially not myself." So, are you going to act like a big jerk to yourself to get you to reveal your true self, who is a pig with a hole in his chest?



We get the credits which I'm going to skip. Our final shot is the one above.

So long, HollowMan of FairLight! I can't wait to see your other insights into relationships.