Kefrens Desert Dream (HD)

Kefrens Desert Dream - A Commodore Amiga Megademo by Kefrens
Main coding and design: Laxity
Additional coding and design: Zeus
Graphics developed by: R.W.O/Blizzart/Airwalk/Laxity
Additional design: Airwalk
All soundtracks and effects: Laxity
Presented in 1993 by Ankh Productions

[@kangarht]

only one generation will understand how magical was to see a computer being able to do this realtime in 1993

[@EdgeOfPanic]

Sadly true, the step from the 8bit machines to the Amiga was huge back then!

[@jfwilson3]

That's what demos were about - pushing the hardware to its limits!

[@UNIjoy]

True. Glad to have experienced it back in the day, but sadly there aren't too many people around with whom you can share these memories properly. :)

[@kangarht]

@@UNIjoy there are gatherings called demo parties where you can meet such guys, google it up

[@grossbcn]

the music is a masterpiece

[@tdrdronesebikesandscooters8377]

You got that right

[@xoen6]

Yes, it is...

[@ToniKoo]

That buzzsaw hitting the screen just about took my head off when I saw it for the first time in the 1990's. Classic, stylish, inventive.

[@alexamiga721]

Take a poor MC68000 / 7Mhz, add a flexible blitter and copper chips, an extra amount of talent, and ... behold.. Still gives me the chills 20 years later

[@lupinedreamexpress]

Thats the spirit.

[@STriderFIN77]

at 2018, this is STill very amazingk o7

[@V3ntilator]

Still amazing in 2019. I were in front of stage in 1993 in Norway when it premiered.

[@edmorden]

The chills - exactly!!!!

[@XENON2028]

@@V3ntilator still amazing at 2022! sadly I wasn't alive until stuff like half-life 2 came out..

[@Frantzen79]

Godlike... i can't count how many times i've watched/listened to this...

[@CompactedEgg]

This IS the demo you put on your Amiga back in the day to make your PC owning friends piss their pants in wanton ecstacy of pure bliss.

[@solemgameinsights]

State of the Art by Spaceballs is a good contender too

[@CompactedEgg]

If you want to show someone how impressive the Amiga and its programmers were back in 1993, this is one of those demos! Brilliant from start to end.

[@jfwilson3]

The filled/NOT filled dotcube routine is still my favorite!

[@Frantzen79]

R.I.P. my fantastic brother who showed me the magic of computers and these great demoes.

[@mirobarany]

Jedno z tých najlepších. Môžem pozerať do okola. Úžasná hudba, super efekty. Výborne aj po skoro 20 rokov.

[@TeamSilvertail]

When an old Amiga demo has more love put into it than most modern video games.

[@V3ntilator]

This demo is why my timed gaming channel exist in 2022 I were in front row when Kefrens released this in Norway in 1993.

[@AiOinc1]

More love and effort and better special effects than some movies

[@bobbymcbobface]

This.

[@garethwood6587]

This is why I got into a career in motion graphics. Truly inspirational, even in 2019!

[@yann-pennaneac]

i remember the party, i remember the danemark, and my eyes just glowing when i see for the first time this one, can someone invent a time machine please.

[@yhurtster]

+pennaneac jean-yves eh.. at least time travel my mind set back in time.. young, cocky, arrogant and full of shit but confident that world it mine for the taking...... great demo btw!

[@babalawohrg]

Yea I was there. Watching T2 on the way home. What a time to be alive.

[@SkuldChan42]

I always liked the sawblade effect - what's funny is its achieved by messing up the bit plane pointers.

[@XENON2028]

I was thinking the copper was setting garbage to the bitplanes data so I guess I was close?

[@bighairydel]

that 3d effect at 4:35 never fails to amaze me after 30yrs. what an amazing machine!!!

[@patrick20000]

First class demo, back in the day, and the music could still kick ass today !

[@muninraven3327]

Holy shit. Why didn't I check YT for some oldschool Amiga demo nostalgia sooner?! I swear, something deep inside me that has lain dormant for almost 30 years came alive again. I remember the ending music would loop, and I would have it on in the background while I did homework, haha. The sleeper has awakened! -_- :D

[@Ander01SE]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/d5uao5evr5qFe9k

[@lordparsley]

One of the best, I pull it up from time to time for the amazing soundtrack and the way it is put together. Forget your farcry, back in the day this was blowing our heads off. And a melon!

[@trip2themoon]

Back in 1993 I had my SNES as I never rated the Amiga as a gaming machine, but I'll never forget the excitement me and my mates had when bringing these demos home from the local pirate dealer, and thinking about what kind of tunes and effects would be lurking in thise 3.5 inch floppies. There are lots of decent Amiga demos but none have the power and energy of this. We had this hooked up to my sister's Kenwood hifi at the time and it was nothing short of mindblowing.

[@cardante979]

fun fact: Bouncing 3D cube was the effect that only Amiga could do. No commercial PC at the time was able to do that. Not in real time though...

[@Spender604]

Pentium was released in March 1993. PC was way ahead of any Amiga at this point in time.

[@User846]

Purple motion def got his inspiration from this demo ;)

[@mcblobchode6278]

A *legendary* classic! *Godlike music too*

[@BL1TZEN]

spine tingles when the K-E-F-R-E-N-S letter punch onto the screen accompanied by that sample.

[@CompactedEgg]

Yeah, it hits like bullets from a machine gun! A great way to start an experience that you'll never forget! :-)

[@Frantzen79]

You CANNOT give this thumbs down. It is heresy.

[@markusjohansson6245]

I remember when I saw this the first time. It was such an inspiration and I went on and implemented my own version of many of these routines. It was so fun.

[@kastalisk]

The amazing thing is that 99% of these guys were selftaught, learning by doing.

[@AmigaOrg]

HD really brings out how this looked on the Amiga back then. The Amiga was way way ahead of its time.

[@BitmapAxis]

respect is the only word i can think of. great then, great now!

[@ooo.coreltd6416]

Oh my happy childhood... Thanks to Laxity.

[@mattoide2004]

SIGH! Want to return in 1993....

[@STriderFIN77]

I time traveled to 2018, but this Demo works amazingly here also o7

[@carlosrivadulla8903]

What a rollercoaster of master tracks!

[@sebastiangroben6892]

I spent hella time to find this . And all I remember was the yellow eyes

[@lupinedreamexpress]

The beginnings of depth-cueing by rendering the scenes as dots in bitplanes. Pretty fascinating.

[@allan.n.7227]

Everything about this demo is EPIC.. Especially the MUSIC and the CHOREOGRAPHY.. I LOVE IT!!

[@meticulousgeek]

All hail the dots! Stunning!

[@ipodsock]

stunning... but never quite understood why it wasn't full screen from the start, the c64 remake is fucking excellent too

[@Lofote]

Cinema look is wide.

[@CompactedEgg]

Everything about this is amazing. How they pulled this off on a A500 just shows awesome talent and the raw power of The Amiga.

[@dtc916]

Thumbs up if you still enjoy this demo in 2016 !"The Meaning of life is to become a legend" Laxity is a fucking legend !

[@sonnylee6355]

One of the best amiga demos.

[@Null42x86]

Amazing demo

[@CompactedEgg]

Plus... the whole thing on two 880k floppy disks? Awesome programming and talent!!

[@d_vibe-swe]

One of the best demos ever. On this demo you can clearly see some of the problems of viewing demos on KZbin. Most of the demos back then were programmed to show stunning 50 frames per second, while YT only shows 25 or 30 fps.. Quite visible on the Desert Dream texture mapped logo in the beginning of part 1 (if you dont count intro part as part one, then it's part two ;))

[@Ray.Norrish]

still great!

[@ThorbenRump]

One of the All-Times Best Demos on Amiga. Really.

[@DamielBE]

imagine, if the Kefrens guys from 1993 came to late 2012 and saw something like Farcry 3 or Pacific Rim! culture shock!

[@Daniel_EDDA]

Laxity the real No. 1

[@Archimedes75009]

It rocks !

[@edmorden]

Still loving it!

[@Wibbleman]

Just amazing! The nostalgia!

[@DMack6464]

Lol furry

[@Ravenshadow78]

just a bunch of awesome holding hands

[@mr.y.mysterious.video1]

At the time these graphics looked so advanced!

[@dMuniak]

ponadczasowe. Amiga Rulez!!!!! I ta muza. yeeee.

[@OLIV3R_YT]

Classic 💗

[@TimHaywoodProductions]

One of my favorite demo tracks ever, the musical references to the guitar solo of Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd really resonate. (Though I am told its a complete coincidence!) - excellent stuff.

[@emilen2]

This also happens in the Alcatraz - Odyssey demo in one of the later songs. 😀

[@UgurEnginDeniz]

I was working on a retro demo imitation and checking on a few references. Some of my pieces have very basic soft body dynamics, but I thought it might still be a bit much. Hell, they had it!

[@camouf1age]

brilliance prod!

[@jugalator]

I can't believe the guy with his coding skills also wrote the music. People normally aren't multitalented like this. The Amiga 500 running this ran at 7.04 MHz. That is 0.2% of the clock frequency of a 3 GHz PC.

[@SerBallister]

Clock frequency is not a good way to measure the whole system, just look at the SNES cpu :) The Amiga leant very heavily on its custom hardware, just like the SNES.

[@bpb235]

4 people owned a ZX Spectrum

[@giuseppelavecchia775]

Demo leggendario!,questo demo sicuramente e' stato fatto girare su A500,perche su A1200,anche se gira,nella prima parte del demo ci sono alcune cose che sballano,perche il 68020 e' più veloce del 68000

[@TimHaywoodProductions]

6:00 is such and amazing refrain too.

[@zarzadwspolnoty8963]

Still get back to this :)

[@mmarti944]

06:28 - This. Look. Like. MATRIX! Damn yeah!

[@HunsV]

Ahh yes, the demo Future Crew copied and called "Second Reality" a few months after it came out :)

[@V3ntilator]

worlds last assembler mega demo. I were in fron of stage on release. Bow to me ; (

[@ecernosoft3096]

Atari power.... always :)

[@solemgameinsights]

This video is missing the bassline in the beginning.

[@saikopiratos]

hahaha i searched for something absolutely different but this shit here is bombing !!!

[@1powelrainbow2]

haha the sweet battles between Kefrens and Melon

[@TeamSilvertail]

This demo really has an obsession with dots, doesn't it.

[@cardante979]

only high end versions of Archimed could to do that but they were far from Amiga's price range at the time.

[@Amomynity]

Has Laxity used his apparent skills post Amiga-era to pursue a musical carrier? I learned to love Pink Floyd after watching this demo til my ears bled in the 90's.

[@simone2059]

Still awesome, Klf music style

[@linuxuser2064]

i'm trying to make this demo in scratch!

[@EppuJoloZ]

It's astounding that this demo's music was made in not-so-good Protracker :D

[@SerBallister]

Almost all Amiga demos used Soundtracker replay routines, it was practically standard.

[@xoen6]

..not so good?? lol.

[@romaneberle]

all my life i've been wondering: in the opening titles, at 0:18 "design and coding - laxity zeus", the white extra pixels to the left and to the right - is this a bug on floppy disc? did everybody copy from the same faulty floppy disc? or a programmers' easter egg / hidden message / joke? or what?

[@ZILOGz80VIDEOS]

was this AGA or did it run on earlier Amigas?

[@CompactedEgg]

This runs on A500 no problem. In fact.... running on an A1200, some of it was generated too fast and the missiles from the pyramid went right past the space craft as I remember!

[@flujotech]

CompactedEgg Oh yeah, I remember that! haha

[@trip2themoon]

LOL, I thought I was imagining things when my 1993 brain was telling me that the missiles exploded just shy of the little space ship, like they were on a timed rather than impact explosion.

[@bpb235]

This ran on the ECS before the AGA's came out

[@csigabigaboca1987]

"The Cheops pyramid. Build as a tomb for king Cheop of the 4th dynasty..." :-D You still believe?!?

[@RainbowChazer]

Give me multicolour raster bars and a killer tune and no one will get hurt.

[@goeuldi]

1:30 A wild Jester sample appears...or did Jester take it from Kefrens?

[@tcozzol]

greatest fucking mod ever

[@Ander01SE]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/d5uao5evr5qFe9k

[@lobomeister]

Holy shit, I never knew about this demo. My opinion of the future crew just lowered a notch; still legends, but it is clear where they got their ideas.

[@Pulsed101]

7:08 was pretty rad :D

[@Pulsed101]

I know this is a long shot but i'm running out of avenues. There was a demo disk for the Amiga that had a song on it. It played over a static picture of a gargoyle standing on a roof over looking an alien / futuristic city? It was a fairly dark sounding song. I remember the roof tiles were aqua / green color? Awfully vague description i apologize but i was very young. I used to adore the song and the artwork.... Worth asking i guess? :)

[@time-zero]

Pulsed101 put the question on pouet.net - biggest demoscene archive

[@Pulsed101]

Thanks for the link, where to post the question is a bit confusing but i'll give it a shot, would mean the world to me as far as nostalgia goes :) CHEERS

[@jc_dogen]

Pulsed101 Hey, that sounds awesome. If you find it, I'd appreciate if you let me know what it's called.

[@Pulsed101]

dogen No problem at all 😊

[@HazelTheHare]

Probably just a glitch in the original program that they never got around to fixing would be my guess.

[@thewelder3538]

What's sad about this video is that you've done good job and then used a corrupted version of Desert Dreams. Also, you badly needed to merge those audio channel too.

[@patrick20000]

Check out Jesus on e's

[@wikedbeats2765]

have you ever thought that taking pictures & videos use visual graphics to make them look nice? (I don't know anything, I am an 11 year old theory creator!)

[@xoen6]

...memories...this is fuckin' great demo. Oh, this vid has no glitch from winuae, when rockets just go through the ship, funny out-of-sync error. upd: ahhh...a1200 emulation was the cause...or even real a1200 could do this... btw...music...is a masterpiece.

[@penar77]

a500 can this... bravo :)

[@ChrisEveleyTheReal]

Who stole the samples. You or Skaven lol. Same year, same blipp. Haha ;)

[@Archimedes75009]

Well the Acorn Archimedes could do much better. In 3D and in 256 colours it outperformed all other computers until the 486DX appears. Acorn always made real computers, more coherent as a whole than Atari or Commodore (=games machines with a keyboard).

[@kabe-fk2ij]

Put this on a floppy disk and keep it on the pyramid ----

[@jihaid2702]

never liked the part with the melon! :D

[@SkuldChan42]

The secret part at the end btw - boot the second floppy with the right mouse button held down ;).

[@doktor.pajchiwo]

LAXITY - champion of the champions !!! :)

[@zfoxfire]

People just have no respect nowadays, throwing their watermelons as pyramids.

[@DK6MP]

i can Rember me , 2 Discs on my Amiga -

[@CompactedEgg]

And in HD, who could ask for more?!

[@BPJJohn]

they should make this demo in a modern game engine

[@Pulsed101]

I can just imagine how amazing this would of been back in the day. I love it!

[@zfoxfire]

Pulsed101 I never saw one of these as a kid but I remember watching the "Mind's Eye" videos on the TV displays in Radio Shack. That was very amazing to me.

[@pallenda]

Pulsed101 I remember going on a 30 min train ride just to get a copy of this demo from a friend, that had been at The Gathering demo party in 93. I think I saw it 10 times in a row after I got back home. The C64 remake is pretty damn awesome also.