Melon Dezign (group)/Reviews
Crystal Intro Incredible (1991, ECS Intro)
Review by Glenn Lunder
Another classic Melon cracktro, this is the one with the waving green Crystal logo in the background. The rest is pure Melon magic, with the bouncing dot in the start and end, and the classic font. This is quite simply crack intro history.
Used for the crack of Space 1889.
GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1 -- Note: Needs KillAGA!
The Party Invitation Intro (1991, ECS File)
Review by Glenn Lunder
Oozing style and fun from every pore, this is another great little intro from Melon. This is perhaps their first real production, as it at least mentions the forming of Melon by Paleface and Seen. It opens with a nice logo, continues quickly with the three arrangers' names being smashed up, and finally concludes in a text selection menu done in the usual offbeat Melon way (this had some graphical errors on the background, but was still perfectly readable). There is also a small 'bonuspart', with some text and a logo at the right hand side. The music is very nice.
When I first tried to run this intro from DOpus it crashed my machine for real (00000004). I then tried to run it from the disk (caches off), and then it did work.
GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1
Ministry Cracktro 1 (1992? ECS Intro)
Review by Glenn Lunder
Classic Melonstration, this has a grey-blue background, over which several spinning 2d vector stars appear in a half-circle from bottom left (biggest) to top right (smallest). Text comes in from the right bottom side. Classic chiptune by Heatbeat. This review is duplicated in Ministry's entry, with additional information only important to that group.
GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1 -- Note: Needs KillAGA.
Bomb (1992, ECS File)
Review by Glenn Lunder
A nicely designed little intro, with a stonkingly cool opening 'Bomb' logo by Hof and a bouncing, small 'Ollesboll' :) in the main part. The rest is just text. This intro was Gengis' inspiration for the name of the group Bomb, which would also at one time feature graphician Hof as a member...
GLE tested A500 /000-7 /½mb chip, ½mb fast/2.04.
A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.
Note: Needs KillAGA, still crashes on exit.
Humantarget (1992, 18.04, ECS Trackmo)
Review by Glenn Lunder
What little I have seen of this is quite excellent. Seamless design, nice graphics and excellent music...however, on my setup it just freezes after the 'melon.' logo bounces on the jelly vector. Too bad, since what I saw was really great! Caches off doesn't help, naturally. I'll get back to you when I get my hands on an inferior machine :D
I have often seen this misspellt, where the title is split into two words, 'Human Target'. Fact is that everywhere it appears in the demo (at least the parts I've seen :) it's in one word.
Performer told me that the demo does not work on A1200's, likely because of an interrupt problem. It should work satisfactorily in emulators.
GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0
S.O.S. (1992, 29.06, ECS Disk)
Review by Glenn Lunder
Not much here, I'm afraid, since it won't load past the intro on my machine :( Caches off has no effect. [glenn]
GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.
Note: Shows intro, loads next part, then crashes.
Prism (1992, late, ECS Trackloaded Slideshow)
Review by Glenn Lunder
Coooooooool! This slideshow details a portion of Mack's work from 1990-92. There are 22 pictures here, selectable from a menu, ranging from bad to excellent. The best pictures (IMHO) are Sarah-Yama, Spiritual Melon, Medusa and Liquor Caza. Some of these pictures have been seen before, of course, a.o. in Alliance Design's demo "Substance" [04/91].
Mentioned in the Bomb intro as having a release date 'around September'. No apparent problems with running, apart from the fact that the intro runs so fast the pink elephants don't quite have time to come onscreen before the menu appears. Also, the music bugs a little.
GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.
The Tetris Intro (1992, 28.12, ECS 40k Intro)
Review by Glenn Lunder
Pure style. What sets this intro apart from the rest is simply this. It did feature some interesting coding ideas also, but mainly, it was the design, the music and the experience that made "Tetris" a great intro. Just simply oldskool perfection.
Where Is My Conscience? (1994, 24.04, ECS 64k Intro)
Review by Glenn Lunder
Okayy... The BEST thing here is undoubtedly Walt's cool cartoon-style opening picture of a man with an excessively large nose. It goes on with traditional Ukulele weeeeeird music to a text writer, with some messages like 'My conscience is clear. I never use it.' The music picks up speed as a 1-bitplane representation of a woman spins in the background, until it finally reaches its crescendo and - IT'S SUPERWOMAN! Enough said.
GLE tested A500 /000-7 /½mb chip, ½mb fast/2.04.
A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.
The Birthday Party Invitation (1994, mid, ECS File)
Review by Glenn Lunder
Melon presents an excellently made intro here, with very nice graphics. The 'childish' style suits them to a tee, and gives an overall feel of something a little different. Nice. This intro is also known as 'Cannabis', probably because the executable file name is Cannabis.exe.
The intro never mentions a release date or even in what year this is supposed to take place. However, the line 'AGA has been out for a year now' seems to indicate this is from 1994.
GLE tested A500 /000-7 /½mb chip, ½mb fast/2.04.
A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.
Booo II (1994, late, ECS File)
Review by Glenn Lunder
"Booo II" is a French-Norwegian co-production, unlike its predecessor "Booo" [93] which was French-Finnish. The basic team of Performer (code) and Walt (main graphics) remain though. This reviewer will refrain from guessing what drugs inspired "Booo II", but only mention that it's a good little demo. If weirdness is your cup of tea, then this little number will be sure to satisfy. Rather than have all the music in a single mod, for some reason it's here in three parts... The great end picture by Joachim was reviewed in an old issue of ROM... All parts can be paused with the right mouse button. The intro- and endpicture introduction's cute characters are all ripped from the game "Pang!"
I have seen mention in some places that this demo has problems with 040 processors, and I assume that the same is true for 060. The demo needs KillAGA (or equivalent) to work on machines with AGA chipsets.
GLE tested A500 /000-7 /½mb chip, ½mb fast/2.04.
A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. -- Note: Needs KillAGA.
Planet M (1995, .07, AGA Trackmo)
Review by Glenn Lunder
Women will not appreciate this demo. There are a few things in here that are in bad taste... and that goes for the design as well as the sexist stuff! But really, the naked women were unnecessary. As for the rest of the demo... The first part is best. The way the Melon logo dissolves and the animated women's faces in consistence with the music is a very good beginning. It created an atmosphere which was totally crushed seconds later by a tasteless loading picture. Shame on you, Melon.
The music is a hard-hitting demo tune in the tradition of Jesper Kyd or Static, and does its job well. Shame about the rest of the demo.
It actually won a demo competition, beating another Melon demo, BAYGON, which came 2nd. The competition must have been abysmal. Does this really require AGA?
GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.
Baygon (1995, .07, Trackmo)
Review by Glenn Lunder
How anyone could prefer badly digitized ugly naked women to this is beyond me. This is a much better demo than Planet M, who won the competition! Where Planet M is tasteless, Baygon is brimming with style! It's a celebration of times gone of sorts, with some Space Invaders imagery etc. present. If the producers of Planet M and this had joined together to create ONE demo, just think what a great Melonstration it could have been!
The music is just a sample loop with some vocals, which gets repetitive too quickly. A little variation would have been in order.
GLE tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.
