Bonzai (c64)

Bonzai (BZ, -1995)
DEN> Crush (mainorg crack swap, 05/90-91), Def Jam (swap, 07/90), Dize (gfx,    07/90-91), Drax (music, also in Vibrants, new 08/90-91), Enjoy (Lars     Nielsen, crack swap, ex Class, new 07-09/90), Kwon (gfx, ex Flash Inc.,     new 09/90-91), Metal (Torben Hansen, music, 07/90-91), Prophet (Bendik     Anderson, swap, 02/92), Scortia (Thomas Bendt, music, 90-91), The Human Autofire (code, aka THA, 07/90-91), The Living Trashhead (swap, ex X-    Ray, aka LTH, new early91), Trap (Jesper Larsen, code music, also in     Surprise! Productions [pc], 07/90-12/93), Zonix (Anders Øland, music,     new 01/91). ???> Delight Design (den?, 91), Hawk (den? gfx, 91), Infocomie (den? crack,    ex Nato, new 12/90-91), Mr.Smart (den? ex Nato, new 12/90), Tecon (early91).

Bonzai were a Danish demo and cracking group, originally under the leadership of Trap. Some of their members (Ricky, Crush, Dize, Scortia) showed up in The Silents on the amiga late 94 and early 95, and did at least two excellent demos for them on that platform. 1989 - Stone left for Amok late in the year. 1990 - Sonny left for Dominators, while Enjoy/Class and Def Jam joined around july. Both things happened before the release of the demo "Bonzieed" [07/90], since the memberlist there does not feature Sonny, but both Def Jam and Enjoy. Danish graphician Kwon joined from Flash Inc, and Drax/Vibrants doublejoined from Vibrants around august. Tamtrax, Rooster and Challenger joined from Warriors of Time around september, with their mag Slowpoke. Amok's "Sex'n'Crime #21" [12/90] reported that Trap had started doing music! The same mag also reported that Crush was the new leader. Danish graphician Fox left for Dominators, and the ex-WOT members (Rooster, Tamtrax and Challenger) left the c64 scene to concentrate on the amiga in december; Slowpoke is therefore a dead project. Infocomie (crack) and Mr.Smart joined from Nato in december. 1991 - New danish musician Zonix joined around january. The group stopped releasing their diskmag "Lethal News" early in the year. Early parts of the year also saw the recruitment of swapper The Living Trashhead from X-Ray, Tecon's return to the scene, and danish swappers RCS and Trix getting kicked from the group (though a news item in Triad's "Gamers Guide #9" said they were not kicked, but 'asked to leave'. What's the difference? =]). The two subsequently joined Ikari + Talent. 1992 - Dominators' "Corruption #12" [03/92] brings the news that the group is dead since nearly all members joined Starion, and that Walt (code gfx music, 07/90-) and Ricky (code, 91-) joined Visual Reality. News of the group's death must surely be wrong? 1993 - Trap comes 2nd in The Party 93 pc music competition! 1994 - A pc section was officially established in 1994, which released a number of bbs intros and finally "Lethal Display 5" in The Party 94 demo competition (6th place). 1995 - The group (both c64 and pc sections) was declared dead.

Danes Cruzer and Slammer (both ex Demotion) joined Camelot.

Lethal Display 3 (1990, Demo). code: THA, Walt, Trap, gfx: Fox, Trix, Dize, music: Drax, Metal.

Bonzieed (1990, .07, Filedemo) code: Trap, Walt, T.H.A, gfx: Fox, music: Metal. review: "Bonzieed" is a two-part demo that opens with a nicely designed intro, with a good Bonzai logo done in the style of the Elite Systems logo (if you remember that one), and an upscroller with a good font below that. The music is also good, but we can't wait for the main show, and thus press SPACE. The main part of the demo is openly inspired by Rebels' amiga demo "Coma" [03/90], which they also admit in the introscroller, as well as in the demopart itself. For those not familiar with the concept, it's roughly in the style of early acid/house music videos - lots of flashing imagery, smily faces and computer-generated tv static. Any which way you look at it, this is a well-done demo that was certainly a first on this platform, and therefore deserves its name in the history books. Nothing is known for sure, but this MIGHT have been Bonzai's competition demo for the Daniax party. Any confirmation/denial would be most welcome. The demo comes in a single 108 block file. Voted "Demo of the Month" in Antic's diskmag "Explorer #4" [08/90]. [glenn]

Lethal Display IV (1991, Multiload Demo). code: Ricky (part1, part5, part7), Walt (part2, part3, part4, part6, part9), The Human Autofire (part8), gfx: Kwon, Hawk, Crush, Delight Design, Dize, Walt, music: Scortia (part1, part2, part9), Drax (part3, part5, part6, part9), Zonix (part4), Metal (part7), JCH and Oneill (part8). review: This nice multiload demo from the danes in Bonzai was definitely released for the demo competition at a party, but gives us no clue as to where or when. It all opens with the words BONZAI PRESENTS zooming at us, letter by letter, before revealing a simple first part with just a LD4 logo and a scroller. Code by Ricky. We press space and move on. The next part (part2), is real ugly, mostly due to the pink and blue BONZAI logo they've used twice here - both on the top and bottom of the screen. The middle is then occupied by a green textplotter with a small filled vector routine overlaid, with an object that morphs into different shapes. Unfortunately the object is too small for it to be really impressive. Cod eby Walt. Then (part3) comes what they call "the world's first non-flickering amiga resolution (320x200) pic", which in reality is a blue Bonzai logo that takes the entire screen, and which we only see a small horizontal part of at any time, and a spritescroller in the lower border. Code again by Walt. Next (part4) is something a little more impressive, an upscroller that actually spins into and out of the screen... it's a little hard to describe =) There is also a BONZAI logo at the bottom of the screen.  Code once again by Walt.    The fifth part (part5) is very grey, and features a hiddenline vector  cube with 'burning' (very unconvincingly done...). It's a nice idea,  probably not done on the 64 before, but doesn't look too exciting in  practice. Some variables are controllable with joystick. Code by Ricky.    Next (part6) is a part I feel this demo could have done nicely without,  but which probably drew lots of votes from zitty teenagers... It features  a plain scroller and five 'hires' porno pictures converted from the amiga,  bouncing around. The scroller can be controlled with joy left and right,  while the fire button chooses the next picture in the series. Walt is the  coder.    The next part (part7) opens with a cool, colorful BONZAI logo which  moves from the bottom to the top of the screen, where it stays while jumping up and down a little =) The bottom quarter of the screen is then filled with blue, over which a sinescroller comes - reflecting in the blue  like in water. A very nice part, code by Ricky.    Another thing (part8) I never though I'd see on a c64 was a vector-  scroll, but the eight part of this demo puts that to shame! Though slow,  there's no doubt that this is the real deal. The part features a BONZAI  logo on the bottom 1/3rd of the screen, with the rest taken up by the  scroller. Code by The Human Autofire (THA).    The second to last part (part9) is almost overloaded with action; the  bottom 2/3 of the screen is taken up by a colorful BONZAI logo by Dize  with overlaid sprites bouncing around with the words "more than a tree".  On top, two cool BZ sprites move left to right, overlaid on each other,  and on top of that again comes a dycp scroller, which moves in a roughly shape roughly that of a sideways 8, making it very hard to read! Code by Walt. That leaves only the endpart (part10), with a cool method of displaying a BONZAI 'logo' on the background, where it is gradually drawn and then erased out in the same way. Also 'fireworks' explode over the logo. No credits appear in this part, except for the fact that we can read that the music was done by Drax if we look in the memory. 596 blocks. [glenn]