Inteview with Gengis

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IN FOCUS:- Gengis/Bomb -

by Mount

The calm explosive

Few coders have made three topplaced demos, even fewer French.
Among artists in France he is probably the most popular to work with
for his productivity and low coder ego. In FOCUS....


Name: Frederic Heintz
Handle: Gengis
Group: Bomb
Former groups: Complex, Digital, Liquid, Negative, Solaris.
Function: Coder
Age: 22
Age in the Amiga scene: 5
Place of living: Near Paris

Gengis had been very active producing demos in Digital without
getting too much attention. But with his membership of Complex in
1993 things changed. He coded his butt off for half a year and
won the demo competition at The Party 1993 with Origin. That
production is still his favorite, also because this personal
victory was Gengis' best experience in the scene till today. Later
Real and Motion completed the picture of a very active and, not
least, WINNING democoder. The demos has given him a, probably
taxfree, income of $3000 in three years.

But though Gengis spent a lot of time and energy on his demo
projects, he can't say which was the hardest demo to code.
"They were all hard to code at the time they were done. I spent
about 6 months for Origin and Motion. 2 for Real."

To the stupid question, why he spends so much time on it, RAW
naturally gets a stupid answer:
"Perhaps because i like it."
But he adds that it's very important for him that the scene
is european.
"I like meeting people from other countries and cultures."

Formed Bomb to gain motivation

After big succes in Complex with Origin and Real, Gengis and
a couple of other French left the group to build up Bomb.

"I think I had lost motivation and thought making a group would
bring it back. But Bomb hasn't got a specific thing that Complex
didn't have. Nothing has really changed but we are now working
for us. The relationship with the Bombers compared to the Complex members
earlier didn't change much either."

"The guys I am working with in Bomb are the same as in Complex.
So nothing has changed. I had not a lot of contacts in Complex. Only
with MicDair and the German section like Crash."

A small family with one father

When this interview was done in the summer, Gengis told us
about the joining of yet another fabulous artist, Made/ex.Scoopex,
who had just released a slideshow. After that the memberlist
was like this:

Gengis (code)
Clawz (music)
Titan (graphics)
Made (graphics)
Suny (graphics)

Though having the full coder responsibility as a father for
the small family, Gengis doesn't hold himself back to promise
more Bomb releases.
"A demo before the end of the year and a musicdisk."
The latter is with music by Clawz and Chromag/PolkaB and has
been planned for quite a while now.

Motion not good enough to win

After the victory at The Party 1993 and Saturne Party II the
placement at The Party 1994 was a kind of disappointment,
Gengis admits.
"Saying I enjoyed loosing wouldn't be honest. But I totally
agree with the rank I had. Nexus 7 deserves it's first place
(great design). And I enjoyed Doctor Skulls work, really good code
and as always great music."

Gengis himself wasn't satisfied with Motion.
"Of course not. I think I would have needed one more week for
that (a debugged version was available in February). I was very
satisfied with the Doom effect but we were really disappointed when
we saw some people making no difference between the first Doom effect
on Amiga and Wolfenstein routines.

The funny walking vector worm wasn't really invented as
a joke.
"Perhaps... I don't really know who invented it. But I think I
saw it in an old AtariST demo."

A lot of people wondered why the demo was trackloaded, in these
harddisk times.
"I think it was a bad choice but I couldn't see Origin 2 a file
demo. I won't make such mistakes next time."

Gengis is not too proud of the bad compatibility, especially
seen in the light that he won an A4000 at The Party 1993.
"You must understand that this demo was a real nightmare for me.
In five days I slept 6 hours, I was in bad shape and had bugs
from everywhere. So thats the kind of experience that makes you
hate demos (but makes you love them 6 months later). So I am
sure people will understand why the competition version wasn't
finished. The new version works on all machines."

"I still have my A4000 - I really love it's Danish keyboard!"


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Code versus design

The last couple of years the development is going towards more
and more design in the best demos, even without high quality
code, Gengis thinks.
"Just watch '......' and you'll have the answer."

He, however, doesn't think that it's just an easy way to get
around the problem.
"A demo with poor code must have a powerful design to be superiour."
But Gengis is not afraid of the development going towards that.
There are discussions whether demos can be seen as a kind of art.
Gengis thinks so.
"Yes !. Human Target, State Of The Art, Mobile, and lots of others..."
He finds that very positive in a coders eyes and sceners in
general.
"Some people think that because I am a coder I won't like
artistic demos. I don't think we should judge demos with their
code only. The code is only 33.33% of a demo."

Gengis' favorite coders:
Promax,
Tec,
Thomas Landsburg,
Performer,
LoneStarr,
Chaos,
Dr. Skull

"I think there is no use explaining why."


Dr. Skull/Virtual Dreams:
"The first time I saw his demos (all of them :) I always
dropped dead for the stunning effect of the design, the great
looking routines and the fitting music he always has... I think
that only Nexus 7 was better on first impression than his demos,
he is truly an artist. And I've always envied his success in the
competitions, even though they have been deserved ones. He seems
to be a really cool guy too, but since he lives all across
the galaxy, I get to see him only at the parties :)"


Going commercial with Fears

A year ago, Gengis started coding the Doom-like game Fears
which after a couple of previews should now be out in the final
version. Though it is a game, Gengis has used a lot of his demo
skills to program it.

"The game is 100% assembler so I think the game code is close
to democoding. I think demo is the first step to make games."
In that way he has had a kind of education in the demo scene
though the French coder thinks assembler is quite far from what
most "real" programmers do.

The basic Doom routine in Fears was already seen in Motion. Some
coders claim that it isn't the fastest in the world... We asked
the man himself whether he considers it fast.
"Yes and no. In fact I think that if I had timethe whole
engine would be rewritten. I think I would be able to make
something twice as fast than the actual version, with unlimited
vision and total free architecture."

On Fears, Gengis also worked with the same people as
when making demos; Clawz making music & soundeffects, and
graphics by Hof, Titan and Suny. They call themselves Bomb
Software and has released Fears through the English company
Manyc. Games are made for profit but Gengis doesn't count on
getting rich on it.
"I am afraid I won't get a lot because of fucking crackers.
They are killing their machine. One thing is sure: It could be
my last game."

Gengis is not sure that he in 10-15 years time will tell
his kids about his scene life.
"I don't think I would tell them anything. I dont think
they would understand."
Despite the very good results in the last two years Gengis
is not sure whether he will keep the interest and turn
hobby into job. When asked what he think he will be doing in
five years time the Frenchman of few but well choosen words
simply answers:

"Who knows?"