Infinite

History

The demo years

Infinite was formed after Chao5 suggested Wolf to compete in the MRC Snowfall Challenge, while standing on the stairs of the nearby train station. They had worked together earlier on the TeddyWareZ Xmas demo in 2002. The result was Digital Snow, and ended up third place.

Later that year, the slide show Coral 2 would win the MRC Underwater Challenge. By then, BiFi had joined Infinite as coder, after assisting Chao5 with code since the start of Infinite. Back then, Coral 2 was the first challenge winner by Infinite.

It was however the next production that would be the critical breakthrough of Infinite. The two-disk '4motion' demo Sphere was a non-linear 4-color full-screen movie running at 30 frames per second. It was playing directly from RAM together with an up-tempo Moonsound score that ran in-sync with the images.

At the end of 2004, former RMF member Tesla (Edwin) joined Infinite as main coder, resulting in News2004, an oldskool scroll 'n logo demo featuring MRC news from that year. In 2005, a new 4motion production was released: Wings. The 4motion engine was rewritten from scratch by Edwin, resulting in a considerable performance gain. It would become the final Infinite demo so far.

The game years

Later in 2005, BiFi left Infinite while Edwin and Wolf put their focus on their MSXdev'05 entry Universe: Unknown. It would end up second place. The next year Infinite would end up fifth in MSXdev'06 with a small three-day production: RNFF, Running Naked in a Field of Flowers. The game and the name of the game were based on a reoccurring joke on MRC by J-War, who tends to solve forum flame wars by suggesting to RNFF.

Next in line was Montana John and the Templar's Treasure, which was planned to be released for MSXdev'07 but wasn't ready in time. it would eventually compete in MRC's Mega Challenge, which it won in 2008. In 2009, Infinite competed in the first edition of the MSX2 contest, organized by Passion MSX. Infinite won with a bejeweled clone, one of the few games that uses screen 8.

Deadlines and postponed productions

Sphere marked the first product where Infinite started to build-up a reputation of missing deadlines and postponing games. Sphere was submitted at noon of the day after the deadline, and the penalty point resulted in the fifth place, a result that caused some stir among people who enjoyed this new concept.

Wings also missed the formal deadline and the penalty point kept it from winning. Universe: Unknown was submitted in the last seconds of the MSXdev'05 deadline, but was far from polished, something that is reflected in the jury report.

RNFF, during MSXdev'06, was a three-day rush job, after a previous game concept couldn't be finished in time. Half the levels in RNFF were made in the last hour and were barely tested. Halfway the game, a logical error in the map prevents the player from completing the level. As of today, the game still hasn't been finished properly.

For the MRC Mega Challenge, Infinite was working on a god game, but so far the game hasn't been finished yet. For MSXdev'07, Infinite began working on Montana John and the Templar's treasure one month before the deadline. Most of the game was actually ready during the deadline, but Infinite decided to skip this deadline and polish it for the MRC Mega Challenge instead.

The Bejeweled clone Shift was submitted in time, but nonetheless during the last minutes of the deadline, the haste surrounding Jailbreak wasn't much different.

The most plausible explanation of missing deadlines and postponing games is that the scale of such projects grows by the day, a common pitfall even Infinite isn't immune for.

Past and present members

• Wolf (music, graphics, concepts, utilities)
• Edwin (code, utilities)
• Chao5 (code)
• BiFi (code), left in 2005

Not strictly a member, Kathleen Skye contributed poems to Coral 2, Sphere and Wings. She died of cancer, early 2008.

Productions

Released productions

• Digital Snow (2004)
• Coral 2 (2004)
• Sphere (2004)
• News2004 (2004)
• Wings (2005)
• Universe: Unknown (2005/2006)
• RNFF - Running Naked in a Field of Flowers (2006)
• Montana John and the Templar's Treasure (2008)
• Shift (2009)
• Dr.Pill (2008/2009)
• Jailbreak (2010)

Under construction productions

• Back to the West (on hold)
• Polka 2 (2012)

Challenges

Infinite is a successful challenge regular, the only product not to enter a challenge was News2004.

MRC challenges

• Digital Snow (third place)
• Coral 2 (first place)
• Sphere (fifth place, without penalty point it would've been third place)
• Wings (third place, without penalty point it would've been first place)
• Montana John and the Templar's Treasure (first place)

MSXdev challenges

• Universe: Unknown (second place)
• RNFF - Running naked in a Field of Flowers (fifth place)
• Dr.Pill (first place)

Passion MSX2 contest

• Shift (first place)
• Jailbreak (first place)

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