production

Phortem

Download 2013_phortem_(condense).zip

Credits

  • Code — NoRecess
  • Graphics — Ced
  • Audio — DMA-SC
  • Disc loader — Arnoldemu
  • Music player — Madram
  • Packing — Bitbuster, by Team Bomba

Credits from Pouet, completed from the release.

Phortem is an Amstrad CPC and Plus demo by Condense, started in December 2011, finished in June 2013 and released online rather than at a party. Visuals by Ced, audio by DMA-SC, code by NoRecess, disc loader by Arnoldemu, music player by Madram, packing with Bitbuster from Team Bomba; the thanks went to Overflow, Longshot and Toto for their support along the way. The disc carries two versions — one for a classic CPC, one for the Plus and its wider palette — which is why there are two recordings below. It was presented as a demo and received as a slideshow: an honour for Ced’s pictures, a verdict on the programming, since everything on screen was drawn by the Z80 pixel by pixel, with the video chip left alone. Both of those were the starting point of phX. The source code went public in February 2014; the making-of announced with the release was called off later that month.

Watch it

Recorded and published on my YouTube channel.

On an Amstrad CPC 6128
On an Amstrad CPC 6128 — watch it on YouTube
On an Amstrad Plus
On an Amstrad Plus — watch it on YouTube

Slideshow

Eight stills, captured from the release disc image.

The opening text, over a field of red

The Devil Inside logo, above a row of eyes

The Guardian Dragon picture

Two reapers, either side of a striped curtain

A horned face, in pink and purple

The text: in your eyes we will live forever

A warrior against a yellow sky

A hooded figure standing on water, under the moon

Comments from Pouet

The comments below were left on Pouet.net about Phortem. They are quoted as they were written. Copied from that page on 17 August 2026.

What an insane amout of graphics!

fra, 2013-06-08 · rulez

Mh… - Some parts might look better in mode 1 - Felt like a slideshow at some times. Speed up your flow ! Anyway, even as a slideshow, this would deserve a thumb, and, some good coding work here as well.

PulkoMandy, 2013-06-08 · rulez

Hell yeah!

aki, 2013-06-08 · rulez

Very interesting slideshow with very nice transitions and original effect However, I am not fan of the themes of the gfx, but it change nothing to the quality of work

krusty, 2013-06-08 · rulez

NoRecess / Condense rulez! Very nice pixelart and transitions! Fast and clever memory usage! Thumbs up! A really cute CPC prod!

Devilmarkus, 2013-06-08 · rulez

Well Done my Friend… Ced & Dma-SC, Great Work !

ast, 2013-06-08 · rulez

Göth

visy, 2013-06-08 · rulez

That was a surprise, and a good one!

RetroVM, 2013-06-08 · rulez

I thought I’d see a cool cpc demo, but I watched a small movie !! Plus version only has better colours. No other tricks I think are used..

fgbrain, 2013-06-08 · rulez

Cool demo. Regret it doesn’t work on the 3” original…

Supersly, 2013-06-08 · rulez

Show all 108 commentsShow fewer comments

Really nice art and cool transitions, but it felt a bit slow. (Probably because nice artsy font are hard to read so you need to leave them longer on screen?)

Dbug, 2013-06-08 · rulez

nice x-over of slideshow and demo!

RufUsul, 2013-06-08 · rulez

By far your best production, great amount of work. But really slow effects.

Beb, 2013-06-08 · rulez

Great work guys!

TotO, 2013-06-08 · rulez

Phortem will leave its mark on the CPC scene and the whole retro-scene in general. Clearly, a killer demo that puts CPC over other platforms on the visual aspect. This demo exploits the visual richness of the CPC much better than any other CPC demo. In fact, the design and style reminds me of the Amiga demos ‘96-98. It is also an good example of the power that the trackmo concept can give to the CPC. Congratulations to Condense and thanks for the nod. :)

Rhino, 2013-06-08 · rulez

Btw, includes the youtube video here please, this must be spread :)

Rhino, 2013-06-08

Youtube I already notified them in Fix me beautifull, looks like they are lagging.. ;) Message to all: the best thing you can do is to consider this prod as an enhanced slideshow! Ced completely deserves it :)

norecess, 2013-06-08

Some really nice gfx and a cool tune. The big angel/devil girl scroll is pretty cool. The batman picture is rad! :\ alas the whole thing fell more like a slide show. The theme and “poetry” are not my c\~/ either, but the whole things shows skills and craft.

p01, 2013-06-08 · rulez

Neat! Dragontailtwister rocks :) ehm… and DMA DMA DMA! ;)

ltk_tscc, 2013-06-08 · rulez

Yay!

Octoate, 2013-06-08 · rulez

The Amstrad scene is getting some worthy prods these days :-) Oh yes of course, DMA! DMA DMA!

CiH, 2013-06-08 · rulez

what p01 said

wullon, 2013-06-09 · rulez

looks and feels like a slideshow indeed but wow! what a slideshow! awesome stuff!

sensenstahl, 2013-06-09 · rulez

perfect

crayon, 2013-06-09 · rulez

animalisch

gentleman, 2013-06-09 · rulez

Cool!

bitl, 2013-06-09 · rulez

Good

Tjoppen, 2013-06-09 · rulez

Nice one! I like the original CPC colors much more than the Plus ones. ^_^

rexbeng/PA, 2013-06-09 · rulez

Good show

britelite, 2013-06-09 · rulez

That was a surprise :-) Guys, You can be proud of your huge and polished work Thanks for this show with no useless blah blah

Longshot, 2013-06-09 · rulez

.beauty!

kempy, 2013-06-09 · rulez

Massive work!

Soundy, 2013-06-09 · rulez

Impressive amount of graphics. Are they original or reworked transferts?

toms, 2013-06-09

Just keeps piling on more pixel art and impregnable decorative slogans with unique and overly elaborate transitions between. Cracks me up, I love it.

Claw, 2013-06-09 · rulez

Very good prod, especially transitions effects totally new on CPC. Rulez!

Kris, 2013-06-09 · rulez

The amount of art in this demo makes me happy. So do the numerous transitions between screens. There are even some effects, which although too slow, they look impressive in front of background graphics. I am curious how this would look like if it could be boosted up in a CPC-Trex. What a great surprise!

Optimus, 2013-06-09 · rulez

Great design! And i like the (not so) colliding balls, so here’s your well deserved thumb!

baah, 2013-06-09 · rulez

Oh, and DMA! DMA! DMA!

baah, 2013-06-09

Amazing! Gore! Blood! Animations! Those black balls falling is nice! keep em coming dudes!

magic, 2013-06-09 · rulez

Pretty massive, but it just wasn’t enjoyable. Colors were too stark and the music was bland, not to mention the pacing was SLOW.

ferris, 2013-06-09

Very beautiful artworks.

HAL6128, 2013-06-09 · rulez

Wow! Scene with devil girl and angel is awesome.

ooz, 2013-06-09 · rulez

Indeed.

zefyros, 2013-06-10 · rulez

Wow, amazing pixel-art, great usage of the CPC color palette ! Some effects seem a bit slow…

marmakoide, 2013-06-10 · rulez

finally the cpc gets the gfx it deserves, would like it more with some killer effects, still awesome production if I look at it as a slideshow.

Oswald, 2013-06-10 · rulez

Great visuals and coherent direction.

elend, 2013-06-10 · rulez

Great !! Really good for a monday morning !! Thanks :)

Nicky One, 2013-06-10 · rulez

@Toms : most are transferts with sometimes some photomontages.

Supersly, 2013-06-10

Fantastic Show. Massive GFX, fast paced - great transitions and effects.

v3nom, 2013-06-10 · rulez

Awesome graphics, fun to watch, Amstrad at its best again.

MacDeath, 2013-06-10 · rulez

Stunning visuals… GREAT!

matahari, 2013-06-11 · rulez

cool music and gfx!

dimouse, 2013-06-11 · rulez

I realized on emu it loops even. Wow! Like an endless slideshow.

Optimus, 2013-06-12

Tons of fantastic gfx.. some nice effects too, vertical scroller at one part was glorious. Ok tune.

serp, 2013-06-12 · rulez

nice :)

Queen_Luna, 2013-06-12 · rulez

Awesome demo. Lovely effects - especially the twister and scroller against the background, usage of palette, etc. I loved the fact it was loading in the background, but it’s a shame the music slows down when the disk isn’t fast enough (which seems to be the case in WinCPC) - as the music doesn’t seem like it needs to be exactly in sync with the visuals. But yeah, definitely awesome! Love it! :)

doz, 2013-06-12 · rulez

So much content! Some really nice stuff, I especially like the girl face stencil thing.

raizor, 2013-06-12 · rulez

what has been said cannot be unsaid.

wysiwtf, 2013-06-12 · rulez

Nice graphics with unusual color mix on Amstrad (even if I’m not fond of this overexploited theme!). Very interesting effects too (but pure software displaying make sometimes them too slow). Congratulation for this big work!

Hicks, 2013-06-12 · rulez

I agree with Hicks. I am not fond of the plasma and really dislike the flipping on the Batman screen (flickers like hell on my real cpc), but the rest is excellent ! The music is nice too, especially the second part. Thanks for this great work !

tometjerry, 2013-06-12 · rulez

If only all slideshows had as many and as good transitions and effects as this! GREAT!

Hoild, 2013-06-14 · rulez

WOW! eventho the framerate sucks a lot (hope this is only in the youtube) this is a piece of art for sure! all those “transitions” are fantastic. a bit too colorful maybe, had hard times reading the texts, but its CPC, aight! ;) let´s hear what Ozzy says about it: “what? ....tiny bubbles? …but....i am the fucking Prince of Darkness!”

ɧ4ɾɗվ., 2013-06-14 · rulez

This: The Prince of fuckin tiny bubbles

ɧ4ɾɗվ., 2013-06-14

No surprise from Condense, just a Wow! as usual ;)

flure, 2013-06-14 · rulez

Not bad. Nice brain. ;)

AntDude, 2013-06-15

Awesome stuff!

Mystra, 2013-06-17 · rulez

The twister over the dragon’s picture and the infinite zoom are my favorite parts. The demo flow is sometimes broken because of too many static screens and the music is not synched with it. Anyway, well done Condense!

toms, 2013-06-17 · rulez

Some nice stuff here.

SandLover, 2013-06-17 · rulez

Massive!

Rouquemoute, 2013-06-17 · rulez

really nice prod

bull, 2013-06-17 · rulez

Good job ! Love it.

fkey, 2013-06-18 · rulez

Close to perfect.. (And has the exact right amount of cheesiness in it! ;))

toxie, 2013-06-19 · rulez

cool!

xeen, 2013-06-19 · rulez

It’s 66 souls right now, painkiller, totally matches the theme :)

Optimus, 2013-06-21

:)

Sir_Lucas, 2013-06-23 · rulez

excellent graphics!

rage, 2013-06-23 · rulez

Oh the Cheeze.... But it’s a french demo, so i shouldn’t have wondered. :D

Exin, 2013-06-25 · rulez

Nice!

Sanx, 2013-06-25 · rulez

evil!

las, 2013-06-28 · rulez

immortal soul

cce, 2013-07-01 · rulez

lovely!

comankh, 2013-07-08 · rulez

!!!

Shazz^TRSi, 2013-07-12 · rulez

Total coolness!!

BackSpace, 2013-07-31 · rulez

The effects are very slow, but I can forgive them because this is a 100% software demo, and the artwork is very good.

cngsoft, 2013-09-11 · rulez

Insane graphics! Some effects are slow but great demo anyway

Strider, 2013-09-14 · rulez

The angel/devil giw’l is gw’eat! Vew’y enjoyable demo.

Gʀɪʍʍy, 2013-10-15 · rulez

Awesome.

Buckethead, 2013-10-24 · rulez

Brilliant

lobotomius, 2013-12-15 · rulez

Un-fucking-believable ! As a ZX Spectrum fan I must admit CPC was better :)

Trauma Zero, 2014-02-13 · rulez

Really nice to see they’ve opened up the source code for this too! Hopefully this will help inspire more people to develop for the CPC! :) /news/phactory-phortem-source-code-available-for-download/

doz, 2014-02-22

A really big amount of pictures and graphics included here! New effects, interesting music. All in all, a nice and enjoyable demo! Well done!

voxy, 2014-07-03 · rulez

Cake included :)

norecess, 2014-10-13

Stunning visuals. Demo or slide-show? who cares! the show is gorgeous and that matters.

Overflow, 2015-03-05 · rulez

!! MASIV

Hugh Jass, 2015-12-14 · rulez

Not my cop of aesthetic-soup, but insane amount of work.

noby, 2016-03-18 · rulez

the amount of gfx alone is worth the thumb

EviL, 2016-11-15 · rulez

Insane. Actually makes me want to give it all up and just be a sheep farmer or something.

Fell, 2017-07-07 · rulez

great collection of visuals here

Revenant, 2017-07-07 · rulez

Cool. I wonder why it was not released at any demoparty.

Manwe, 2018-04-06 · rulez

Awesome graphics!

Daniel, 2019-01-04 · rulez

great style!

Asato, 2019-01-04 · rulez

I have not up-thumbed this? No way! ^_^ It is the best “modern demo” on CPC and CPC+!

SuTeKH/Epyteor, 2019-09-14 · rulez

Pretty awesome art; the effects are dreadfully slow tho. Thumb for the slideshow with some extra snazz then!

spkr, 2020-01-09 · rulez

Totally awesome aesthetics with suitable music and effects!

dOc.K, 2020-05-24 · rulez

nice

Blast!, 2021-01-31 · rulez

Excellent graphical attack from the depths of hell.

ham, 2021-01-31 · rulez

so awesome

guardian ٩๏̯͡๏۶, 2021-11-17 · rulez

nice one !!

rez, 2021-11-17 · rulez