u/Low-Entropy

Somewhere after the 90s, most platformers became quite linear, you started somewhere and need to find an exit, or fight a boss, then move to the next level. Even those with vast playing areas like Turrican 2 ran that way.

But before that, there were platformers like Jet Set Willy, were you could more or less freely explore the entire game, and choose your own route and way to go, without having to rush to an exit or boss.

Who knows some other games like that?

Let's not include Metroidvanias, even though they fit the bill, they are also their own genre in a way.

Just had a random flashback. A journey down memory lane.

christoph fringeli, hecate, society suckers, gogo goddess, joel amaretto, me + / - a few other people, sitting in joel's living room, having breakfast, bread rolls with the salami that the society suckers "borrowed" out of the green room of the maria club the night before, on friday before the f**kparade party on saturday, in the year 2000.
we had also picked up nihil fist, frederik schikowski, dj scud, cdb, postcore and eiterherd the day and night before, but not sure if all of them stayed for breakfast.

hmm memories. i guess this moment was the "breakcore breakfast club" (okay bad pun).

(my adventures on that extended weekend were published in an issue of the datacide magazine - back then. i guess i posted it somewhere around here too, but i can also look it up - one day.)

but it is kinda weird to look back and realize, that, at one point in time, and inside one room, almost the entire early breakcore scene (this side of the atlantic) was having breakfast together.

Part 2

During that era, me and my friends felt like we would rule the world, and lived without a care in the world.
Just endless parties, fun, doing music, traveling to other cities, meeting friends... nights in cafés, fast food places, debating politics, setting up things, organizations... doing what we wanted, and enjoying it. To the fullest.
At the highest decibels.

We were so sure everyone would start to realize how great "our music" was, and surely we would change the world by this.

Those days in Berlin, and elsewhere seemed to never end.

But in truth we were just a small group, and this "community" disbanded soon enough, with some going for pop-breaks, others quitting altogether...

I moved on too, eventually. Into "doomy" acid, techno, and hardcore.

This "sound", this scene, late 90s, early 2000s, when breakcore was (undefined) and still tightly connected to avantgarde music, hardcore punk, gabber, industrial ambient, squat culture... disappeared, more or less.

It was a rude awakening.
But I guess others before us felt similar. Who put all hopes in a subcultural movement, and then "dreams" were hit by "reality".

Were we fools back then? Or could our music really take on the world - if things had run differently?

Well, to quote another song:

"It's not that you never believed... because you did.
Just not enough."

Here is a mix that tries to capture the sound of the era, with some of the artists mentioned above, and a few other things.

Low Entropy - The Breakcore Breakfast Club Mix (Year 2000 edition)

Tracklisting:

1. Society Suckers - Schizophrenic
2. DJ Scud - Mash the Place Up
3. Hecate - Caught Up
4. Eiterherd - Macht
5. Shitness & The Jackal - Fire is the Centre
6. Eiterherd - Chase Em
7. Rudeboy - Are you down with the underground
8. Salami Brothers - Gangsta Trax
9. Hecate - B1
10. Christoph de Babalon - Meet Fate
11. Multipara - Pocket Monster
12. Low Entropy - I am God
13. Robotnics Crossing - Kill the Funk
14. Postcore - Assault
15. Frederik Schikowski - Ring my Bell
16. Killout Trash - Stiring
17. Christoph de Babalon - Babylon 90219
18. Low Entropy - Sadstep
19. Robotnics Crossing - Untiled
20. Spiral Tribe feat. Gabba Nation - Berlin HC Nite
21. DJ Scud - Come with it
22. Society Suckers - It's enough

https://hearthis.at/omnicore-records/low-entropy-the-breakcore-breakfast-club-mix-year-2000-edition/