newcoleco

I'm a french canadian born in 1975 who grew up with the ColecoVision, Commodore VIC-20 and C=64. My childhood dream was to create my own videogames for the ColecoVision and so I've started very early to program in BASIC and various other computer languages. At home, my family enjoyed some of my games which encouraged me to keep going. When I first looked online to find ColecoVision programming information there was nothing available but I've started to email back and forth with other programmers and eventually made my own toolkit and CV games. My first CV game released as a ROM file was a simple Breakout-like game in February 1999 which was eventually released in cartridge form in 2004 under the name Double Breakout and in 2005 under the name Deflektor Kollection because of the new Atari company strongly insisted to not use the word Breakout in any homebrew games. My first CV game in cartridge was DACMAN released in cartridge at the CGE2K in Las Vegas by John Dondzila and the game was based on a VIC-20 PacMan clone named ANOTHER PACMAN or simply VICMAN. Since River West Brand paid for the names Coleco and ColecoVision, nothing changed for me about doing my own Coleco games, even got an email from them asking me to do a game for their web site which never happenned. Later on, the brand holder (who shouldn't have got it in the first place legally) decided to be a jerk and poisoned the homebrew community, ruining the fun for some including me with my original titles being pointed as innapropriate. I took a kind of break from the active scene, but I couldn't stop thinking about my first passion ColecoVision. I've released new tools like the data compression format DAN2, and composed new musics for fun like Duck Tale, Satefy Dance, Toto, and also for others like Crazy Train (Side Trak) and Jump (Rip Cord). In 2018, after a severe mental breakdown, I've seen health care professionals and admitted my identity disorder that I've tried so long to keep secret in fear of unknown consequences. It was silly of me to think that I could handle it while all I was doing was hurting my true self. In 2019, I've started HRT and announced my transition as a coming-out message online on Facebook and AtariAge forums, it was well received. June 5th 2019, my name was legally changed from Daniel to Amy. I've many projects on ice for so long, and with my life being reorganized, I don't know when or what I will release next, but I sure will do something.