Pixelboy

WHAAAAAT?????? 😮 😮 😮 Dude, you've just proven to everyone here just how clueless you are about complete-in-box homebrewing. For your information, producing boxes, manuals and carts is EXPENSIVE for low production runs like mine, and I sell my games AT COST, with no profit margin. And I have to sell a LOT of games to recoup my money. You don't do homebrewing like this for money, this niche market is way too small. I'm glad there are still enough ColecoVision fans out there who buy Team Pixelboy titles, so even after a decade of doing what I do, I can still be confident that I will recoup my invested money. Really, why don't YOU try it? No, really, go ahead! Have boxes professionally printed on cardboard, full-color manuals printed on glossy paper, cartridges with actual working electronics inside, and don't forget the styrofoam inserts to put inside the boxes. We'll see if you can make that happen for "a few dollars per unit".

Excuse me, did you just call me self-entitled? Really? Your definition of self-entitlement must differ from mine. Ah, so it doesn't seem friendly to you personally, therefore it's not friendly to anyone else. Sure, buddy, whatever you say. Also, I doubt ColecoVision fans would "abandon" this community over just little old me. I would tend to believe that they move on simply because they want to pursue other interests. I've seen plenty of people move on like this over the years. Team Pixelboy is not a private club. Anyone can pre-order games but there is such a thing as a deadline for placing a pre-order. And just in case you missed it, I explained my reasons for not accepting new pre-orders in the most recent Team Pixelboy News Bulletin, which I posted on August 7th. Whether you agree with my reasons or not, that's your thing. Well then, let me attempt to explain things to you as clearly as I can: Team Pixelboy is a hobby for me, not a business, so the term "business practices" doesn't really apply. The number of copies of each game I release is dependent on a few factors, like availability of materials, production deadlines, and motivation (as people will surely understand when they think of Space Shuttle... Really sorry about that... ). And all of that broils down to a question of timing for ColecoVision fans who want to buy these games. I try to leave the window open for people who are interested, but that window eventually closes. If you miss it, then what can I say? Also, please keep in mind that I want to retire. But I'm not going to just suddenly ride off into the sunset, I have a responsibility to honor recorded pre-orders. If I was a self-entitled individual, I wouldn't care about that, I would just drop everything and go.

Your post reeks of self-entitlement. Do the rest of us a favor and get over yourself.

This thread belong in the AtariAge Marketplace, not here.

So you'd have a long wire going from your lap to the TV, and another long wire going to the wall socket? I guess that would be workable, especially with a wall socket close to the couch.

I always wondered if the missing vertical lines on the screen could be fixed. I never really looked it up though, so glad to learn it's possible from the above post.

Super Pac-Man is not a bad game, but it does suffer from having "added ingredients" (keys, locked doors, super pills) that make the game appear like a gimmicky upgrade from the original. I would walk past a Super Pac-Man cabinet at my local arcade when I was a kid and think "What the heck is this supposed to be? It seems like the ghosts will catch me more easily with all the dead ends caused by the locked doors." I'd rather play the original Pac-Man where the ghosts have less of an unfair advantage. I suppose others felt the same way back then.

The graphics of the ColecoVision version in your video seem a little off. This looks like a prototype version to me...

And don't forget they should have created the MegaCart, to break that pesky 32K barrier.

I believe Coleco entered the family computer market with the ADAM without a clear understanding of what it took to succeed in that market. They seemed to have a "centralizing" philosophy where software development and publishing was concerned, and the bulk of the third-party software houses were practically an alternative underground movement that had no real voice to reach out to potential buyers of the ADAM. In other words, you had to buy an ADAM first, then have a lucky connection with someone in the "ADAM underground" to really see everything that the ADAM had to offer, beyond Coleco's slim non-gaming software. Even RAM expansions and other interesting hardware upgrades were insufficiently advertised by Coleco. It seems they just thought "Hey, we'll just cover the basics with SmartBASIC, ADAMCalc, and a few other things, and the ADAM will do fine on its own." As we know now, it takes more than that to succeed in the home computer market. Coleco should have just stuck with gaming, and released a game-centric Super Game Module with some extra connectors for an optional keyboard and tape/disk drive, and they could have marketed the thing as a kid's computer, instead of overreaching their capacity by going for the "family home computer" market share, which the Commodore 64 and later the McIntosh and PC clones supported much better. However, if I had been the top suit at Coleco, I'm not sure I would have jumped on the Famicom bandwagon, because then Coleco would have just been Nintendo's anchor in North-America (like CBS was Coleco's anchor in Europe) and being the "lackey distributor" of a Japanese company was not something that was palatable in the 80s.

I'd say the issue here is that with only a handful of games per cabinet, only people with lots of space can own them all. The rest are practically driven to MAME cabs simply due to space concerns. The best of both worlds would be a proprietary game cartridge system, together with a installable/removable controller set. Want to play a session of arcade Centipede? Plug the Centipede cartridge into the slot somewhere on the cabinet, disconnect the joystick controller and then install the trackball controller on the cab, turn the cab on, and you're good to go. Then it would just be a question of purchasing licensed cartridges of all the arcade games, which shouldn't be overly expensive for the early arcade titles.

I didn't get the chance to play a lot of GBC games, but I can make some recommendations for the old GB: The Mega Man games on Game Boy are excellent, except for Mega Man II which kinda sucks compared to the others in the series (but it's not extremely bad). I consider Bionic Commando on GB to be slightly better than the NES version, despite the lack of color. The controls seem more precise to me. Operation C is an excellent entry in the Contra series, again despite the lack of color. Nemesis and Gradius - The Interstellar Assault (a.k.a. Gradius II) are excellent games, if you're into shoot-em-ups. I would also recommend the very first Batman game that Sunsoft released on the Game Boy. The music is fantastic in that game. Gargoyle's Quest is a classic on the Game Boy, but the controls takes some getting used to. Once you've mastered the controls, you'll find it hard to stop playing, and you'll probably end up saying that the game is too short once you've finished it. (I still don't get why Capcom hasn't done a proper remake of this game series on the Switch.) If you're into JRPGs, the Final Fantasy Legend series is pretty good. There are three games in that series. DuckTales and DuckTales 2 are worth tracking down. Kirby's Dream Land is way too easy, but I can recommend Kirby's Dream Land 2. The second entry has a little more meat to it. Super Mario Land 2 is really good. In fact, anything with "Mario Land" or "Wario Land" in it is worth tracking down. Metroid II, Legend of Zelda - Link's Awakening and Donkey Kong (generally referred to as Donkey Kong '94) are excellent. Don't miss the Donkey Kong Land series. All three games of that series are great. The Castlevania Adventure is pretty good, but slow-moving. Castlevania - Belmont's Revenge is way more recommendable. If you're into puzzle games, the best ones I could recommend are Boxxle and Boxxle 2, although there are a lot of good puzzle games on the Game Boy. I never got into the Pokémon craze, but I'm sure they can provide hours of fun, if you're into that kind of game. I could make a lot of honorable mentions (like Double Dragon, Bonk's Revenge, Revenge of the Gator, etc.) so what I think you should do is check out the list of Game Boy games on Wikipedia are then examine YouTube footage of the games that seem interesting to you.

Wait, this thing does not have a headphone jack? So I'm supposed to bother everyone around me (on the bus or while standing in line somewhere) with 8-bit SMB music, or turn the volume completely off to play in public? Little blips and bops of original Game & Watches were one thing, but NES music and sound effects played for extended periods of time are another. I wasn't planning on buying this, but now I see one more reason not to.

I always liked Spider Fighter on the Atari 2600, but I think Bandits has a little more personality to it.

Some third-party companies could also "steal" the idea. Imagine Capcom releasing a miniature pocket device (à la Tiger Electronics) with a few NES or GameBoy Mega Man games on it, or a collaboration with Disney to make a pocket device with NES DuckTales, Chip 'n Dale, etc.. Or Konami doing a Castlevania or Contra pocket collection. Or a Dragon Warrior collection. Or an Adventures of Lolo trilogy. Or an Adventure Island trilogy. Or a Ninja Gaiden trilogy. Nintendo themselves could do Donkey Kong + Donkey Kong Jr + Donkey Kong 3. Lots of interesting possibilities, and they would make great little Xmas/birthday gifts if the price is right, even if there's already lots of ways to play these NES games. It's the small form factor and friendly ergonomics that would win people over. But then again, would it be better for Nintendo to release a "cartridgeless" Game Boy Classic loaded with 30+ games? That's open to debate.

I used to own the Super Mario Bros LCD Game & Watch (which could have been included in this portable device) and it wasn't all that great. The gameplay was rather simple, the difficulty increased very slowly, and after a while it was just a tedious chore to play. So I'm not all that disappointed that's it's not included in this "replica". On the other hand, I'd love to see Nintendo do Super Mario Bros 3 like this. Or maybe Zelda for next year?

I was expecting a little more detail on Mario in Super Mario 64, but they just increased the resolution. Not a real problem for me, but I was expecting the graphics to get at least a little upgrade, beyond the render resolution. Purists will be happy, I suppose.

I wondered why they didn't include Ninja Princess, but they did. They call it simply "Sega Ninja". EDIT: They really should bring this thing over to North-America. I'd say there's a definite customer base for it.

Awesome! Thanks nano!

If you're in the mood to port an MSX homebrew to the ColecoVision, may I suggest Night Knight? It's a recent release similar to Miner 2049er that looks kinda fun. Otherwise, I would suggest porting "Do! Run Run" (known as Super Pierrot on the MSX) which looks rather good when compared to the arcade version. Do change the title screen to match the arcade game, please. There's also The Fairyland Story on MSX which may be interesting to port, given that it has many levels. Fans of Bubble Bobble may enjoy that one. A port of Lunar Ball could be interesting, or maybe Konami's Boxing. Just my two cents.

I just noticed something about the Windows version of CoolCV (version 0.6.8, but it applies to previous versions also): When you pause the emulation with F3, you cannot snap a screenshot with F10. Trying to snap precise screenshots on the fly while playing is not exactly fun...

Thanks. I asked so that I can keep a note in my records for my trading card project.

I'm curious: The front of the box says "SierraVision". Does the back of the box officially indicate that this is a CollectorVision release?

It's a good thing you mentioned the CollectorVision Club, otherwise I would have thought this was for a XXX adult game.

Yeah, that must be a very comfortable cave he's living in...