let's chat ColecoVision

[Yurkie]

I am rinking some Yuengling and I am bored.The boards seem rather dead in general so let's liven things up guys.

[Pixelboy]

Seems a lot of people are away on vacation this time of year. This past week was a school break in Quebec, and when they can, parents take a break from work to be with their kids, and even go away on vacation with them. Is this a tradition in other provinces/countries as well?

 

I haven't heard from 5-11under since late February, and I was in the middle of discussing PCB assemblies with him. Since I'm releasing at least 11 games this year (perhaps 12) I thought Harvey should get started on assembling a few PCBs as soon as possible. So far, Wonder Boy and Mopiranger have passed the beta-testing phase, and I've been playing with Princess Quest a lot without finding any bugs, so I'd say it's just about ready to receive my seal of approval.

 

I'm hoping Eduardo will fix Champion Ice Hockey like I asked him to, so I can get started on beta-testing that game and put it behind me, before all the SGM projects start taking 100% of Eduardo's time.

 

I attached a picture of the Wonder Boy box template below, for your viewing pleasure. It's not final, but almost.

 

Speaking of boxes, remember the great box art of Ninja Princess? Well, the same artist will be doing the box art of King's Valley and also Princess Quest. And I'm in talks with another artist (who also works for Studio Cutepet) to do the box art for Stone of Wisdom.

 

Today, I'll be starting work on vectorizing the box art of Mopiranger. If you've seen the MSX box, it may seem simple, but if you look closer, there's a ton of gradient effects, which are rather hard to reproduce perfectly with Adobe Illustrator. This one's gonna take me weeks to complete... Ugh...

 

I want to update the Team Pixelboy web site with the new outsourced projects (Princess Quest, King's Valley, Thexder, Spelunker and Stone of Wisdom) but I haven't been able to find the time lately. But I'll get around to it soon, hopefully.

 

You could say this was a mini-Team-Pixelboy-News-Bulletin. Are you a little less bored, Yurkie?

[harlock76]

This past week was a school break in Quebec, and when they can, parents take a break from work to be with their kids

 

i better take a break from my kids

[+opcode]

Being around for 10 years, it is funny how topics have changed over time. 10 years ago it was more about the original games from the 80s, and newly found prototypes. These days it is more about homebrews and consoles malfunctioning. And of course a lot of prominent people moved on to different things, while new blood appears every day. However it sads me to think that one day all of us will be gone and the ColecoVision will be just an antique forgotten in a corner of some technology museum.

Edited March 10, 2012 by opcode

[+pboland]

Since I'm releasing at least 11 games this year (perhaps 12)

 

I was thinking it would be kind of cool if you released one of those mini color catalogs of your game offerings like many manufactures did back in the day. Heck you could have all your released games in the catalog. Not just the ones you are getting ready to come out with. Just thinking out loud.

[+opcode]

Since I'm releasing at least 11 games this year (perhaps 12)

 

I was thinking it would be kind of cool if you released one of those mini color catalogs of your game offerings like many manufactures did back in the day. Heck you could have all your released games in the catalog. Not just the ones you are getting ready to come out with. Just thinking out loud.

 

I am doing that with the Super Game Module.

But I agree, Pixelboy has published enough games to deserve a catalog.

[Pixelboy]

I was thinking it would be kind of cool if you released one of those mini color catalogs of your game offerings like many manufactures did back in the day. Heck you could have all your released games in the catalog. Not just the ones you are getting ready to come out with. Just thinking out loud.

 

I am doing that with the Super Game Module.

But I agree, Pixelboy has published enough games to deserve a catalog.

 

With 12 releases under my belt and about just as many to be released by the end of this year, I think a catalog is not a bad idea. I could even include some of my personal projects, which may end up becoming vaporware in the end, but that's practically a pre-requisite in the Coleco world!

 

But I'll be surprised if I find the time to create a catalog between now and next Christmas though. The thing that helps is that of all the games I'm releasing this year, only 4 require their box art to be vectorized (Wonder Boy (100% done), Mopiranger (5% done), Jewel Panic (80% done) and Champion Ice Hockey (0% done)). The rest are either new images drawn by professional artists, or scans taken straight from MSX boxes with minimal touch-ups.

 

The downside is that a lot of these games haven't been ported yet, and I may find myself having to sprint through the beta-testing of the SGM-dependent games next fall. This means I'll have to put a lot of effort into the manuals next summer, right after I'm done vectorizing the 4 box arts. So not much time ahead for a catalog...

[VectorGamer]

Here's my contribution:

 

dammit someone port a finished version of Death Race (steering wheel compatible!)!!!

[cOLeCoHiTMan]

Are there any of the original 80s programmers lurking around and doing anything ColecoVision related? Do they have a group like the Intellivision programmers formed?

[phattyboombatty]

Small update for my corner of ColecoVision World:

 

Ordered 100 pieces of foil card stock for my Probe 2000 box reproductions, assuming this stock was the same type I had tested for printing. Unfortunately, the stock had a Mylar surface, which does not allow toner to fuse properly. I am having to return that expensive stock and go with another brand, which has proven difficult to pinpoint.

 

The good news is, I am 100% positive that production is possible, and I've made a few prototypes (albeit with the incorrect stock size). It's now a matter of finding a vendor who can sell me 10 x 14" pieces of stock or larger in the correct foil board/ mirror board.

 

In the meantime, I've begun artwork on several other "Coleco Electronics" collectable boxes that I'm sure will be a hit with the community.

 

Also broke ground on a MOTU package. Even though we all know the BSR's story about the non-release of this incredible-looking game, I'd like to put some limited-edition boxes out there for the collectors who anticipate the release in the undetermined future!

[NIAD]

Also broke ground on a MOTU package. Even though we all know the BSR's story about the non-release of this incredible-looking game, I'd like to put some limited-edition boxes out there for the collectors who anticipate the release in the undetermined future!

It never hurts to stir the pot up a little to see what might come of it. For those wondering what MOTU and BSR is... Masters of the Universe: The Power of He-Man and Blue Sky Rangers.

[ten-four]

How can we put maximum pressure on BSR.

Also we would like to know the reason why they will prevent us from accessing the game(s).

I can hardly imagine that it can be a copyright problem.

I read that the game "The Power Of He-Man" was played at a party meeting in 1999.

Are not quite sure if Universe II was completed.

[ColecoDan]

According to them it is a copyright problem. They have gone to Mattel multiple times over the last 30 yrs trying to broker a deal to release both games. I don't think pressure would do anything it took them 6 months to build steamroller that I ordered from them.

 

If you want to see the games your best bet would be to find people with connections or somehow broker a deal with Mattel to be able to distribute those two games.

[NIAD]

The Intellivision version of MotU II was indeed finished and then changes made to it to remove all the MotU references and released as Diner. I haven't played it much, but it seems to borrow a lot of elements from BurgerTime and Illusions.

 

As far as MotU I, it's unlikely to ever see this game or rom file made available to the deserving masses as long as there is a chance of the MotU/He-Man franchise being ressurected in a movie, etc.. For some reason the "rights" holders think that releasing the game even in small quantities for a 30 year old game system could cause damage to the franchise. As if it wasn't damaged enough by the poor attempt at a movie that was already made years ago.

 

I hate to say this as well, but we all know how people can be when it comes to stuff like this, that is "I got it and you don't, so that makes me important"... or something like that. As far as I'm concerned, it would be cool to finally see and play it, but it's not the end of the world.

[+opcode]

I was telling my wife today about how I got started on making games. The story actually dates back almost 30 years. I had this friend in school and his family was very wealthy, so he had all the latest consoles, including the ColecoVision (big deal if you take into account we were in Brazil). So even before I had got my first console I already wanted to make games (and I suppose TRON also played a big part on that). We then created this fictional game company called C&B Software, and we had plans for making games for the Atari 800. It is too bad that I didn't keep all the game sketches I made back then, though I believe I still have a sketch for my arcade controller from circa 1985.

 

Anyways, a couple of years later we parted ways (he moved to another town) so I was left to follow my dreams on my own. I then go into the MSX, and C&B Software became Coin-Op Software, a name I used until 2002 (more about that later). During my MSX years I made some games, most relevant one was probably a port of Mario Bros, but I don't think any of that survived.

 

In college I got really into classic gaming, but at that point I was more interested on the Atari 2600. It was hard to find any info though. Then the internet came and info was widely available. But there were other hurdles I had to overcome. I clearly wanted to make arcade ports, however classic arcades were no longer available in my area, and programming from memory didn't seem like a viable option to me.

 

Around 1996 the first arcade emulators started to appear, so I decided to finally start working on something. I selected Space Invaders because I thought it would be the easiest (in retrospect I don't think that was necessarily true). I checked the code and hardware specs, and noticed that it was quite similar to the MSX/ColecoVision architecture that I was so used to. So I elected the ColecoVision as my platform of choice, because I was really into consoles at that point. And so development on Space Invaders Collection started, around 1996/1997.

 

I stopped and resumed numerous times due to college and then because I got my first job. I finally met my wife in 2001, and for some reason that motivated me to finally finish the game. In 2002, when I was about to finally release it, I concluded that having a website was important, so I started to look around on how to register a domain. For my despair the Coinop.com domain was already taken, as was coinopgames and coinopsoftware. So I started looking for another name, and the idea of opcode came to me. The name sounded great because it was the same size and almost an anagram of coinop, and also because it related to software creation.

 

And so Opcode Games was born...

Edited March 11, 2012 by opcode

[nanochess]

I entered in the Colecovision world simply checking platforms that used Z80, and then discovering that the VDP was the same as MSX, so I started translation of Zombie Near just for fun.

Then I found Collectorvision and looked like a good way of publishing a cartridge game, so here I am

By the way I've finally ordered a Colecovision (Pixelboy and Yurkie are helping me). A little surprising that I'll get first a Colecovision instead of a MSX

[+opcode]

My biggest regret to this day is that I never got an Expansion Module #2 with Turbo NIB when I had the chance. They were very affordable back in the 90s early 2000s. Now I see some going for $200 on eBay.... I still think Turbo is one of the best ColecoVision games ever.

[ColecoDan]

My biggest regret to this day is that I never got an Expansion Module #2 with Turbo NIB when I had the chance. They were very affordable back in the 90s early 2000s. Now I see some going for $200 on eBay.... I still think Turbo is one of the best ColecoVision games ever.

 

I think that is just 1 high seller. It might be the guy that started the expansion modules at $500 each. I guess if you don't want CIB and have to have NIB then you might have to pay it because except for him I have only seen CIB versions.

 

I agree though, I always thought turbo was so amazing with the changing seasons and the wheel to use making it seem more like a car. It definately is not the same when playing Daniel's hacked version that gets rid of the wheel.

[Pixelboy]

I agree though, I always thought turbo was so amazing with the changing seasons and the wheel to use making it seem more like a car. It definately is not the same when playing Daniel's hacked version that gets rid of the wheel.

 

I still say that Coleco should have added wheel support in Spy Hunter, rather than Super Action Controller support. Bump 'n Jump with the steering wheel is amazing!

Edited March 12, 2012 by Pixelboy

[ColecoDan]

 

I still say that Coleco should have added wheel support in Spy Hunter, rather than Super Action Controller support. Bump 'n Jump with the steering wheel is amazing!

 

I never played bunp 'n jump with the steering wheel. I love bump 'n jump though so I will have to try it out. To this day I still have not played Spy Hunter. I just can't find the time with all these new homebrew games coming out all the time.

[ten-four]

Fantastic story Eduardo.

 

I also remembered your site at geocities before your opcodegames site. (vgbelloq).

This site was about SIC, and a lot of screenshots and ufos.

This site inspired me to buy my very first SIC. homebrew game. (unique # 148).

 

That job you got that time and maybe also now, was/is this computer-related. ?

 

C&B Software, what stands C&B for ?

 

I would gladly see that scetch you have for your arcade controller from 1985.

 

And Pixelboy, I agree with you that Coleco should have added wheel support in Spy Hunter.

[cOLeCoHiTMan]

Do you remember the address?

Take a peek into the past with the Wayback machine?

 

http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

 

 

 

I also remembered your site at geocities before your opcodegames site. (vgbelloq).

[AtariBrian]

i have never seen turbo gameplay till just now. it looks like plays pretty good. now i guess when comparing it to pole position for any atari anything is better... always hated the controls in pole position

[Yurkie]

I think I have an extra steering wheel I'll sell for $25 if anyone needs one.

[ten-four]

Do you remember the address?

Take a peek into the past with the Wayback machine?

 

http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

 

 

 

I also remembered your site at geocities before your opcodegames site. (vgbelloq).

 

http://web.archive.org/web/20050316123027/http://www.geocities.com/vgbelloq/index.html