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Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong 3 Questions


ColecoFan1981

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What would Mario Brothers and Donkey Kong 3 have looked like on the ColecoVision, in the usual CV/ADAM graphical style (not the Opcode Games MegaCart-type porting) of other ports of Nintendo games, such as Coleco's own Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong, Jr., released for the CV in 1982 and 1983 respectively?

 

RetroIllucid would probably be able to help me on these two.

 

These two being products of the year 1983 in arcades, these obviously never saw a release on the CV because of Nintendo's setback with Coleco during the 1983 CES show where Coleco demonstrated a version of Donkey Kong (on cartridge) to be released for their upcoming ADAM computer, angering both Nintendo and Atari, the latter of whom was assigned as distributor for all computer-based ports (Coleco, as you should remember, was given the console-based rights to DK). The Atari/Nintendo tie-up also involved Atari in being the U.S. distributor of Nintendo's FamiCom console, but such plans never materialized although the Coleco debacle eventually played no part in this pact.

 

The Donkey Kong Super Game was only released later in 1984 for the Coleco ADAM computer, but in data pack format, and after Atari's sale to Jack Tramiel (former boss of Commodore computers) from Warner Bros.

 

Most home versions of Mario Brothers were never released by Atari other than their own consoles and computers (the 2600, 5200 and 7800 consoles, and the XL and XE series computers; Nintendo released the game on its own for its FamiCom console in 1983, and to the NES in 1986). Two non-Atari computer/console ports eventually were developed but never finished by AtariSoft in 1983-84: for the Apple II and Commodore 64 computers.

 

Donkey Kong 3, as many of you here should know, was only ever released for the FamiCom (in 1983) and the NES (1986), although in Japan it also saw a release on the NEC PC-8801 computer (released by Hudson Soft, which also published under license from Nintendo Super Mario Bros. Special).

 

Thank you,

 

 

 

Ben Edge

Edited by ColecoFan1981
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Well, actually, we did tried to fit Mario Bros in a 32K cartridge .... I have that rom too

The game is incomplete .....

Even with alot of compromises, I don't think Mario Bros would have been possible to fit a 32K

Well, removing alot of animations, intros, some music and SFX .... it could have been, but would look ugly

The biggest challenge was certainly to generated a good flickering engine wich we managed greatly, IMO

 

Same will goes for DK3

 

 

 

:)

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Well, actually, we did tried to fit Mario Bros in a 32K cartridge .... I have that rom too

The game is incomplete .....

Even with alot of compromises, I don't think Mario Bros would have been possible to fit a 32K

Well, removing alot of animations, intros, some music and SFX .... it could have been, but would look ugly

The biggest challenge was certainly to generated a good flickering engine wich we managed greatly, IMO

 

Same will goes for DK3

 

 

 

:)

Then, if a 32K ROM cartridge is beyond the means for these two ports, then I'd have to guess what the games would have looked like if on the ADAM data pack. Moreover, if Coleco went ahead and released the Super Game Module (wafer-type media) instead of the ADAM, maybe we'd have more hits from Coleco on our hands then.

 

~Ben

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If you want to see what Mario Bros would look like on a normal 32k cart you would need to get the Mario Bros 32k Prototype and play that. CollectorVision tried to fit the game on a 32k cart but they where unable to get it close enough to the arcade version so they scraped that and went with the Mega cart to get as close to the arcade as they could with the ColecoVision.

 

You can win it if you want at: http://www.atariage....bros-prototype/ Plus your helping out CollectorVision in the process

 

;) It is cool to see the difference between the two :thumbsup:

 

 

 

Update JF post the comment when I was writing this, Sorry for the double answer, he's a faster typer than me :lol:

Edited by RelliK111
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Well, actually, we did tried to fit Mario Bros in a 32K cartridge .... I have that rom too

The game is incomplete .....

Even with alot of compromises, I don't think Mario Bros would have been possible to fit a 32K

Well, removing alot of animations, intros, some music and SFX .... it could have been, but would look ugly

The biggest challenge was certainly to generated a good flickering engine wich we managed greatly, IMO

 

Same will goes for DK3

 

 

 

:)

Then, if a 32K ROM cartridge is beyond the means for these two ports, then I'd have to guess what the games would have looked like if on the ADAM data pack. Moreover, if Coleco went ahead and released the Super Game Module (wafer-type media) instead of the ADAM, maybe we'd have more hits from Coleco on our hands then.

 

~Ben

 

The ADAM is actually the same as the SuperGame Module (From Coleco)

When Coleco srcapped the SGM, it was because the Wafer tapes were not reliable ..... they even tried to used the Wafer in the prototype version of the ADAM

They ported most SGM games to ADAM .... some were never released though..... but still exist... :(

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As J-F said, you can fit whatever you want on a 32Kb cartridge, as long as you don't mind compromising.

 

However things aren't as simple as simply cartridge capacity. Two people can port the same game and have completely different results in terms of graphics and gameplay. So unless someone find an old Coleco mockup or something for those games, we will never know how they would have looked. In fact, Coleco would never have released a version of Mario Bros, since Atari got the rights for that.

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.... In fact, Coleco would never have released a version of Mario Bros, since Atari got the rights for that.

 

Sadly, :(

 

That really shows how much the early 80s video games was like the Wild West that Nintendo would sell part of there franchise rights to Atari (Mario Bros) and the other part (Donkey Kong) to Coleco, that it would have never happened just few years later. It makes you think what if the crash didn't happen and the ADAM didn't lose so much money (or if they didn't release the ADAM and instead focused on the successor to the Colecovision)and Coleco didn't go out of business. What if they made a successor to the Colecovision? I wonder if Nintendo would have even decided to test the waters in the US with a Powerful and popular Coleco and Atari ruling the video game industry?

Edited by RelliK111
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  • 1 year later...

That really shows how much the early 80s video games was like the Wild West that Nintendo would sell part of there franchise rights to Atari (Mario Bros) and the other part (Donkey Kong) to Coleco, that it would have never happened just few years later. It makes you think what if the crash didn't happen and the ADAM didn't lose so much money (or if they didn't release the ADAM and instead focused on the successor to the Colecovision)and Coleco didn't go out of business. What if they made a successor to the Colecovision? I wonder if Nintendo would have even decided to test the waters in the US with a Powerful and popular Coleco and Atari ruling the video game industry?

Also: Popeye and Sky Skipper were assigned to Parker Brothers for console and computer releases (Sky Skipper's only home version was on the A2600).

 

~Ben

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I can produce a Mock-up what Donkey Kong 3 would have looked like for the Colecovision if you want me to. I can't recall 100% if Pixelboy did a mock-up of it.

 

The mockup I did was a sort of spoof of DK3, as part of my collection of Donkey Kong Deluxe screens. See here (it's the "Greenhouse" level):

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/99035-opcodes-birthday-gift-donkey-kong-deluxe-for-cv/

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@Pixelboy those mock-up are very awesome. I enjoy looking at them. Hopefully Opcode will put some of them in the DKA as easter egg. They are really interesting.

 

I started this tonight, I got the tiles done for the 1st screen. I've used http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZZKSre0r8o and http://img.brothersoft.com/screenshots/softimage/d/donkey_kong_3-140377-1.jpeg as reference. I crossbred the graphic from the NES version and the Arcade version. Easier to tile the trees this way and save pattern table space for more tiles. Also draw the green house background.

 

post-24767-0-36512800-1369798902_thumb.png

 

All I need is to draw sprites for this screen and Donkey Kong.

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Write partial blue background first and then Donkey Kong... the vdp might not be fast enough to do it in one frame. Could DK be entirely in sprites? The bees and worms going to eat away DK's sprites. Will Stanley withstand the abuse from onslaught of (programming) bugs? The only way to be 100% sure is I have to program the entire game. :-D

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Write partial blue background first and then Donkey Kong... the vdp might not be fast enough to do it in one frame. Could DK be entirely in sprites? The bees and worms going to eat away DK's sprites. Will Stanley withstand the abuse from onslaught of (programming) bugs? The only way to be 100% sure is I have to program the entire game. :-D

 

Or avoid using sprites as much as possible. ;)

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