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Electric Adventures - MSX & Spectravideo Conversion Titles


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I wrote a number of commercially released titles for the Spectravideo (and then MSX) machines back in the mid 80's.

The details are detailed on my web site http://www.electricadventures.net.

I am looking at converting one or more of the titles to the Colecovision. Plus I have an almost complete game Cavern Fighter, that I am looking at completing and releasing for the Spectravideo, MSX & Colecovision.

 

Something that makes this a more acceptable idea is the fact that new cartridge shells may soon be available (reading some of the other threads).

 

My question(s) are:

- Which of my titles (machine code titles - have heaps of BASIC ones too) would people be most interest in?

- I take it most other titles are produced with a run of about 100 copies?

- Who do I contact to get boxes made (when I get to that stage)?

- Anyone who wants to express interest would be appreciated?

 

Note: Not looking at making money, this is more for fun and self gratification. There was no Internet back in the 80's, so other than an order for 1,000 'sample' copies of three of my games from ASCII Corporation (which I did not have the money or resources to fill - only tapes back then), my games never really got the chance to circulate outside of Australia.

 

Anyway if anyone is interested let me know :)

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Welcome to AtariAge.

 

I am a ColecoVision homebrew publisher, but my plate is full this year with over 10 games to release. And next year, I'm putting all my Team Pixelboy activities aside to work on a programming language for the ColecoVision.

 

I didn't check every game on your site, but while the info on your site is inviting, it's also a bit confusing. It's hard to guess which games were programmed in BASIC, and which ones were programmed in assembly. Also, the ColecoVision only has 1K of RAM, so I don't know if your games can be ported to the CV at all.

 

So if you're looking for a homebrew publisher to publish CV ports of your games, I think it would be preferable to post in this thread all the info you can supply about your games: MSX BASIC game or coded in machine code, total ROM size, RAM requirements, required controllers (does the game require a keyboard to play?), etc.

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Cavern Fighter looks like it could be a real winner if you are able to port it to the ColecoVision with it's 1K RAM limitation (cart size is usually 32K max but there is the MegaCart PCB which allows for bank-switching and therefore much larger games). Seeing as so many other Homebrewers have developed/released CV versions of arcade games (Pac-Man Collection, Spectar, Space Invaders, Astro Invaders, etc., etc.) without any issues or ramifications from the copyright holders, you might even want to consider renaming it to Scramble for the better name visibility.

 

Pyxidis looks like a great vertical shooter, but seeing as there have been a large number of those developed for the CV in recent years, you might want to take a look at those first and compare to your game to see how they compare. I'm always for seeing new games developed and released for the CV, but sometimes a flood of certain genres of games can become too much.

 

Good Luck and looking forward to hearing how things develop.

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Thanks for the responses so far guys, sounds like some more home brew would be welcome enough for me to give it a go.

 

I have some real live deadlines to get past over the next few weeks (Windows 8 launch is coming up), so once I have got those obligations out of the way.

 

I will probably do a quick convert of a couple of the smaller titles, just to get the techniques right, then work on completing Cavern Fighter.

 

Especially as that has received the most interest so far.

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In addition to what has been said I vote for Lunar Lander and Parachute. Parachute looks kind of like a reverse Rip Cord, which is one game I always wanted. I guess since we never got those games back in the day they are on my want list.

 

Whatever game/games you decide to develop I am willing to purchase.

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For MSX cartridge manufacturing you should contact matracorp@gmail.com

If they like one of your games then they handle box design, cartridge manufacturing, assembly and sales without any expense on your side. You should only make the best game you can :)

Also I recommend to select your best games and make videos to run interest checks here in Atariage.

Check one sample of Matra with my own game http://www.matranet.net/shockware/pq/index.html (soon it will be available in Colecovision by Team Pixelboy)

Check also one sample of Collectorvision with other of my games http://www.collectorvision.com/game-zombnear.htm (it should be available in Summer, appears as retroillucid has a lot of work ;) )

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Im up for any of them, especially the Space Invaders style stuff.

 

Where is this Cavern Fighter game everyone is talking about?

 

If you do decide to do this, its a bit late for this year, but next year, I could help spread the word at the CCAG in Cleveland, OH:

 

www.ccagshow.com

 

 

There's a lot of Colecoids there.

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Im up for any of them, especially the Space Invaders style stuff.

 

Where is this Cavern Fighter game everyone is talking about?

 

If you do decide to do this, its a bit late for this year, but next year, I could help spread the word at the CCAG in Cleveland, OH:

 

www.ccagshow.com

 

 

There's a lot of Colecoids there.

There is a description on my site http://www.electricadventures.net, including a link to a YouTube video on it as well.

It will be a bit later in the year as I have Windows 8 commitments, so won't be starting in earnest until July.

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  • 3 months later...

I have made some progress on this now, and have released an update on my web site here: http://www.electrica...tridge-releases

 

To summarize the article, I am planning to release three different cartridges each for Colecovision, MSX and Sega SC-3000/SG-1000 (in that order). The Colecovision versions will be released first through one of the existing publishers, followed by MSX and then Sega. The MSX and Sega releases will depend on how I go tracking down the cartridge cases (circuit boards & chips are not a problem).

 

I am having a go at redoing the sounds effects and music for the games, although if anyone was willing to make any offers in that department they would not be refused, as music has never really been my thing - love listening to it, just not very good at making it.

 

I do need to start working out the artwork for the packaging etc shortly too, I have Black & White artwork from the original releases that I will be using as the basis for new colour artwork.

 

I'll try and post regular updates to my web site and to here from now one. Any questions please feel free to ask :)

Edited by Electric Adventures
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  • 3 months later...

A quick update, I have my 1st conversion to the Beta stage (going out to separate PAL & NTSC testers tomorrow). This is the 1st title from the EA Classics collection Meteor Swarm.

I have done an initial test on real hardware

if you want a closer look at the progress.

Birds of Orion should hopefully be in the same situation by next week. Depends on how I go creating the sound effects and music for it as the original had virtually none. It will have more levels and may resemble the arcade game it was inspired by quite a bit more now :)

Munchmania should follow not long after.

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A quick update, I have my 1st conversion to the Beta stage (going out to separate PAL & NTSC testers tomorrow). This is the 1st title from the EA Classics collection Meteor Swarm.

I have done an initial test on real hardware

if you want a closer look at the progress.

Birds of Orion should hopefully be in the same situation by next week. Depends on how I go creating the sound effects and music for it as the original had virtually none. It will have more levels and may resemble the arcade game it was inspired by quite a bit more now :)

Munchmania should follow not long after.

 

Nice! Are the asteroids drawn with sprites or background tiles? Just curious...

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Nice! Are the asteroids drawn with sprites or background tiles? Just curious...

They are sprites, so they don't go as big as the original arcade game, but they don't look too bad scale wise against the ship.

Few more sounds effects needed, fixed the randomness today (Coleco BIOS Random is pretty useless, have gone back to my original).

Have a small list of known minor issues I want to fix, but will wait until the two Beta testers have a go and fix them all at once. Working on Birds of Orion in the mean time.

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  • 1 month later...
Colecovision, MSX and Sega SC-3000/SG-1000

While I'd hate to disturb your planning, have you considered porting said game(s) to even more systems while you're onto it? At least the Sord/CGL M5 should hardware wise be just about identical to both Colecovision and Sega SG-1000 (same Z80, TMS 9918/29 VDP and SN76489). Then again it is a matter of finding cartridge shells. The MSX ones are a poor fit, and I suppose the total quantities would be too low for them to modify their designs and make Sord compatible shells.

 

I believe the Memotech MTX also have the same hardware, but it'd be more of a Amdisk 3" floppy disk based system.. just giving you clues. :-)

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While I'd hate to disturb your planning, have you considered porting said game(s) to even more systems while you're onto it? At least the Sord/CGL M5 should hardware wise be just about identical to both Colecovision and Sega SG-1000 (same Z80, TMS 9918/29 VDP and SN76489). Then again it is a matter of finding cartridge shells. The MSX ones are a poor fit, and I suppose the total quantities would be too low for them to modify their designs and make Sord compatible shells.

 

I believe the Memotech MTX also have the same hardware, but it'd be more of a Amdisk 3" floppy disk based system.. just giving you clues. :-)

I actually have a Sord/CGL M5 (the Memotech is also a possibility - but yeah probably on 3" disk rather than cartridge) so this may be possible. Perhaps as a PCB only in more limited numbers i.e. less than 10 (about the sweet spot for some short run PCB's), and the end user has to sort out their own case. A painted cassette case would do for the Sord.

I also have worked out how to make an original Spectravideo cartridge as well and think I can use Atari 8-bit cartridge shells for those. As with the Sord only very limited numbers.

I have completed the porting and tidying up of both Meteor Swarm and Munchmania, Birds of Orion is done, but I am adding a few more levels and some more sound effects as even though it is coming with the other two games I still think it is too simple.

I have received feedback from two very good beta testers and have already made changes from bugs they have found plus some nice suggestions. So I will be putting the menu together shortly, merging the games (they all use the same shared libraries, so it's more making the labels unique). So I will make a video on this completed title shortly.

 

In the longer term, as I want to learn 6502 I will do a port of some titles to the Creativision/Dick Smith Wizard. Same Video and Sound chip just uses the 6502 as the processor.

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Nice that you're mentioning the Creativision. I'm just about to finish my first machine code game, Reversi and have plans for additional titles in the future. If you're interested in development/progress, you can always check the CreatiVemu forum. In my case, I come from the other direction: fairly experienced in 6502 but the VDP and SN76489 are new acquaintances for me. So far I only tried character graphics + a single sprite on screen. No collisions, overlaying sprites or so.

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