Team Pixelboy News Bulletin - September 1st 2014

[Pixelboy]

Hello fellow ColecoVision fans.

This is my 6000th post on AtariAge, and the timing is just right for me to deliver another news bulletin, which is really just a quick update on last month's bulletin.


RELEASE SCHEDULE CHANGES

I have decided to do some minor changes to my release schedule:

October 2014:
- SubRoc Super Game
- The Goonies
- TwinBee
- Joust

Christmas 2014:
- Knightmare
- Ghostbusters
- Boxxle

You may notice that Jewel Panic has been bumped off the 2014 schedule, and I think the reason should be obvious: Seven games to release between now and Christmas is already a lot, and with me going back to school this fall (to get a university certificate) there's just no way I'll be able to get any work done on Jewel Panic any time soon. So it seemed logical to replace Jewel Panic with Boxxle for a Christmas release.

October's exact release date is still undertermined, but I can say that I'll be preparing 100 copies of SubRoc Super Game, The Goonies and TwinBee towards that date. The situation with Joust is a little nebulous right now, because I'm waiting to see how many unsold copies of the game there will be after the Classic Gaming Expo. If the game sells out completely (I guess it's possible, although I don't know the attendance numbers CGE usually gets) I'll try to produce more copies of Joust towards the official October release. If there are many unsold copies left, I'll just tell my loyal customers to buy a copy from those unsold stocks (directly from Sean Kelly) and I'll prepare fewer new copies on my end. Whatever happens, I'll make sure to make enough copies for everyone.


ABOUT THE OLDER TEAM PIXELBOY TITLES

The pre-order operation for the older Team Pixelboy games has been going pretty well over the last month. I have roughly 10 copies of each game reserved so far, give or take a few. I won't have time to prepare all these copies by October, but I'll work to get them all ready by Christmas 2014. There's still time to reserve copies, so just drop me a PM if you want in on the action. Check the forum thread of the August 1st news bulletin to see what's available.


A LITTLE SURPRISE!

In last month's news bulletin, I indicated that I found many leftover boxes for many of my old games, but there is one detail I deliberately didn't mention: I also found a couple of unused boxes of Quest for the Golden Chalice! Even better, I happen to have a couple of golden QftGC cartridges which I had made in error last year, so I'll have two CIB copies of the game ready very soon! I have decided to auction off these last two copies on eBay, so keep an eye out for them!


A LITTLE GIFT TO THE COMMUNITY FOR MY 6000TH POST...

Recently, I was in the mood to do some preliminary graphic work for a potential port of the TRS-80 game "Downland". I've got the background graphics all figured out, and today, as part of my 6000th post, I am making these graphics available below, together with the general map of the game. I have no intention of programming the game myself, or even publishing it if another homebrewer decides to tackle the project, but if this game gets made on ColecoVision by someone, I would just like to be credited for the graphics.

I didn't have time to prepare any sprite graphics, but if you look at the various character tiles I prepared, you will notice that falling water drops are meant to be implemented with tiles, except while a water drop passes in front of an object like a jewel or a money bag, then it is drawn using a sprite. This helps to reduce sprite flicker to a minimum.

So the actual sprite work left to do is minimal (the player's character, the bouncing ball, the bird, and maybe other game elements I didn't think of). The information bars at the top and bottom of the screen are also left undone. Easy stuff to complete, really.

As for the gameplay itself, this YouTube playthrough of the TRS-80 version will tell you pretty much everything you need to know about Downland (this video is only part 1, be sure to check out part 2):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os6qUWRARws


This concludes this news bulletin. We now return you to your regular forum activities.

[scobb]

Looks great

 

Scott

[retroillucid]

Kewl

[bradd1978]

Thanks for the update Pixelboy :-)

The CIB games you were offering in your last thread, do you have an expected time of when those will be ready? I think you were waiting on the boxes from someone in Germany you said.

Great work as always :-)

[Pixelboy]

The CIB games you were offering in your last thread, do you have an expected time of when those will be ready? I think you were waiting on the boxes from someone in Germany you said.

I received those boxes from Germany early last week, so that much is done. The main reason why I cannot have the lot of older games ready by October is because I placed a rather large order of MegaCart PCBs to 5-11under (for Goonies, Subroc Super Game and TwinBee) and I'm not willing to ask more of him between now and the end of September. As I said, I'm waiting until after CGE before I decide what I'm going to do about Joust, and if I end up making more copies, 5-11under will obviously be involved. A friend of mine is going to assemble and tests all the cartridges once I receive the PCBs, while I glue boxes together and prepare the manuals, so my plate is already full where October is concerned.

 

As for the Christmas releases, beta-testing of Knightmare and Ghostbusters hasn't even started yet, and while Boxxle is ready, I want to beta-test it myself, which involves solving over 200 puzzles to make absolutely sure there's no mistake anywhere in the puzzle data. So my plate is going to be full in November and December as well, but I will still strive to have the older games ready by Christmas.

[ten-four]

Thank you Luc for all the hard work you put in this.

Looking forward for those 4+3.

[bradd1978]

Thank you for the response :-) And thank you for the hard work you put into these games. It really is appreciated :-)

[Pixelboy]

ARGH! Why is it that EVERY TIME I make a public announcement before EVERY LAST F***ING DETAIL has been resolved and double-checked, something has to go wrong? GRRRR!!!!

 

I have the gold casings and the manuals, and the boxes are folded/glued and ready, but now I can't find the blasted PCBs for those two last copies of Quest for the Golden Chalice! Why does this always happen to me?

 

If you were wondering why I never accept money from customers before my games are actually ready to ship, THIS IS WHY!!!

 

(*sigh*) I'll keep looking...

[ten-four]

Easy Now !

 

Take a very Deep breath...

 

[iesposta]

I hope you sell a Joust to every ColecoVision owner.

Save one for me because it predict you will sell out. Maybe you should take a poll?

 

Unless you just show off games to others, or like taking turns, games that 2 can play at the same are few.

Plus I always like the option of cooperating or attacking the other human player.

[NIAD]

Another great update and thanks for taking the time to share with us. Very much looking forward to the October releases and hope everything goes smoothly for you and your team.

 

The Download game looks interesting and I like the added touch of the "Players Left" sprites mimicking the on-screen character throughout the game... it's the little things like that that make a good game a really great game and you don't always see such attention to detail. If a programmer were to decide to make a CV version, the one thing that I would hope to see improved would be to improve the player movement, especially where it comes to the jumping physics. While it's no where near as bad as Sammy Lightfoot and other similar computer games of this time period, I think it could be improved considerably to make the game much more enjoyable.

[Pixelboy]

If a programmer were to decide to make a CV version, the one thing that I would hope to see improved would be to improve the player movement, especially where it comes to the jumping physics. While it's no where near as bad as Sammy Lightfoot and other similar computer games of this time period, I think it could be improved considerably to make the game much more enjoyable.

I agree. Smooth jumping physics, similar to the arcade version of Donkey Kong Jr, would really improve the overall quality of Downland on ColecoVision. Having better animation for when the player is dangling on a horizontal wire would also be nice.

[Tony Cruise]

Thanks for the updating, splitting into two releases will ease the pain felt in our wallets

The game looks very interesting, wouldn't be hard to do, would need more time in my life before I did it though unfortunately, have a big enough backlog now.

[LynxVGL]

Does Joust have completed sound?

[VectorGamer]

I noticed Bank Panic has yet to sell out @ GoodDealGames.com. I believe I read that you will be able to buy this in another run from Team Pixelboy. This is a great game! Make sure you add it to your collection.

[Pixelboy]

Does Joust have completed sound?

Yep! All sounds are present and are faithful to the arcade version. A proper title screen was also added.

[Pumantor]

Hello Luc

 

Any update for October's exact release date ?

Thanks

[Pixelboy]

Hello Luc

 

Any update for October's exact release date ?

Thanks

I plan to post a new Team Pixelboy news bulletin within the next few days, which should answer your question.