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Team Pixelboy News Bulletin - December 25th 2017


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It's funny how we were all amazed to see 300+ downloads but now it's up to 800+ downloads! I posted the link to this thread on all the social media pages we have, but I'm so curious about the people who have downloaded those ROMs so far...

 

- How many of them are still actively playing their ColecoVision vs just downloading to put them into an archive?

I play my Coleco all the time.

 

- How many of them who downloaded have also bought (or would have bought) a boxed copy of the game?

I still plan on buying Deep Dungeon, Dragons Lair, and a few others from Lucs list of Christmas games.

 

- How many of them are playing on actual hardware versus an emulator versus a Raspberry Pi?

Ive been using my Atarimax cart to play these games on my Coleco.

 

- How many of them found the link from browsing these forums or saw it on a social media page or something like Reddit?

I always browse this subforum, so it didnt take me long to find this thread.

 

My statistics loving brain is going crazy over those numbers! :P

Enjoy! :D

 

Edited by ColecoGamer
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Howdy, ColecoVision fanatics! :D

 

I'd like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and in what has become a Team Pixelboy tradition, allow me to spread some Holiday cheer on this special day!

 

 

HAVE YOU BEEN A GOOD COLECOVISION FAN THIS YEAR?

 

Probably not, but I'll give you some gifts anyway. :P You'll find a bunch of ROMs to download at the bottom of this post, including several SGM games: Dragon's Lair, Zaxxon Super Game, King's Valley, Thexder, Buck Rogers Super Game, SubRoc Super Game and Mecha-8 (graciously released by nanochess)! You will also find the ROMs of all the Team Pixelboy budget games.

 

 

CHRISTMAS CHEATS FOR ALL!!

 

I don't recall if I ever disclosed these cheats before (I may have posted some of them at one point, I'm too lazy to check) but anyhow, I figure you guys might like to try these out, just for kicks:

 

Gulkave : Access a secret menu by pressing UP, UP, DOWN, DOWN, UP, RIGHT, DOWN, LEFT, DOWN, DOWN at the title screen. This menu contains a sound test and also lets you set the difficulty level (normal or hard).

 

Pitfall II Arcade : To get infinite lives in this game, enter 54312 with the keypad at the title screen. Also, you can enable "ghost mode" (i.e. invincibility) by entering the code 89999 at the title screen, but keep in mind that it doesn't work with terrain hazards and mine carts.

 

Girl's Garden : Start playing the game, and at any point you can enter 8675309 (Jenny's phone number!) to unlock access to cheat features! Press the keypad keys to add lives, honey pots, flowers, etc. Take note that a dot appears next to your score to indicate that you are in "cheat mode"... cheater. ;)

 

Ninja Princess : To access a cheat menu, quickly enter UP, DOWN, UP, UP, DOWN, DOWN, DOWN, UP, UP, DOWN, UP at the title screen. This cheat menu lets you select the starting stage number and also lets you set the number of lives.

 

Quest for the Golden Chalice : Enter 444555 with the keypad at the title screen to unlock Quests 4 and 5. You can also enter the code SQUARE (708273) to turn the Prince into a smiling square for the entire duration of the game. Also, after entering the code 865336 at the title screen, you will be able to teleport directly to any screen at any time during the main game by entering the code 00 to 53. If you're playing Quest 4 or Quest 5, you can also teleport directly to the wizard's current location by entering 99 on the keypad. Finally, you can perform a sound test by entering one of these codes at the title screen: 687421 (Silence), 687422 (Main music), 687423 (Victory music), 687424 (Easter Egg music), 687425 (Dungeon music).

 

King's Valley : While playing the game, you can make the hidden doors appear immediately by holding down both fire buttons, holding the joystick down, and pressing 0 on the keypad. Now just go trough the door to move on to the next (or previous) level!

 

Module Man : You can access the "deluxe" mode of the game (with more screens) by entering 777111 at the title screen. You can also enter 385 at the title screen to access the debug mode (experiment with the keypad keys while playing to see what you can do in debug mode). Finally, you can play a hidden mini-game by entering 222666 at the title screen.

 

Mecha-8 : Enter 421 at the title screen to activate the debug mode. You can press 3 on the keypad during the game to pass directly to the next level (or to the ending after the last level). You can also press 4 to fast-forward to the boss of the current level.

 

The Stone of Wisdom : During the "CASIO" logo sequence, hold down 1 on the keypad while holding down the right trigger button, and you will become totally immune to damage. Or, still during the "CASIO" logo sequence, hold down 2 on the keypad while holding down the right trigger button to gain the ability to continue after death.

 

Super Pac-Man : Enter 4567 at the title screen to access the secret Classic Pac-Man, which is the MSX port of Pac-Man. While playing Classic Pac-Man, enter 1809 with the keypad to make the 4 blinking power pellets reappear (after Pac-Man has eaten them) or enter 0712 to add one life to your reserves.

 

Mecha-9 : Enter 731 at the title screen to activate the debug mode. Try the keypad keys during the main game to see what they do. :)

 

Caverns of Titan : During the main game, you can add a life to your reserves at any time by pressing 1 on Player 1's controller and 2 on Player 2's controller simultaneously. You can also freeze all enemies on the screen by pressing 3 on Player 1's controller and 4 on Player 2's controller simultaneously. Finally, you can skip to the next level by pressing 5 on Player 1's controller and 6 on Player 2's controller simultaneously. IMPORTANT: For any of these cheats to work, you have to hold down the two keypad buttons until the screen briefly flashes, which takes roughly a second. Oh, and you can also continue after game over by pressing 5 on Player 1's controller, but I haven't tested this so I'm not sure exactly when you're supposed to press 5. Perhaps someone can check? :)

 

Cold Blood : Move the joystick RIGHT, UP, DOWN and RIGHT at the title screen to make the "EXTRA" option appear. Move the menu cursor next to "EXTRA", and press the trigger button to see some bloopers.

 

Deep Dungeon Adventure : Did you know there's a secret game hidden in your Deep Dungeon Adventure cartridge? To access it, hold down the (5) key on both controllers while turning on (or resetting) your console. Have fun!

 

J.E.T.P.A.C. : Hold the joystick up while turning on the console (or while pushing the reset button) to remove the gravity. Also, you can turn your astronaut into a one-hit-kill wonder (making the game incredibly difficult) by holding the joystick right while booting/rebooting the game.

 

Kaboom! : Get infinite lives by entering this code at the title screen: 84572093

 

 

AND NOW, THE LATEST NEWS

 

This can't really be called a Team Pixelboy News Bulletin without some news to report, right? :) You may have noticed that I've kept mostly quiet about the new releases lately, and there are a few reasons for that. First of all, free time has been scarcer than expected these last couple of months, so gluing boxes and assembling carts has been a challenge. I've got most of the boxes glued for the "limited run" (which I mentioned in the previous news bulletin) but very few of the carts have been assembled. Some lucky folks did get their games shipped these past couple of weeks, but they are few.

 

I spent a lot of time gluing boxes and assembling carts of my older games for the AtariAge Store, but in the end it was all for nothing, since Albert was unable to find the time to add those games to his store. They'll probably show up eventually, but I have no idea when.

 

Also, there were some last-minute problems with Ghostbusters that needed to be ironed out: The final ROM worked on the AtariMax SD cart for beta-testing, but didn't work on real MegaCart PCBs. This issue was confirmed to be fixed last week, and a test PCB has been shipped to my beta-tester so that he can test it on his own ColecoVision and ADAM. If it works on his systems, then I will give the green light to have more PCBs of Ghostbusters produced.

 

Wizard of Wor also had some last-minute issues: The programmer found some bugs in his software while porting the game to the MSX, and he gave me the latest ROM with all the bug fixes very recently. This forced me to halt PCB production for that game until my beta-tester could give the game a final round of testing. Everything is okay now, and I received the PCBs a few days ago.

 

So where does that leave us? Well, aside from Ghostbusters being almost ready to ship, there's also the issue of the budget game boxes. I received the boxes of Kaboom! and Remember The Flag a few weeks ago, but I'm afraid the boxes of Pacar won't be delivered to me before the second half of January 2018. As you can imagine, I'm eager to receive that final lot of boxes because then I'll FINALLY be able to ship all the budget boxes to everyone. Those darn boxes are taking up a lot of space in my house!

 

It doesn't make much sense to me to ship boxes full of new games during the Christmas break, and then ship another large lot of empty budget boxes merely a month later. So I contacted all the people who were on the "short list", and they all agreed to wait an extra month so that all their new games and budget game boxes may be shipped together in one large shipping box. This will free up some time for me this week, which I will spend on beta-testing Space Shuttle and do a few other little things.

 

Speaking of little things, see below for a picture of the full stash of Pacar cartridges all assembled and ready. The manuals have also been printed, so I'm really just waiting for the boxes. :)

 

 

This concludes this Team Pixelboy News Bulletin. Tune in one week from now (on January 1st 2018) for another news bulletin! We now return you to your regular forum activities! :D

Thanks. This is very nice! :)

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- How many of them are still actively playing their ColecoVision vs just downloading to put them into an archive?

I still play on my Adam at least once a week.
- How many of them who downloaded have also bought (or would have bought) a boxed copy of the game?
I wanted to buy Frostbite, but never got my act together (have a pact with the wife if I want to buy a new Coleco item I have to sell part of my other classic collection--Atari, C64, etc)
- How many of them are playing on actual hardware versus an emulator versus a Raspberry Pi?
My emulators are on a Mac.
- How many of them found the link from browsing these forums or saw it on a social media page or something like Reddit?
Saw it on FaceBook first, but would have found them on AtariAge soon after had I not seen it there first.
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It's funny how we were all amazed to see 300+ downloads but now it's up to 800+ downloads! I posted the link to this thread on all the social media pages we have, but I'm so curious about the people who have downloaded those ROMs so far...

 

- How many of them are still actively playing their ColecoVision vs just downloading to put them into an archive?

I do weekly. I've been doing reviews for the past 5 or 6 months in a Facebook group.

 

- How many of them who downloaded have also bought (or would have bought) a boxed copy of the game?

I do occasionally and would like to buy more.

 

- How many of them are playing on actual hardware versus an emulator versus a Raspberry Pi?

Real hardware most the time if I own it. Emulation on my Wii if I don't.

 

- How many of them found the link from browsing these forums or saw it on a social media page or something like Reddit?

Saw it on Facebook.

 

My statistics loving brain is going crazy over those numbers! :P

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Will do, again it won't be much but if half the people that downloaded would chip in a little it would probably make it to something considerable.

OK, made good to my promise, hopefully the paypal fees won't eat too much of my meager donation, will see.

 

Now its your turn to donate to nanochess as per pixelboy instructions.

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- How many of them are still actively playing their ColecoVision vs just downloading to put them into an archive?

 

My ADAM doesn't work. Several problems, actually, and I've been toying with getting rid of it altogether, as I really don't have a place to hook it up.

- How many of them who downloaded have also bought (or would have bought) a boxed copy of the game?

 

Depending on my funds, I'd have bought a few of the titles.

- How many of them are playing on actual hardware versus an emulator versus a Raspberry Pi?

 

Currently on CoolCV on my PC. I need to update my RPi

 

 

- How many of them found the link from browsing these forums or saw it on a social media page or something like Reddit?

 

I browse the forums here religiously, but was alerted VIA Facebook.

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It's funny how we were all amazed to see 300+ downloads but now it's up to 800+ downloads! I posted the link to this thread on all the social media pages we have, but I'm so curious about the people who have downloaded those ROMs so far...

 

- How many of them are still actively playing their ColecoVision vs just downloading to put them into an archive?

 

- How many of them who downloaded have also bought (or would have bought) a boxed copy of the game?

 

- How many of them are playing on actual hardware versus an emulator versus a Raspberry Pi?

 

- How many of them found the link from browsing these forums or saw it on a social media page or something like Reddit?

 

My statistics loving brain is going crazy over those numbers! :P

 

- Still do.

 

- It's a digital age. I have many boxed Colecovision titles, both original & homebrew, but at this point I'd be more apt to purchase the rom if available. If Collectorvision said $10 for a rom of Rip Cord, I'm there. For $60 a cart, I'm not so quick to jump for it. I'm very grateful to Luc for what he passes along to us every holiday season. Please don't mistake that we are an ungrateful lot.

 

- I use my original Colecovision which I bought in 1984 but am more often using an emulator on PC or using my NVIDIA Shield handheld & a copy of Colem or Retroarch.

 

- I was first reply. I suspected the post was coming but didn't know it would be that early in the day. I may not post much but I've been here 10 years this month.

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Another bit of info that should be shared is to use the AtariAge Forum search function in the ColecoVision/Adam subforum using the search criteria "Team Pixelboy News Bulletin" to bring up all of Pixelboy's other threads where he has made ROM images of numerous other Homebrew releases available to download freely.

 

Numerous people have asked for rom releases over the years and all it takes is a little work on their part to find them here on AtariAge or a CV/Adam website. Well, except for new releases, but those are eventually released in time.

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It's funny how we were all amazed to see 300+ downloads but now it's up to 800+ downloads! I posted the link to this thread on all the social media pages we have, but I'm so curious about the people who have downloaded those ROMs so far...

 

- How many of them are still actively playing their ColecoVision vs just downloading to put them into an archive?

 

- How many of them who downloaded have also bought (or would have bought) a boxed copy of the game?

 

- How many of them are playing on actual hardware versus an emulator versus a Raspberry Pi?

 

- How many of them found the link from browsing these forums or saw it on a social media page or something like Reddit?

 

 

-I play them all the time;

-My SGM is arriving soon, but I've bought a few of the SGM games anyway, then dumped them to play on CoolCV. Some I'd like to buy are sold out, so it is great for Luc to grant us the opportunity to play some of them for free and buy others through the AA store in the future. I would like to see all the games become available for purchase or download again.

-I play on my hardware mostly, unless I want the ability to modify sensitivities or play with an xbox 360 controller in MAME. Waiting for the SGM to arrive, so left to CoolCV for SGM games.

​-I was actually looking for the Pixelboy newsletter on the forum.

 

​P.S., the controls on Dragon's Lair seem a little hit and miss, or perhaps complex. Instructions of some sort for that game would be appreciated. In the hallway, the sword works sometimes but not always.

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​P.S., the controls on Dragon's Lair seem a little hit and miss, or perhaps complex. Instructions of some sort for that game would be appreciated. In the hallway, the sword works sometimes but not always.

It depends on the skill level you're playing. On skill level 1, you can hold down the joystick (or the sword button) until Dirk actually does the action he's supposed to do. In the higher skill levels, you have to tap the joystick or sword button within a specific window of time. Doing a move outside such windows of opportunity will result in a miss (and death).

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Last night I managed to play around with 5 or 6 of the "freebie" thanks to an AtariMax Ultimate SD and a JB Audio.

I completely forgot how dreadful it is to use the stock CV controllers .... didn't have time to try the SuperAction one ... what do people generally use?

Wrt the games obviously the ports were as I remembered them on their original platform (if there were enhancements they were lost on my nostalgia-laden goggles) but some of the smaller one caught me by surprise and I was having fun. So big thank you and happy to have donated back a little to nanochess as instructed.

 

Now my CV has lost the capability to emit blue (it's all brownish at the moment), I believe it started to happen when I performed the 5V RAM upgrade, if memory serves there's a weird choke/filter discrete thingamabobby on the B-Y (pin35) and R-Y (pin38) lines (when I looked it up I think it was described as 2 resistors and one inductor or viceversa in a PI sort of configuration I believe, made out of discrete components). I vaguely remember damaging the thingamabobby on the B-Y line (by mistake while prying out a RAM chip) and then "repairing it" somewhat. it worked for quite a while until very recently when likely it gave up (I did also the composite mod via amplifier btw but for this playsession I was going via RF) ... anyone knows where to get a replacement?

 

I attach a pic, it's L9 there in the circle with the big arrows pointing at it.

 

post-36731-0-65876600-1514699341_thumb.jpg

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I use a stock CV controller, except that the nub has been replaced with a round knob. For me, it makes the controller 100 times better. I grip the knob with between my right thumb and first finger. It's a very easy change to make, as the nub comes off with a screwdriver, and the knob screws right on the post.

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