Pixelboy Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 Happy New Year, ColecoVisionites! May this year bring all of us renewed hope and a gradual (and hopefully hastened) return to normal from the shitty year that was 2020. Good riddance I say! On a personal level, 2021 will be my last truly "busy" year for ColecoVision homebrewing. But before I get into what will be keeping me busy this year, I'd like to begin this news bulletin with a rather significant announcement! AN INHERITANCE OF SORTS As I have explained previously (last August to be exact) I only have enough cartridge shells to manufacture my upcoming Team Pixelboy titles, and so I had decided to cease taking pre-orders for all my previously-released games. I'm still getting occasional requests from ColecoVision fans who want to purchase these games, and I found it rather sad that I could not cater to this demand. So over the last month or so, I've been setting up a "passing of the guard" for my Team Pixelboy games. Aside from very minor details, everything has been worked out, and so I can now announce that CollectorVision, Opcode Games and the AtariAge Store will be the "second generation publishers" of my past releases. The arrangement goes as follows: Opcode Games: Bank Panic Circus Charlie Front Line SCE Ghostbusters (SGM) Golgo 13 Gulkave King & Balloon (SGM) King's Valley (SGM) Knightmare (SGM) Konami's Ping-Pong Mappy (SGM) Mopiranger Ninja Princess Rally-X (SGM) Secret of the Moai (SGM) Star Force The Goonies (SGM) Thexder (SGM) Track & Field TwinBee (SGM) Wonder Boy AtariAge Store: The Black Onyx Boxxle Arcomage (SGM) Jewel Panic CollectorVision: 1942 (SGM) Bomber King (SGM) Booming Boy (SGM) Buck Rogers Super Game (SGM) Caos Begins (SGM) Champion Pro Wrestling (from the budget series) Children of the Night (SGM) C-So! Deep Dungeon Adventure (SGM) (from the budget series) Dragon's Lair (SGM) Flicky Frostbite (from the budget series) Gauntlet (SGM) Ghost (SGM) Girl's Garden Kaboom! (from the budget series) Knight Lore (SGM) Kralizec Tetris (from the budget series) Majikazo (SGM) Mecha-8 (SGM optional) Mecha-9 (SGM optional) Module Man Multiverse Operation Wolf (SGM) Pacar (from the budget series) Princess Quest Prisoner of War (SGM) QBIQS (SGM) Quest for the Golden Chalice Remember The Flag (from the budget series) R-Type (SGM) Spelunker (SGM) Subroc Super Game (SGM) Super Pac-Man (SGM) The Cure The Stone of Wisdom (SGM) Uridium (SGM) Wizard of Wor (SGM) Zaxxon Super Game (SGM) Zombie Incident (SGM) The list above does not automatically mean that new copies of ALL these games will be manufactured, but the decision to make new copies is officially left to those publishers as presented above. So for example, I have no more boxes of Princess Quest and Quest for the Golden Chalice, so if CollectorVision wants to make more copies, they'll have to print their own boxes, perhaps with new box artwork. Eduardo (of Opcode Games) has stated that he wants to released at least some of these games with his own sets of boxes, and may even make minor software alterations. I have no say (and no responsability) in those matters. So if there are any titles in the above lists that you're looking to buy, I invite you to contact the attached publishers and make your interests known, so that they know which games are worth making new copies of. I don't know if they'll accept taking official pre-orders immediately, or what kind of price tag they will put on those games, that's entirely up to them. It should also be noted that, out of respect for the new "owners" of these games, I will not be releasing the ROMs next Christmas for The Cure, 1942, Ghost, Prisoner of War, R-Type, Bomber King, Arcomage and Jewel Panic. This will allow CollectorVision to decide if they want to release some of these ROMs as part of their future "vault offerings". CONCENTRATING ON THE FUTURE With my old titles in good hands, I can focus on my upcoming releases. The next batch will of course be the Mystery Man Collection. The boxes, cartridge labels and cartridge shells are ready, and I also finished the manual templates last week so I plan to get the manuals printed in January. That leaves only the electronics, which I am now sure I will be receiving in January, so the nine games of the collection should be ready to ship sometime around the end of February or early March 2021. However, I should take a moment to issue a small yet important warning: The boxes of the Mystery Man Collection were shipped to me from Germany in the middle of the first months of the pandemic, right when international postal services were the most disrupted. The boxes ended up being shipped by boat instead of by plane, and so they stayed in storage for quite a while. During this extended transit time, the boxes were subject to friction with the padding foam which caused many boxes to have the red ink scraped off slightly along the edges. I attached a picture at the bottom of this post to show what this slight damage looks like. I need to say that I decided not to get those boxes reprinted, and I will ship them as-is. Sorry if this may irritate some people, but we're talking minor scraping, with a few rare instances where the scraping is more noticeable. Such unforeseen problems is what happens in the merry world of homebrewing, and if that's a real issue for anyone, then he should cancel his pre-orders for these games right away, because I'm going ahead with shipping these games with those boxes as soon as I can. WHEN YOU WISH UPON... AN ASTEROID In parallel to the Mystery Man Collection, I will also be working on Asteroids. On the software side of things, the game is practically done and works beautifully, but still requires some beta-testing to iron out some minor bugs. The boxes are printed and ready, and so aside from preparing the manual and getting the carts manufactured, the release date will actually depend on our friend doubledown who will be working on churning out many Asteroids Controllers over the first half of the year. So things are looking good for a summer release, but I can't promise anything because the project's timeline is not set in stone yet. I should mention that I also struck a quick deal with Mystery Man to hack some legacy games so that they work with the Asteroids Controller without needing any keypad input. I believe I've mentioned this before. The games in question are Carnival, Space Fury, Omega Race, Smurf, Cabbage Patch Kids - Adventures in the Park, B.C.'s Quest for Tires, Star Trek and Victory. They will be offered as ROMs only (for a small price) to those who bought an Asteroids Controller. So those people will need an AtariMax cartridge to play them on real hardware. Oh, and another very special ROM will likely be added to the games listed in the previous paragraph, but I want to keep it as a surprise for release day! THIS SHIELD BETWEEN US I'm very happy to make this brand new game announcement, and I added this new game to teampixelboy.com: I'm talking about Star Castle! This game will be designed to work with the Asteroids Controller and also with regular hand controllers, just like Asteroids. Software coding hasn't started yet, but the boxes are already printed, and I'll prepare the manual once software development is far enough along. Coding should start after Mystery Man is done with Asteroids and the legacy game hacks mentioned above, so the game will likely ship during the second half of the year. I expect those with Asteroids Controllers will surely want this game! A quick note while we're on the subject, just for the sake of full disclosure: The box scraping problem I mentioned on the boxes of the Mystery Man Collection is also present on the boxes of Asteroids and Star Castle, but with the light grey color on those boxes, the scraping is much less noticeable. HOW ABOUT ANOTHER GAME FOR THE ASTEROIDS CONTROLLER? Recently, I casually came across a YouTube video that showcased an arcade cabinet of Armor Attack, and as I noticed the button-only controls, I thought that this would be a great game to play with the Asteroids Controller. I very recently found someone who is willing to code the game for me (Mystery Man already has more than enough on his plate) and so I bought a promo flyer of Armor Attack, which I'll be using for the box art. I'll post updates on this new project later this year, as it progresses. LET US NOT FORGET THE TRADING CARDS Over the last week (between Christmas and New Year's Day) I was able to get more card templates done for the ColecoVision Trading Card project. I'm currently at 98 front sides done, and I should be able to do at least 25 more this week-end, so I'll have 40 card front sides left to do. I'll be putting some hours into the remaining templates over the next couple of months, as time permits. Once the front sides of the cards are all done, I should be able to make quick work of the back sides, and I'm hoping to get the first series of 165 trading cards printed before next summer. ALREADY THINKING OF NEXT CHRISTMAS For the second half of the year, with a release date of Christmas 2021 in mind, I'll be working on finishing Space Shuttle (once and for all!) and I will also try to work with Mystery Man on the one-player-versus-AI mode in Utopia. With everything I have planned ahead, I'm really not sure I'll be able to get any serious work done on Arabian, so that will be a project for 2022 I'm afraid. This concludes this Team Pixelboy News Bulletin. We now return you to your regular forum activities. 19 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPR Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 This is all wonderful news! Happy New Year to everyone! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mingus Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 Happy New Year, Pixelboy! Looks like, although you are passing the torch in your past releases, you have plenty to keep you busy! We are looking forward to all of it! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alekmaul Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 Happy new year ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric R Smith Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 Thank you for all you do for our community! Excited that the "torch" is being passed on, and left in great hands! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youki Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 (edited) Happy new year Luc! and all Edited January 1, 2021 by youki Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AMIGAJEFF Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 2021 is looking good. Happy New Year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+nanochess Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 Happy new year Luc! Nice news all around Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ten-four Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 Thank you Luc. And Happy New Year. I still hope for your Arabian 2022 project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sn8k Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 I really want GP World ? How ever, if Utopia gets a 1 player mode. I definitly want a copy of that too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sn8k Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 BTW Happy New Year, you werent kidding when you said it was a huge announcement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZillaRUSH Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 Great start to 2021...thanks Luc!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hitogify Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 Thanks for all you do Team Pixelboy! I'm curious about Joust? What are the plans for it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobby Nelson Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 (edited) Dovetailing on that last post, what will become of all of the other games that were not listed as being divided up amongst other publishers?? Edited January 1, 2021 by Bobby Nelson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobby Nelson Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 I think I got everything here but just for kicks I made a list of all the games that aren't on the transfer list. 1)Peek-a-boo 2) Pitfall II arcade 3) Destructor 4) Super action soccer 5) battle of hoth 6) joust 7) Nether dungeon and the following Games from the budget series: 1) Caverns of titan 2) Cold blood 3) Danger tower 4) Heros arena 5) J.E.T.P.A.C 6) Remember the flag 7) Shmup 8 ) Shouganai 9) Stray cat 10) Sudoku 11) Traffic Jam 12) Txupinazo. Pixelboy are you able to comment on the fate of these games? Thanks for everything you do, and have done for the gaming community! Hopefully these games won't just fade away, there are a handful on this list I'd love to have a cartridge of. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixelboy Posted January 1, 2021 Author Share Posted January 1, 2021 Thanks for the list, Bobby, it seems I copy-and-pasted an incomplete list in my original post. All the games of the Budget Series have been handed over to CollectorVision. Same goes for Pitfall II Arcade and Destructor SCE. Since he already has a "working relationship" with Sean Kelly, I let Albert have Joust, but he will need to print his own boxes, as I'm all out of boxes for that game. Peek-a-boo has been pretty much abandoned, I can't see anyone but hardcore collectors purchasing this children's game, and I believe I'm out of boxes anyway. Super Action Soccer was a limited release, only 5 copies were ever made. Same goes for Nether Dungeon, which was limited to 50 copies. If anyone wants Nether Dungeon just to play the game, they should just get Deep Dungeon Adventure, since it's basically the same game. Battle of Hoth is in limbo, I don't know who would want to publish more copies of this game, given the legal particularities. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Dutch Colecovision Fan Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 Happy New Year to all of you! Don't worry about the boxes. My collection isn't in a pristine condition. And far from complete....still missing a few Pixelboy titles. Hopefully most of them will be brought back to life. Maybe Opcode and Collectorvision can tell us later on what their plans are for the future? I sure do have a want list for some older titles. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPR Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 1 hour ago, Pixelboy said: Battle of Hoth is in limbo, I don't know who would want to publish more copies of this game, given the legal particularities. That is most certainly a concern for sure, but... Given the fact that there is just an INSANE volume of homemade Star Wars stuff that sells on Etsy and other places and the fact that neither Disney or Lucasfilm does anything about it, I would have to think that a game made for a platform that flies mostly under the radar and wouldn't be worth Disney's legal department to go after, probably would be in the "safe" zone. Disney is not known for going after many of the people who make knock-off branded items. I remember having a conversation with one of the Disney Consumer Products people not that long ago (A division of the company I actually worked for) and they told me that they aren't worried about Etsy items and if anything, they felt it helps strengthen their brand. Just some words for thought... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youki Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 Concerning Battle of Hoth , it is my game and i don't wish that game be transferred to one of these publishers. I have other plans. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariBrian Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 8 minutes ago, youki said: Concerning Battle of Hoth , it is my game and i don't wish that game be transferred to one of these publishers. I have other plans. And what may these plans be? ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retroillucid Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 16 minutes ago, Dutch Colecovision Fan said: ...Maybe Collectorvision can tell us later on what their plans are for the future?.... We'll re-release all of them (the ones transfered to us) 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobby Nelson Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 Pixelboy thank you for the clarification! I’m thrilled and grateful that I’ll be able to get all the games I’ve been wanting! Those few that will fade into history I totally understand why and it’s all good. (Naw I wasn’t planning on buying a copy of peek-a-boo lol) again thank you Pixelboy for all the great work you’ve done for the CV community! I’m looking forward to getting my pre-orders from the mystery man collection when they’re ready! Thank you Pixelboy, Opcode, Albert/AA, and Collectorvision for picking up the mantle! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrekMD Posted January 2, 2021 Share Posted January 2, 2021 I'm new to the ColecoVision, so it is good to see this. Happy New Year! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Sargon Posted January 2, 2021 Share Posted January 2, 2021 This is great news, as there are a few games on your list that I have been unsuccessfully trying to locate. I'm ready to give Collectorvision (and others) my money, and am also waiting patiently for Asteroids and the controller! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WaveRider1970 Posted January 2, 2021 Share Posted January 2, 2021 That is great to see that that the TPB games legacy will continue. Amazing homebrew products for sure! Constant high quality until... 2020 but you are right, it is unfortunate for the scratches but they are very small. Bonne année!... and keep the "Bonne Chance" for next year. Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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