A tribute to newcoleco - The Godfather of ColecoVision Homebrew!

[SKELETOR68]

I am by no means a programmer, just very happy with the Homebrew goodies and have no poblem paying cash for your hard work in the Coleco Visions Carts, the idea of games STILL being releast for a 30 year old system? just blows me away, keep up the good work!

[NIAD]

After I sold my original CV & ADAM Collection circa 1998, I followed the happenings of these systems via the Internet and through emulation... albeit very casually. If it wasn't for the efforts of John Dondzila and Daniel Bienvenu, I would have probably lost interest completely.

 

So I want to say...

 

THANK YOU!

 

to Daniel for everything that you have done for the CV and CV Community over the years and I hope for many more years of involvement in the CV Community by yourself and all the other tremendous Homebrewers.

[tabachanker2]

Merci à toi Daniel de m'avoir permis de réaliser un de mes rêves, de programmer un jeu sur ma console favorite. Grâce à toi, j'ai découvert l'univers du "Colecovision homebrew". Quand j'ai vu pour la première fois ton superbe jeu Dac-Man, ça m'a donné le goût d'essayer moi-même. Grâce à ton aide précieuse j'ai pu réaliser mes 2 premières versions de Penguin Land et Lode Runner. Je t'en suis éternellement reconnaissant!

[+Gemintronic]

Has anyone mentioned how rad his soundtrack covers are? I still fire up his take on Space Harrier to this day

[Kiwi]

Has anyone mentioned how rad his soundtrack covers are? I still fire up his take on Space Harrier to this day

This is why I'm so eager to play Flora and the Ghost Mirror, is the sound track. I have this excitement with Shin'en's game because they make pretty good music tracks for their games. His music reminds me a lot of David Wise and Graeme Norgate Gameboy music tracks in their games. Daniel's music talent is up there with these 2 guys .

[Dr. D.]

Daniel is very dedicated to the ColecoVision. He has dragged us old ADAMites along for the ride (though to be fair, we have dragged him into the ADAM world too). I am glad that he has been attending the recent ADAMcons, because it's nice to have some fellow programmers/technical people to talk to. Except for me and hardhat and Doug Slopsema, there were no programmers left in our corner of the ADAM world. I have been very happy to share stuff I have accumulated over the years (such as the ColecoVision Programmers Manual and the original OS-7 commented assembly listings) with Daniel, since he was much better positioned to make use of it than me. I was also very happy to give him the homebrew cartridge prize that I made for this year's Mighty Mitchell Award at ADAMcon 25, even though I technically won the contest I think it's very appropriate for "the Godfather of ColecoVision Homebrew".

 

With many thanks for your contributions, and hoping you can continue to amaze us (while still having fun for yourself),

 

*Dr. D.*

Edited August 28, 2013 by Dr. D.

[retroillucid]

The CV Homebrew Godfather

[newcoleco]

Thank you all again for this tribute, it is really really appreciated.

 

The CV Homebrew Godfather

 

I like the picture, it needs a little more work to be perfect but as is it's already nice. For an entire day, I've listened to the GodFather theme and I was crying, not only because it's a beautiful song but because of what is going on in my family right now.

 

 

NEWS

 

I've shown this tribute page to my mother who doesn't read english well but some parts in french she understood. She was happy to see all the people taking time typing good words about me and my CV projects. She is proud of her son.

 

The following is the last email I will ever get from my mother and it's her response regarding the tribute. Reading it makes me cry every time

 

 

 

Moi aussi je t'aime et je suis très fière de toutes les belles choses que tu as faites avec Coleco Vision. Je ne doute pas une seconde que partout dans le monde les gens aiment ce que tu fais du côté musique et jeux car tu aimes tellement ça et je t'encourage à continuer.

J'espère que tu recevras beaucoup de témoignages car tu le mérites bien.

Je te serre dans mes bras Daniel et te dis que je t'aime énormément et Merci pour tes soins que tu me donnes avec Dominique.

Bonne soirée.

Maman

 

 

Last news about my mother, she is back at the hospital, palliative care, no coming back home this time, under morphine drug, not really there, waiting to die. It's heartbreaking, really heartbreaking. It is a very hard for me and my family and I hope you understand my current feelings

[+5-11under]

God's peace, Daniel, to you and your family.

[DoctorTom]

Daniel, I am very moved by that letter. Thank you for sharing it with us. It's never easy to lose family. My thoughts and prayers are with you.

Edited September 17, 2013 by DoctorTom

[Pixelboy]

Prend ça un jour à la fois, Daniel. On est là avec toi, virtuellement parlant.

[+nanochess]

My thoughts are with you, Daniel, in these difficult moments.

[retroillucid]

Mes pensés sont avec toi et ta famille

On est tous derière toi, Daniel

[newcoleco]

I don't care if you like it or now but I just love you all.

You make me feel proud and happy , feel accepted and appreciated by so many. I can't name you all but you know who you are and thank you from the bottom of my heart.

 

Special thanks to retrogamers communities like the CCJVQ (Sylvain deChantal, Steve Begin, Pascal Reeves, Serge-Eric Tremblay, etc.), Silicium, ADAMCon (special thanks Dr. D, Dale Wick, Rich Clee and Frances, etc.), DigitalPress (Joe Santulli, Sean Kelly), GoodDealGames, and of course AtariAge (Albert and so many more). Special thanks to all of the current active homebrewers, you are keeping the scene alive in a beautiful way, helping eachothers, offering new games and new hardware. Thanks to Youtube gaming community, reviewers, retrogamers, who with passion is bringing back to life games from the past, consoles from the past (MaximumRD, Gamester81, CorporalColeco, 65gamerguy, etc.) it is entertaining and great fun.

 

My childhood dream came true the minute DACMAN was released in cartridges back in summer 2000 (thanks to John Donzila and CGE2K). It was a long journey exploring libraries and experimenting computer programming during the 80s and 90s to finaly get to this point of accomplishment. The game DACMAN was sadly first released buggy but nobody is perfect and the bug was fixed not long after for the big release of the game. I made my own tools and games with the coleco devkit by Marcel deKogel. During years, I made new ColecoVision games, met new people, and I've improved my style and knowledge, developping new tools, and writing some documentations that I made available to all of you in the hope that you give it a try. I sadly didn't kept my word of releasing a new CV game every year, that was my objective, I just couldn't do it. I've tried to be there, answering questions, helping others to get started and fixing bugs because it's a fun hobby when it works, and provide files and various data to those who needed them. Lately, I was more involved into music and sound effects which are greatly appreciated and I hope others will do the same eventually and be sound experts too.

Thank you all for your good words and support!

I hope you will excuse my tears now... it is a very emotional time for me today because I will see my mother alive for a last time.

I'm transmiting to her all your positive thoughts, she is proud of her son and want me to continue in my passion.

I'm taking a break to take care of my family... see you later!

[youki]

Je ne sais jamais quoi dire dans ces moments là. Tu m'a mis les larmes aux yeux.

 

Mes pensées sont avec toi , ta maman et tes proches.

 

Courage.

[VGC1612]

C'est très comprenable,prend le temps qui faut!La famille avant tout.Bon courage dans cette dure épreuve,mes pensées sont avec toi!

[tabachanker2]

Je suis vraiment désolé également d'apprendre cette triste nouvelle Daniel. Mes pensées sont également avec toi.

[NIAD]

C'est très comprenable,prend le temps qui faut!La famille avant tout.Bon courage dans cette dure épreuve,mes pensées sont avec toi!

I guess the "cat is outta the bag" re. your Avatar picture.

[RKGames]

Dan, So sorry i'm chiming in on this thread so late in game! Thanks for all your hard work and contributions to the coleco community! Without your work I would have never been able to realized my own dream to create games for this platform! If it was not for your dev kit and amazing tile / sprite editor i would never had been able to create Side Trak, not to mention i see the game just won best music for 2012 releases and that award is for you, for your amazing composition of 8bit music!!! Thank you again for all the years of your life you devoted to this community and for giving others like myself the chance to make games for a system that was otherwise out of reach for the average coder! I will be sure to give you a credit in every future coleco game i release as a thank you!

 

Take care,

Russ