Pixelboy Posted November 1, 2015 Share Posted November 1, 2015 Greeting ColecoVision fanatics! Today's News Bulletin is a general update about everything's that's going on with Team Pixelboy, and it explains how recent events are now forcing me to change my release plans. I'll be sending an e-mail to all the people who pre-ordered Team Pixelboy games and this e-mail will contain a link to this forum thread, so everyone will get the chance to read the exact same (and complete) information. THE CURRENT STATE OF AFFAIRS As I write this, all paid pre-orders for the September releases have been shipped, and I'm just waiting for a few more customers to pay for their orders. I was really expecting to have the order processing behind me by the end of September. The shipping delays were mostly caused by the late delivery of the electronics of the Knightmare cartridges, and I got busy processing orders and shipping packages as soon as the Knightmare carts were all fully assembled. Right now, I have 8 unsold copies of Front Line SCE, and once those are sold, I won't be making any more. I also have a small bunch of copies of Boxxle still available, a dozen copies of Spelunker, a dozen copies of The Stone of Wisdom, and I only have 6 copies left of Knightmare. I can make more of those games, but I will only do so when the Christmas games are close to being ready to ship, and they will be shipped together with the new releases. The same applies to new copies of my past releases (like Dragon's Lair, Buck Rogers Super Game, etc.): I will take pre-orders for these games as they come, but I will make new copies of them only when the Christmas games are close to being ready to ship. LOST MONTH = NO MERRY CHRISTMAS The fact that it took a whole month longer than anticipated to ship the September games has thrown off my release plans. With only two months to go before the end of the year, it's pretty much a sure thing that I won't have time to get the next batch of Team Pixelboy releases ready in time for Christmas. As the pictures attached at the end of this post demonstrate, the boxes and the cartridge labels of the Christmas games are printed and ready, but I've hardly begun working on any of the manuals for those games. Here's a recap of the upcoming Christmas releases: - Ghostbusters - Super Pac-Man - Caos Begins - Majikazo - Knight Lore - Mappy - Rally-X - Gauntlet - Mecha-9 - Operation Wolf The status of Ghostbusters is still up in the air right now, as the bugs in the software have yet to be fixed. Gauntlet's status is also currently uncertain at this point in time, with the MSX port still baking in the oven and not yet ready for beta-testing. On the other hand, all the other games have passed the beta-testing phase (except for Mecha-9, but that one is almost done) and this is encouraging news. 100 initial copies of each of the 10 games listed above means 1000 boxes to glue together, and doing 50 boxes per day means that I'll be glueing boxes for 20 days straight! That's almost a month, and then I have to assemble 1000 carts to put in those boxes. So if I get started on this big job in early January, these games could very well not be ready to ship before mid-February! School work is quite manageable this semester (especially compared to last summer's crazy rollercoaster) and I'm pretty sure I can get all the manuals prepared (and perhaps even printed) by the end of December, but there's no way I can glue together so many boxes and assemble so many cartridges in time for Christmas, in addition to preparing the manuals. Of course, I could split my Christmas release list and release only 4 or 5 games this Christmas and the rest in 2016. But I don't want to do that, for three reasons: 1) Given the choice between rushing to get 5 games ready in time for Christmas (and spending the Holidays processing orders and making multiple runs at the post office) and taking my time to prepare the contents of 10 manuals, I'd rather relax and do a good job on the manuals. 2) If Opcode Games ships the second run of Super Game Modules to customers before the end of 2015 as planned, that could mean more orders for past Team Pixelboy releases as well as upcoming titles. I'd rather let that "wave" come and deal with it as plain pre-order paperwork instead of constantly revising and second-guessing my production plans to meet the new demand. 3) I will want to put a significant amount of energy into finding a job after my current university semester is over, and I would prefer to have all 10 manuals done before diving into that particular challenge. THE 2016 RELEASE SCHEDULE If the Christmas releases end up shipping in February 2016 (can I even still call them Christmas releases at this point?) the rest of the Team Pixelboy releases planned for 2016 will be pushed back as a result. These future releases are: - Space Shuttle - A Journey Into Space - Secret of the Moai - C-So! - King & Balloon - Mystery Game #1 - Mystery Game #2 - Jewel Panic The original plan was to have all these titles ready by April 2016, but now I don't think I'll be able to get a single one of them ready by the end of May 2016. So they will probably be released in September 2016 instead. That's certainly not good news, but production logicstics are what they are. Rest assured I won't rest until all these games are released, but it's going to take time. ARE YOU IN THE MOOD FOR SPENDING MONEY ON A PROTOTYPE CART? If you had a look at the pictures attached below, you surely noticed the five prototype carts of Super Tank. The SG-1000 game was ported to the ColecoVision by Mystery Man, and these carts will be put under auction on eBay between now and Christmas. Almost all the eBay earnings will go to Mystery Man (I'll be keeping a small percentage for myself). I'm waiting for one final piece of packaging for these prototype carts, and once I receive this final piece, I will promptly put these carts on eBay, so do keep an eye out for them! FOOTNOTE OF HOPE The two mystery games are progressing nicely (and yes, I now know what Mystery Game #2 is) and it looks like I'll be able to announce them officially on Christmas morning. Don't ask me for any clues, I'm keeping my mouth shut. You'll just have to wait and see. But I can tell you one thing at least: These games will be worth the wait. This concludes this Team Pixelboy News Bulletin. We now return you to your regular forum activities. 13 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPR Posted November 1, 2015 Share Posted November 1, 2015 I don't mind that some things end up taking longer than expected. What I mind is the lack of communication when things like that happen. Thankfully, you've always been on top of that! Looking forward to all these games! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaymiester Posted November 1, 2015 Share Posted November 1, 2015 Thanks for the update....and more importantly, thanks for everything you do for the ColecoVision community!! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhoenixMoonPatrol Posted November 2, 2015 Share Posted November 2, 2015 Thanks for the update and the pics look soooo good. Its understandable that delays happen. School along with wanting to enjoy the holidays can make for juggling your time abit crazy. Nice update,Team PixelBoy is giving Santa a run for his money Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixelboy Posted November 2, 2015 Author Share Posted November 2, 2015 In case anyone's wondering, I haven't started sending e-mails to all my customers just yet. I'll be doing this tomorrow morning, unless "real life" gets in the way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youki Posted November 2, 2015 Share Posted November 2, 2015 I 'm looking in the crystal ball (yes , there is a crystal ball in the picture above, it is in that one you have to look!... i know it is hard) and i can announce : Mystery Game #2 is Mega Man and Mystery Game #1 is Zelda. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiLic0ne t0aD Posted November 2, 2015 Share Posted November 2, 2015 ^ we can only hope! Both of those games (especially Zelda) on CV would be a dream come true! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FibroFreak78 Posted November 2, 2015 Share Posted November 2, 2015 Couple more Months for my gauntlet is worth it (seeing as I STILL don't have my sgm yet anyhow ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ikrananka Posted November 2, 2015 Share Posted November 2, 2015 I think everyone appreciates the incredible amount of work required to put such an large list of games together - and all of this in your "spare" time. I for one am quite happy to wait for the releases to materialize whenever they do - Team Pixelboy always delivers, unlike the vapourware promised by Coleco back in the day 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ransom Posted November 2, 2015 Share Posted November 2, 2015 Must....have.....Rally-X. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cimerians Posted November 2, 2015 Share Posted November 2, 2015 Want Rally X, Mappy and Super Pac-Man! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scobb Posted November 3, 2015 Share Posted November 3, 2015 Awesome and thanks! Scott Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KAZ Posted November 3, 2015 Share Posted November 3, 2015 Couple more Months for my gauntlet is worth it (seeing as I STILL don't have my sgm yet anyhow ) Save keys to open doors Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FibroFreak78 Posted November 3, 2015 Share Posted November 3, 2015 More like "Valkyrie is about to die" lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Darrin9999 Posted November 3, 2015 Share Posted November 3, 2015 First set of games arrived safe and sound! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiLic0ne t0aD Posted November 6, 2015 Share Posted November 6, 2015 My Pixelboy games arrived in record breaking time, about 4 days.. Wow! I just played through all of them real quick, I'm impressed. Boxes and manuals look awesome too. I'm glued to playing Boxxle right now. :-) Thanks for the games! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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