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So, I like a Color Dreams Game


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So I went to my local game store today. They've been getting a lot of Color Dreams games in lately (I think someone unloaded their whole collection). All the mind-numbingly terrible titles quickly sold. While I've not played the likes of Raid2020 and Pesterminator and so forth, I knew enough to pass up on them due to their reputation.

 

But today they had a copy of Captain Comic in the case, the only light blue cart left. I had an hour to burn before having to pick up my wife at work, so I asked to try it for a laugh. While it's not the new Contra or anything, the game was surprising well made. The graphics were clean and easy to distinguish, the controls felt nice, and the gameplay was genuinely fun.

 

The hour slipped by quickly, and I ended up buying it. I never would have thought I'd own a Color Dreams game, as I'm not a completionist...I only collect games I actually play...but I'm actually really proud to have this game.

 

I'm looking forward to having a fun weekend with this and the new Data East titles I picked up over the last couple days.

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Fear not!

 

Your secret is safe with me! haha ..

 

Wait a minute! I Like a Color Dreams game! OK I gotta run in the other room just to even see what that game is called...I've only played it a time or two, but thought it was neato....I know it's light blue too! BRB..OK it's called... drum roll please...Oh wait, better not hype it...

 

It's called Galactic Crusader...Kind of an '80s style space shooter...Right up my alley.

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From what I've seen, there are two types of Color Dreams/Wisdom Tree games :

Their in-house games, and the ones they bought/made from other companies.

Their in-house games seems better, with games like Spiritual Warfare or Menace Beach, and outsources games from companies like Sachen or Van Joy.

Captain Comic is an exception as it is a port of a PC game. Ironically, Captain Comic's programmer made this game to prove that PC could do scrollings games like the NES could do.

The orginal PC game is a solid platformer, and the NES port translate it rather well, so it's no surprise you like it.

 

Micheal Denio wrote a sequel to Captain Comic on PC, then stopped writing games as his "goal" of showcasing the PC capabilities were fullfiled.

Apparently, Color Dream wanted to work on more NES games with him but he refused.

Edited by CatPix
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I've wanted p'radikus conflict for a while--even have an ebay followed search for it.

Not sure it's fun, but it looks fun.

I have it and play it from time to time. It's sort of a cross between and RPG and a shooter. It's not bad for what it is.

The only real problem I have with it is that there's no way to save your progress.

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I'm glad I read this thread, I don't think I have ever played Captain Comic for more than a minute. As a Color Dreams game goes, it is surprisingly playable. I did appreciate the (imperfect) adaptation of classical pieces like Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca early in the game.

 

The NES game is superior to the PC original for more than one reason. The PC game was released on May 1, 1988 according to the readme included with Revision 5 of the game. The author stated his intention in the readme :

 

"The Adventures of Captain Comic started out as an experiment to test the viability of two theories, the first as to whether a real arcade type game can be done on a standard IBM PC with an EGA card, and secondly, given the first can be done, if it is possible to make any money doing it. Well, I've come to a conclusion on the second point, but I'll let you judge the first point for yourself."

 

Unfortunately for him, Thexder had already been ported to the IBM PC platform in late 1987. Thexder is able to do scrolling just as well as Captain Comic. Thexder does not have a large border on all four sides of the play area, but does not have background images on which "sprites" can be overlayed. Both games use a tile scrolling method instead of a true pixel scrolling method. Thexder was very successful, indicating that his second conclusion was incorrect. However, he did release it for free with perks for registering it.

 

Captain Comic 2 was released in October of 1990, but it used the same tile scrolling engine. Unfortunately, Commander Keen was right around the corner, released in December of 1990. Keen used true pixel scrolling and made CC's engine totally obsolete. No wonder it failed to sell, even though it is a more complex game.

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Obviously, the NES is more capable than the PC of the era, especially if taking EGA as a limit.

For Michael Denio's conclusion, I think he meant that HE could make money out of it, not that PC game with scrolling could make money - previous PC games already proved successul, even CGA games, like Leisure Suit Larry, Sokoban, Alley cat...

There is a possibility that Denio wasn't aware of Thexder; also, it's also possible that his statement was true when he started to work on captain Comic, and became invalid when Thexder was released... at which point he only had to carry on and keep going to release his game rather than scrap it.

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My local game store has a few light blue-colored NES games. It has P'radikus Conflict, but they wanted $70 for it. They also had a game with obviously Saddam Hussein on the cover and they're asking $150 for it. I know some NES games are rare, but I didn't know people charged more than $100 for just one game.

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My local game store has a few light blue-colored NES games. It has P'radikus Conflict, but they wanted $70 for it. They also had a game with obviously Saddam Hussein on the cover and they're asking $150 for it. I know some NES games are rare, but I didn't know people charged more than $100 for just one game.

 

Yeah, the Pesterminator game they wanted 50 for, and they wanted 150 for some Menace Beach game. They're not cheap.

 

Ironically enough, some of their better games tend to be the cheapest. Capt Comic was only 12 bucks. Probably because they sold more, thus are easier to find.

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I'm often intrigued, yet amazed at what games go for these days...

 

There was a very nice display from a game store in Loveland, at the Pinball Showdown in Denver yesterday...Loveland, CO is about an hour from my house so I took a business card and will keep them in mind...I had talked them down to $30 for a Conan: The Mysteries of Time cart for NES, but I decided to hold off. I wasn't even sure what that cart went for ...But having checked just now it's $42 at minimum on ebay...I have no idea if that game is any good but I always kind of wanted it for some reason. Anyway I decided to go back at 11PM an hour before the games were shut off but they'd already packed it up for the night...

 

That same store had a $1400 SNES game! It was some competition cart featuring some BMX game I don't think I recognized...And they had Both Magical Chase and Dynastic Hero for Turbografx 16! But I was really bargain hunting, not rolling in hundred dollar bills, so those I could only look at and dream...Actually I told them, Well at least I already have Dynastic Hero for PC Engine....I'm thinking it was $999...And I want to say Magical Chase was $499...

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BITD, I remember I rented DeathBots and got it home and marveled at the packaging thinking "This is an unlicensed game!" Of course I had no idea at that time how Nintendo was being monopolistic or what their licensing agreements or QC meant...And my friend had Gauntlet and I had Vindicators- both Unlicensed as they were Tengen games.

 

Then my friend suggested we call the "Nintendo Hotline". Anybody remember that? He told me they could tell us about any game secrets or cheat codes. So we called them up and asked about these games and they told us, "oh Those are unlicensed games; We only have tips and cheat codes for licensed Nintendo games"...

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  • 2 weeks later...

I rented Baby Boomer back in the day and liked it. I think part of that was somehow thinking it was scandalous to play an unlicensed rental. I think the store even somehow promoted it as such.

I got Baby Boomer too. It's fun for a couple levels before the game gets frustrating. You can shoot enemies with the Zapper as well as the Dpad, in fact two players can join in cooperatively! My other blue cartridge is Bible Adventures.

 

Overall the unlicensed set is kind of a mixed bag, but some fun to be had. I am actually a pretty big fan of AVE Mermaids of Atlantis, the PG version of Bubble Bath Babes. It tells a charming story about the evil emperor and his quest to seal off games in magic bubbles, much to the dismay of the merpeople. Basically the story is a huge parody of Nintendo's monopolistic practices. Wally Bear and the NO gang is a neat piece of anti-drug propiganda that makes a semi decent platformer. I also got Maxi-15 which is kind of a bore honestly as none of the titles really stood out as good. Other standouts are Quattro Adventure, Bee-52, and Micro Machines from Camerica. I recently picked up Big Nose just two days ago. Have not played it yet.

 

Tengen is on par with most 3rd party licensed developers of the day, and the black versions of Ms Pacman and Tetris are amazing and very different from the licensed variants. They also ported over a handful of SMS exclusives like Shinobi and Fantasy Zone.

 

That same store had a $1400 SNES game! It was some competition cart featuring some BMX game I don't think I recognized...And they had Both Magical Chase and Dynastic Hero for Turbografx 16! But I was really bargain hunting, not rolling in hundred dollar bills, so those I could only look at and dream...Actually I told them, Well at least I already have Dynastic Hero for PC Engine....I'm thinking it was $999...And I want to say Magical Chase was $499...

Are you sure you didn't mean $1499 or $2499? Magical Chase is more like $2000-3000 bucks online, even loose. $500 would be an absolute steal for that game. Sadly my Magical Chase is only a repro:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/237235-the-official-turbografx-16-thread/?p=3537853

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Kosmic Stardust: Are you sure you didn't mean $1499 or $2499? Magical Chase is more like $2000-3000 bucks online,

 

I might be wrong on that price, as I'm totally going off of memory here. I don't have 5 bills laying around right now, but if anyone wanted to call them, They're called Games Ahoy (North and South locations) 970-800-3285, or 970-685-4263.

 

Tell'em GoldLeader sent ya and they'll say Who the F is that?

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I remember Captain Comic from one of my random DOS disks that had tons of games on them. This would have been in the mid '90s so the game would have been a bit long in the tooth by then, but I had some fun with it despite it reminding me of kind of a cheesy Super Mario Bros. knockoff (which it really isn't, but that's what it made me think of at the time). I was pretty bad at it and never got very far; in fact, I'm not sure I ever really knew what to do in the game. :P

When I learned years later that there was a version of Captain Comic for the Nintendo, I thought that was pretty wild. It was such an obscure game.

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With Master Hu and Drunkard Chu I remember I used to file down the cart shell because I thought the connectors weren't going all the way in. This was when I used the NES deck with its famous blinking light. So I started filing the edges and the PRESS HERE tab until it looked like a freak. :lol: I still have the game somewhere, but I've had better luck with the top loader NES with unlicensed games.

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huh. I'll have to give it a try then. I have a Captain Comic that I bought complete in box very cheaply a few years back but I've never really played it. I'll have to give it a shot and see if it's any good.

 

A few Camerica games like Ultimate Stuntman are surprisingly well made and Big Nose Freaks Out is a Sonic clone.

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I like Captain Comic a lot! And that's saying something, since I usually find it inexcusable when VGM adaptations of classical music have wrong notes in them -- the game's adaptation of In the Hall of the Mountain King is full of clams. But the game itself is a challenging, tightly constructed little action-adventure.

 

In fact I liked it so much that it was the very first video game I ever bought on Ebay -- back in 1999 when the game was either unsupported by emulators or didn't have a good dump around -- and it was also the first self-consciously "retro" gaming purchase I ever made. It's literally the cornerstone of my collection.

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huh. I'll have to give it a try then. I have a Captain Comic that I bought complete in box very cheaply a few years back but I've never really played it. I'll have to give it a shot and see if it's any good.

 

A few Camerica games like Ultimate Stuntman are surprisingly well made and Big Nose Freaks Out is a Sonic clone.

Did not know that. I haven't played Big Nose yet as I just got it the other day. How does it compare to Big Nose Freaks Out? I notice the second one has climbed up a bit on Pricecharting.

 

EDIT: Mostly I'm only finding the deck enhancer versions of "freaks out" online, or stupidly priced CIB/Sealed BINs. :???:

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