Team Pixelboy News Bulletin - August 28th 2016

[Pixelboy]

Salutations, ColecoVisionists!

 

Welcome to yet another edition of the Team Pixelboy News Bulletin. An update about the budget series was long overdue and you will find it below. And I've got some other nice things to announce as well, so keep on readin' for all the latest news!

 

 

BUDGET GAME STATUS REPORT

 

I'm happy to report that the box templates for all 17 budget games are all but finalized (I just need to add the credit texts on the back of the boxes; I'll do that later today, along with the cartridge labels if I have some time left) and you can see these boxes on teampixelboy.com, within the new section I added on the web site for the budget games.

 

I will be placing the print order for the boxes within the next few days, which implies that the pre-ordering period for the budget games is now truly over. I figure you may like to see the final pre-order numbers, so here they are:

 

- Caverns of Titan = 110 copies

- Cold Blood = 103 copies

- Danger Tower = 87 copies

- Deep Dungeon Adventure = 105 copies

- Frostbite = 125 copies

- Heroes Arena = 105 copies

- J.E.T.P.A.C. = 116 copies

- Kaboom! = 97 copies

- Kralizec Tetris = 93 copies

- Remember The Flag = 85 copies

- Shmup! = 101 copies

- Shouganai = 96 copies

- Stray Cat = 92 copies

- Sudoku = 81 copies

- Traffic Jam = 88 copies

- Txupinazo! = 100 copies

- Yars' Revenge = 115 copies

 

TOTAL NUMBER OF BUDGET GAMES PRE-ORDERED: 1699

 

I will manufacture a few additional copies of each game for the inevitable late-comers, but since 1800 styrofoam inserts have already been manufactured and delivered (see the attached picture at the bottom of this post) I cannot manufacture more than a total of 1800 copies of the budget games.

 

Very good progress has been made on the software side of things recently, with many games having passed the beta-testing phase, and a few more are getting there, they just need a few final tweaks. However, some of the games coded from scratch (namely Kaboom!, Remember the Flag and Yars' Revenge) have seen very little progress, mainly because Armando Pérez Abad (the homebrew coder of those three games) had a far busier summer than he was ever expecting: His wife got a promotion, he moved to a new house in another town, got a new job, and more! I'm hopeful that he will be able to resume working on the games in September/October, but those games will evidently be the last budget games to be completed. It would be insentive of me to put any pressure on the guy right now, so we'll just have to wait for the dust to settle.

 

Another budget title that I have a problem with is Frostbite: The software is mostly done, but beta-testing revealed some gameplay tweaks are needed. Antoni Burguera is currently totally unavailable to make these tweaks (high-priority job stuff, can't be helped) and he may not be able to work on Frostbite again before the later part of September, or maybe even later than that. Also, when I briefly showed Frostbite to Tobie (a.k.a. coleco_master on AtariAge) when he came to my house a few weeks ago to deliver the budget game styrofoam inserts, I told him that the game was missing one particular feature, namely the merging-and-splitting ice blocks. Tobie seemed surprised and a little disappointed to hear that, and this got me wondering: Are people going to be equally disappointed when they play the game and notice that missing feature? I discussed this with Antoni way back in May/June, and he seemed more or less interested in adding the merging-and-splitting ice blocks at the time, because he considered it hard to implement and his free time was about to dwindle down to zero anyway. I don't know what I should do about this... Should I force the issue with Antoni once he's ready to continue working on the software, even if it means delaying the game's release even more? Or should I just drop the issue and go with the game as it is now? I think the people who pre-ordered Frostbite should be made aware of the issue, at the very least...

 

I've barely begun working on the manuals, by the way, but with the box templates now mostly behind me, I'll be able to concentrate on the manuals in September and beyond. I'll be preparing the cartridge labels soon, those shouldn't take me very long since I'll just be using/resizing the box template artwork.

 

So things are progressing on all fronts (at varying speeds) but the inevitable question still remains: When are these darn budget games shipping? Well, for one thing, I don't know how long it's going to take the printer company to print and ship all those budget boxes (we're talking 1800 two-piece boxes here!) and it's also hard to say how long it's going to take to create the manual templates. Each manual will be only 4 pages long, but I do have 17 of them to prepare. Then there's the ordering and programming of the electronics, assembling the cartridges... Suffice it to say I still have a lot of work ahead of me, and those who want all 17 budget games shipped together (mostly to save on shipping fees) may be in for a long wait. And it doesn't help that the most pre-ordered games are the ones that will be the most delayed. Oh, and did I mention that I'll be going back to the gym soon (three sessions per week, probably with a trainer) to lose a few pounds and get back into shape, and this will cut into my free time even more?

 

With all this said, I've come up with a tentative release plan, but it's definately not set in stone yet. I think the best approach will be to ship the budget games in three waves:

 

First wave:

- Caverns of Titan

- Cold Blood

- Danger Tower

- Kralizec Tetris

- Shmup!

- Sudoku

 

Second wave:

- Heroes Arena

- J.E.T.P.A.C.

- Shouganai

- Stray Cat

- Traffic Jam

- Txupinazo

 

Third wave:

- Deep Dungeon Adventure

- Frostbite

- Kaboom!

- Remember The Flag

- Yars' Revenge

 

As I said, this plan is only tentative, and some games may be switched around the three groups. Also, the boxes aren't printed yet and the electronics may also take a while to get done, so I don't know yet when the first wave will be ready to ship. In any case, when the first wave is ready, I'll let people know and give them the option to have those games shipped to them right away if they want.

 

Considering my new job has severely reduced my available free time this past summer, I'd say the budget games project is moving along fairly well, and I'll keep working on it as time permits. For those of you who were hoping that at least a few budget games would be ready to ship in September, well, sorry about that... If I hadn't found a job back in May, I probably would have had the free time necessary to make faster progress with the budget games, but the situation with Frostbite, Kaboom!, Remember the Flag and Yars' Revenge would still have unfolded like it did.

 

Anyhow, I'd like to thank once again all the good folks who pre-ordered the budget games! I know Oscar is very happy too!

 

 

UTOPIA BETA-TESTING

 

Mystery Man recently delivered a working version of Utopia that is the same as the Intellivision version, meaning that it only has the two-player mode implemented. He's a bit busy with personal stuff at the moment, and he intends to get back to that project later and implement a basic AI for the single-player mode. Nevertheless, I'd like to get the ball rolling with beta-testing the version of Utopia I have now, to see if the two-player mode works as intended, and also to gather some notes from the testers about how they envision the single-player mode, more notably the level of intelligence of the computer AI.

 

Anyone who wants to participate to this "early beta-testing" period must meet these requirements:

 

- They must own an Intellivision and a copy of Utopia.

- They must also own a ColecoVision, and an AtariMax 128-in-1 cartridge or an AtariMax SD cartridge.

- They must have a good experience of the original Utopia on the Inty (total newcomers to this game need not apply).

- They must have a friend to play the two-player mode with, and must be ready to invest at least a few hours into playing with it.

 

So yeah, I guess this beta-testing query mostly extends to the Intellivision community. I will ask the selected beta-testers to play with the Intellivision version for a few hours before I give them the ROM of the ColecoVision version, just to let them properly get back into the game.

 

 

ARCOMAGE BETA-TESTING

 

Another game that is ready for beta-testing is Arcomage, but the problem here is that the software is designed to run on my Activision PCB and the AtariMax SD cartridge does not support this PCB configuration. So anyone who wants to play-test this game needs to meet these requirements:

 

- He/she must have an interest in battle card games in general (otherwise the tester may find the game a bit tedious to play).

- He/she must own an EPROM burner to program an EPROM chip with new revisions of the software as needed.

 

The beta-tester will be supplied with a socketed Activision PCB, which will be used to test Arcomage on real hardware. If you meet the two requirements above and have some spare time to play-test this game thoroughly, feel free to send me a PM. Arcomage will only be released next year, so there's no big rush in beta-testing the game.

 

 

MY ILLNESS HAS BEEN CURED!

 

In the previous Team Pixelboy News Bulletin, I indicated my high interest in publising the ColecoVision port of the MSX homebrew game The Cure. I'm very happy to report that I got in touch with one of the guys of XL2S Software, and I managed to secure a publishing deal! The Cure will be ported by the guys of XL2S, and will be released on ColecoVision next year. If you want more details about how this publishing deal came into being, I invite you to check out the "project story" section of the game on teampixelboy.com. Do check out the new sections for QBIQS, Arcomage, Uridium and Zombie Incident while you're at it!

 

Oh, and thanks for talking me out of doing that silly e-mail petition. It was indeed as ridiculous as it was unecessary.

 

 

This concludes this Team Pixelboy News Bulletin. We now return you to your regular forum activities.

[TPR]

Another budget title that I have a problem with is Frostbite: The software is mostly done, but beta-testing revealed some gameplay tweaks are needed. Antoni Burguera is currently totally unavailable to make these tweaks (high-priority job stuff, can't be helped) and he may not be able to work on Frostbite again before the later part of September, or maybe even later than that. Also, when I briefly showed Frostbite to Tobie (a.k.a. coleco_master on AtariAge) when he came to my house a few weeks ago to deliver the budget game styrofoam inserts, I told him that the game was missing one particular feature, namely the merging-and-splitting ice blocks. Tobie seemed surprised and a little disappointed to hear that, and this got me wondering: Are people going to be equally disappointed when they play the game and notice that missing feature? I discussed this with Antoni way back in May/June, and he seemed more or less interested in adding the merging-and-splitting ice blocks at the time, because he considered it hard to implement and his free time was about to dwindle down to zero anyway. I don't know what I should do about this... Should I force the issue with Antoni once he's ready to continue working on the software, even if it means delaying the game's release even more? Or should I just drop the issue and go with the game as it is now? I think the people who pre-ordered Frostbite should be made aware of the issue, at the very least...

 

It has always been my opinion that I would rather wait longer for a better, more high quality game, if the circumstances will allow that to be an option.

[Ikrananka]

Thanks for the update - you are always on the ball with keeping your customers up to date with events

 

With regard to Frostbite, personally I would rather that the merging-and-splitting of ice blocks be implemented. If this delays the game then so be it. I'd rather the game was improved and more fun than force it to be completed sooner but with fewer features.

[+evg2000]

I agree, I would rather wait on frostbite and have it have the merging and splitting.

[+Tarzilla]

Dim Rush as String(20)

Rush ="None! "

 

 

I know you have help with testing, but for this volume of manuals you should get some help also. Set your template, get a person or two to help, then you just edit and cleanup.

[+cmart604]

Agreed with the waiting for frostbite for the full version of the game if possible. As for Utopia, we've had this discussion on what the AI should do in an Inty thread in the past. I'll see if I can find it....

[ColecoDan]

If possible it would be cool if the AI for utopia was at least average. If the AI is going to do stupid things then it won't be fun to play. Some kind of randomizer so the AI is not always doing the same thing would be good to however I guess the game would randomize it as well as you never know when pirates or a storm is coming which would cause changes.

 

I know we all want utopia but it would be could if maybe there could be some extras that didn't exist in original. I guess an AI is an extra though.

[Pixelboy]

If possible it would be cool if the AI for utopia was at least average. If the AI is going to do stupid things then it won't be fun to play. Some kind of randomizer so the AI is not always doing the same thing would be good to however I guess the game would randomize it as well as you never know when pirates or a storm is coming which would cause changes.

 

I know we all want utopia but it would be could if maybe there could be some extras that didn't exist in original. I guess an AI is an extra though.

I firmly believe that most people want (and even expect) the single-player-versus-CPU mode in the ColecoVision version. Just having the two-player mode will make people go "meh..." and it won't find as many buyers.

[+evg2000]

I firmly believe that most people want (and even expect) the single-player-versus-CPU mode in the ColecoVision version. Just having the two-player mode will make people go "meh..." and it won't find as many buyers.

Agreed, I probably won't purchase if it's two player only.

[leesarcade]

Great update. I'm in no hurry and would like to see Frostbite as good as it can be.

[ColecoDan]

I firmly believe that most people want (and even expect) the single-player-versus-CPU mode in the ColecoVision version. Just having the two-player mode will make people go "meh..." and it won't find as many buyers.

I agree I would want the AI as well, that was not what I was saying. I was saying a couple new things to it, for instance, A cell tower makes the people happy and gives you lots of points. Much like you can buy a soldier and put it on the other guys land, maybe buy a bombing run and much like the tornadoes a plane comes somewhere on the other players land and drops bombs to destroy some things.

 

You know those kind of extras.

[Centurion]

Thanks for keeping us updated Luc. Looks like there has been some good progress on an epic task. It's nice you're hearing people out regarding Frostbite. I would also prefer it being as good as possible, even if it takes a bit more time.

 

And congrats on getting The Cure! Looks good.

[deltronik]

Great update!

 

I'd prefer that we wait longer for a complete version of frostbite rather than release with missing features.

[Troy_Whelan]

I would rather wait for a more robust version of Frostbite - but since there is a version that is "easier", is there room to simply have that available from the menu as easy or normal?

 

Troy

[Pixelboy]

I would rather wait for a more robust version of Frostbite - but since there is a version that is "easier", is there room to simply have that available from the menu as easy or normal?

 

Troy

There's already a skill select feature ("NORMAL" and "ADVANCED" from the title screen) but it matches the difficulty settings from the Atari 2600 version.

[AtariBrian]

Any news on Children of the Night ?

[Pixelboy]

Any news on Children of the Night ?

How's this for an update?

[Pixelboy]

Okay, so I discussed Frostbite with Antoni, and he will not be adding the splitting-and-merging ice blocks. I find his reasons are actually quite valid:

 

1) The smooth scrolling engine used for the ice blocks doesn't lend itself to the kind of tile-updating that would be required to implement the split/merge ice blocks. In other words, Antoni would have to recode most of the game, and with the software being currently 99% done, he doesn't want to get into that, and would rather put that time on some other homebrew project.

 

2) Frostbite wasn't supposed to be a budget title at first, but a regular Team Pixelboy release with some money from sales given to Antoni for his hard work. When he agreed to have Frostbite become a budget game, Antoni gave up some of that money so it could be given to our friend nanochess. And now we're asking Antoni to do a major rewrite of the source code for less money? Even I wouldn't do that, not with most of the hard work done already.

 

Antoni will implement the last-minute tweaks suggested by my beta-tester, and that will be quite enough. The only question you (who pre-ordered Frostbite) should be asking yourselves is whether the game is less difficult without the split/merge ice blocks. I assure you that it is not, and my beta-tester can attest to that as a hard fact. This ColecoVision incarnation of Frostbite is both fun and challenging as it is now.

[Ikrananka]

As you say, that all sounds very reasonable. I'm certainly not put off by the lack of split/merge ice blocks and will look forward to enjoying the game as-is.

[ColecoDan]

I will just try to look at it cross eye and then normal and make the screen split. I wanted frostbite to have a coleco version for some time so will enjoy playing it no matter what.

[Pixelboy]

Antoni asked me to mention on his behalf that the game is "solid", runs smoothly at 60fps and that it has extra features (because some people seem to believe now that it is not "robust" and that the game misses other features).

 

I guess the term "robust" can mean different things to different people, so we just want to reassure everyone. To this end, Antoni added some info about Frostbite on the Hikaru Games Facebook page:

 

https://www.facebook.com/semagurakih/posts/237637453300542

[NIAD]

The Frostbite game looks really good and I can't wait to try it out even sans some gameplay features.

 

All us CV fans should be used to this already with missing elements/levels from Coleco arcade ports and this will leave the window open for a Super Game version with all the extra bells' n whistles.