Retrogaming
In this section are listed the games I've wrote in my
free time for Atari, Colecovision, Intellivision and MSX platforms, some are
available online and some only in cartridge and there are also enhanced
cartridge versions. You can see them as indie games :).
Just let me say you'll be back to the eighties and you'll be
surprised of how much fun have you been missing, powered by an
8-bits Zilog Z80, CP1610 or a MOS 6502 ;)
- Meteor Storm (2018, arcade)
pseudo 3-D space game for Intellivision,
to be included in the compilation of games IntyBASIC Showcase Vol.2 to be published by
Intellivision Revolution.
- Soon to be available in Intellivision cartridge
- Miner 2049er (2017, platforms)
this game never was published for Intellivision in the eighties,
but now it will be available in a fully licensed
version from the original developer Bill Hogue with new levels
from the original designer Curtis Mikolyski. Developed for
Elektronite under request
- Soon to be available in Intellivision cartridge
- Sydney Hunter and the Sacred Tribe (2016, action/platforms)
Hunter is being held hostage by the Sacred Tribe at some place of
South America, his only chance to escape is to search for the diamonds
in the infested dungeons. Developed for Collectorvision under request
- Cartridge for Intellivision sold out.
- Cartridge for Colecovision sold out.
- Soon to be available in MSX cartridge
- Soon to be available in SMS cartridge
- Mecha-9 (2015, arcade vertical scrolling)
the Mecha-9 fills the missing story in the epic saga of Mecha-8, fighting its
own battle with bosses from another dimension.
- Available in Colecovision cartridge
- Available in MSX cartridge
- Space Raid (2013, arcade isometric), the
ultimate battle in space raiding fortresses, it's you or your enemies.
- Online availability for Atari VCS/2600
- Available in Atari cartridge
- Available in Intellivision cartridge
- Mecha Eight (2012, arcade vertical
scrolling, fifth place at MSXdev'11), an army of aliens has invaded a little planet and defeated the
defenders, or almost, still remains Mecha-8.
- Enhanced cartridge for Colecovision
- Enhanced cartridge for MSX
- Ported to Spectravideo SV-318
- Online availability for MSX
- Online availability for Colecovision
- It's included in the Colecovision Flashback!
- Princess Quest (2012, arcade
platforms), guide a medieval knight in the quest for a princess, five
differents worlds and a big musical score.
- Available as digital download for Colecovision
- Available as digital download for MSX
- Available in Intellivision cartridge
- It's included in the Colecovision Flashback!
- Colecovision cartridge sold-out
- MSX cartridge sold-out
- Zombie Near (2011, action/maze,
2nd. place at MSXdev'10), survive in zombie-infested laboratories,
rescue scientists and defeat bosses to escape.
- Enhanced cartridge for Colecovision
- Enhanced cartridge for MSX
- Ported to Spectravideo SV-318
- Ported to Memotech MTX-512
- Online availability for MSX
- Now source code available!
- Meteors (2017, arcade), fight a rain of meteors and avoid the alien spaceships.
- IntyLander (2015, dexterity), land your capsule over the Moon controlling the
gravity and avoiding the aliens.
- IntyPak (2015, arcade), eat all the points in the labyrinth while ghosts chase you.
- 2048 (2016, board), displace squares to pair numbers and get the magical 2048 number.
- Oh! Mummy (2016, arcade), excavation of egyptian tombs, what could go wrong? mummies...
- Aardvark (2016, arcade), guide your aardvark to eat all the delicious ants you can while avoiding bug and spiders. In development
- F-Bird (2017, boot sector), a clone of Flappy Bird in text mode and only 512 bytes of x86 assembler for a boot sector.
- Grail of the Gods (2018, RPG), port to Intellivision of a mini-RPG/Rogue-like by IBOL written in DarkBasic.
- Astro Cube, my entry for the the 4K
Short'n'Sweet Game Contest for TI-99/4A computers. (5th place)
- Borzork, my entry for the the 4K
Short'n'Sweet Game Contest for TI-99/4A computers. (2nd place)
Toolkits
Besides my games, I've wrote some utilities and toolkits:
- CoolCV v0.1-v0.6, a powerful Colecovision emulator for
Mac OS X/Windows/Linux/Raspberry PI, including support for Megacart and Super
Game Module. (no other emulator currently with these capabilities)
- Super Game Module test program (May/05/2013), if you're the proud owner
of the rare Opcode Super Game Module, then with this program you'll be able
to test it fully.
- IntyBASIC cross-compiler, this compiler allows you to
write games and other programs in a dialect of BASIC for running over
Intellivision consoles.
Patches
Some Colecovision games were faulty since its design or
manufacturing, this is thirty years ago!
I've made some patches (all linking to AtariAge):
- Super Cobra patch, allows to play it in an ADAM computer.
- Defender patch (post #25), allows to show radar in a PAL Colecovision and makes controllers to work in ADAM.
- Sector Alpha patch (post #13), original cartridges are faulty causing missing graphics.
I've made a patch that replaces bad data with good data from the SVI-328
version in order to show the game in its full glory :)
- I've made a patch for Coleco ADAM's Grog's Revenge, solving
bugs of a 30 years-old game ;)
What is a MSX/Colecovision?
The MSX were home computers with keyboard integrated in
case ready to plug into TV, them had great success in its origin country Japan
and later were manufactured for other countries. It evolved further as MSX 2,
MSX 2+ and MSX turbo-R.
Almost at the same time, the Colecovision console was
created as a competitor to the Atari 2600 and Intellivision, it enjoyed a
great success in U.S.A. because of its arcade games versions like Burger Time,
Donkey Kong and Zaxxon.
Specifications
| Classic MSX 1 | Colecovision
|
|---|
| Target market | Home computer | Game console
|
|---|
| Life period | 1983-1993 | 1982-1985
|
|---|
| Units sold | 5 million | 6 million
|
|---|
| Games | 1000 approx. | 131 approx.
|
|---|
| Countries | Japan, Korea, Europe and South America
| U.S.A, Canada, Europe and South America
|
|---|
| Processor | Zilog Z80 running at 3.579545 mhz
|
|---|
| Video | Texas Instruments TMS9118 processor
(256x192 pixels in 16 colors).
|
|---|
| Video RAM | 16 kb.
|
|---|
| Sound chip | General Instruments AY-3-8910
(3 voices with envelop and one noise channel)
| Texas Instruments SN76489 (3 voices and one noise channel)
|
|---|
| Internal ROM | 32 kb. minimum | 8 kb.
|
|---|
| Internal RAM | 8 kb. minimum | 1 kb.
|
|---|
Other machines with similar specifications were the
Spectravideo and Sega SG-1000.
Of course, writing a game for these platforms is a real
challenge, to get a fast game you need to write everything in Z80 assembly
code, optimize it to fit the available space and find out novel ways of
using the limited video processor.
Sony HB-F1XDJ MSX2+ with a Zombie Near cartridge inserted
The Colecovision is going to be re-released in
October 2014 by AtGames Ltd. as
Colecovision Flashback with 60 games, and
my games Princess Quest and Mecha-8 are included in the
game selection.
Curious facts
I've developed and finished Zombie Near without ever
touching a real MSX or Colecovision :). Ironically my first MSX cartridges were
my own game sent by Matra and received in July 2011, I got my first
Colecovision in April 2012 and my first MSX computer in May 2012.
I had age 9 when I started to code my first Z80
machine code programs.
MSX computers never were sold at Mexico, nevertheless from
1986 until 1989 there were available at bookstores some books on the subject
and a magazine: Input MSX, that made me to dream about developing a cartridge
MSX game, and well... it took me only 24 years to realise it.
Colecovision with a Zombie Near cartridge inserted
Related links
Last modified: Apr/15/2018
