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After several months of work and preparations, I'm pleased to announce the official release of six new Team Pixelboy games, namely:
- Circus Charlie
- Star Force
- Golgo 13
- Ninja Princess
- Konami's Ping-Pong
- Bank Panic
The Team Pixelboy web site has been updated accordingly. By the way, you will notice that I removed the "Potential Projects" section in the sidebar, since I don't think I'll ever get around to programming such titles as Pick Axe Pete A.E., Arabian or Discs of Tron. I think I have more than enough on my plate with the games listed in the "Personal Projects" section. I also added Jewel Panic to the "Outsourced Projects" section.
Anyhow, I will be contacting everyone on my customer list today, so do keep an eye on your e-mail inbox if you know you are on this list.
I would like to use this opportunity to underline a couple of minor issues with Bank Panic and Star Force. I included some addendums in the manuals of those two games (just like I did for Pitfall II Arcade last year, as some of you may recall) to explain the problems, but I'm going to explain these issues below as well.
In the case of Star Force, when you turn the CV console on, you may see some glitchy, garbled stuff on the TV screen for a second or two, then the title screen will be displayed and the game will behave normally afterwards. This happens with all Star Force cartridges, only during a cold boot (not after pressing the reset button) and after testing each and every Star Force cart on the same CV console, I can say without too much doubt that it doesn't cause any hardware problems.
For Bank Panic, you may see some garbled graphics appear in the status bar during the game, especially in the top right quadrant of the screen. You may even see graphic glitches elsewhere on the screen as you play, but those glitches are much rarer. This happens totally at random, but thankfully, it's only a minor annoyance that doesn't really interfere with the gameplay. Again, all Bank Panic carts carry this issue, and it cannot really be fixed. Eduardo told me that Bank Panic was one of the most challenging SG-1000 ports he has ever done, so it should come at no surprise that the CV port has some lingering issues that were missed during beta-testing.
LAYAWAY PLAN AND CONTEST REMINDER
I'm offering a layaway plan this year for those who want to buy these new games, but don't have the funds to buy them immediately. This layaway plan offer expires on January 5th 2012, and is explained in full detail within the e-mails that I'm sending out today.
The Telegames Custom Box contest also starts officially today. I have set up this web page to explain the details of this contest.
CREDIT GIVEN WHERE CREDIT IS DUE
On this special occasion, I would like to thank everyone who has helped me make these new releases possible, starting of course with Eduardo Mello, who ported all these games in record time earlier this year. Excellent job, Ed!
Next I would like to thank retroillucid and Yurkie, who helped me beta-test these games, and also 5-11under, who purchased the electronics and programmed/soldered the cartridge PCBs together. I also need to thank Dale Crum of Doc4, who prepared the PDF templates of the boxes and manuals for all these new releases. Many thanks to Oliver Puschatzki for acting as middle-man between myself and the german printer company that printed the boxes. I think I should also thank the people at Magic-Copie, who printed the manuals and cart labels in such a professional fashion.
A few more thanks are in order: Studio Cutepet for doing such wonderful work on the Ninja Princess box art, Stephen Seehorn for completing the software work on Ninja Princess and thus making its release possible, Omar Cornut for giving me a CIB copy of the SG-1000 version of Golgo 13 (I used the box art for the CV version), Fred Quimby for his work on the Activision PCB (which was used for all these new releases except for Konami's Ping-Pong), and last but not least, Albert Yarusso for holding onto my Activision cart casings.
This round of thanks wouldn't be complete without a special "THANK YOU!" to everyone on the AtariAge forum who has supported me and my collaborators through this gigantic effort. It's hard to believe I've been spending most of my free time on getting these games ready since last April!
BONUS GIFT!
Here are some codes that you can try with last year's batch of Team Pixelboy titles:
Gulkave: At the title screen, enter UP, UP, DOWN, DOWN, UP, RIGHT, DOWN, LEFT, DOWN, DOWN. You will enter the "test mode" menu, which features a sound test, and lets you select between normal and hard mode (as if the game isn't hard enough on "normal"!!!).
Pitfall II Arcade: At the title screen, enter 54312 on the keypad to activate infinite lives, and/or enter 89999 which makes Pitfall Harry invulnerable to everything in the game except collisions with mine carts.
Girl's Garden: At the title screen, press a button to start the game, and once the actual game starts, enter 867-5309 on the keypad (it's Jenny's phone number, google it...) to enable the cheat keys: While you play, press 1, 2 or 3 on the keypad to add lives, honey pots and flowers in the status bar at the bottom of the screen.
Tune in next week (January 1st, to be exact) for the first Team Pixelboy News Bulletin of 2012, in which I will present my various projects for next year, including a special surprise!
HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!
Edited by Pixelboy, Sun Dec 25, 2011 6:20 AM.
