*45* ColecoVision Homebrews & Conversions!!

[@realtrisk]

I'm always impressed by how good Colecovision games looked. It was a really great console that got shafted by the US videogame crash.

[@The_Real_DCT]

Not just the crash but also Coleco dumping so much money into the Adam.

[@realtrisk]

@@The_Real_DCT Yeah, as usual for situations like these, the real explanation is often more nuanced than a single reason.

[@ordinaryk]

@@The_Real_DCT It was a double whammy; the failure of the Adam, and the runaway success of the Cabbage Patch Kids. Coleco, instead of developing more games for the already successful ColecoVision, abandoned it at the first sign of market instability and put all its eggs in the Cabbage Patch basket, which really bit them in the butt hard when that craze died off. Coleco went belly up in 1988.

[@johndeaux3703]

@@thedinobros1218 The Coleco ADAM didn't suck at all. It's basically the same as the successful MSX computers. A lot came from the factory with miscalibrated tape drives that ate tapes. If you had one that worked or you used a disk drive you were fine. They came out late and couldn't attract developers away from Atari/C-64/Apple.

[@wkrick]

Frontline is an official release and it's designed to be used with the Colecovision "Super Action Controller".

[@discopants68]

Yes, I had it, and that’s exactly how it looked and played. You spun the wheel on the SAC to rotate your arm and aim the gun.

[@themidcentrist]

I love seeing a late 1970s or early 1980s console playing a modern homebrew that it shouldn't be able to handle but somehow does anyway. A lot of these games look like they could be early NES non MMC chip games.

[@bitwize]

Bootskell, Cavit, and many of the other games where you say "the graphics are kinda plain" all appear to come from this one Japanese developer who did ports of all his games to all sorts of obscure computer and game systems: Sharp X1, NEC PC88, VIC-1001 (Japanese VIC-20), etc. An interesting little corner of KZbin I stumbled across a few months back. Looks like he's doing the ColecoVision as well. The plain graphics enable him to reuse assets across games and ports. And as you say, the gameplay is very good. So we have one dedicated Japanese guy keeping gaming alive on all these niche little systems.

[@IntoTheVerticalBlank]

Yes this is true and he's awesome!

[@GregsGameRoom]

Some interesting concepts for games!

[@The_Real_DCT]

Most of these are ports from Japanese games that wrestling game was a port from the Sega SG 1000, the vampire one is a MSX game.

[@Rocky1138]

I really like the colour palette on the ColecoVision! It's shown really well in Children of the Night at 8:05.

[@The_Real_DCT]

That pro wrestling game is a straight port of the Sega SG 1000 game of the same name.

[@edburns00]

28:52 amazing Futurama reference.

[@SinistarPro_Mike]

I'm a little late to the party! A ColecoVision upload? ❤This came out of nowhere, and what a nice surprise indeed! So many hours spent on this system with notorious hand cramping controllers, all for the ultimate home version of DK! It's always great seeing the homebrews and anything new for a system so nostalgically awesome as the Coleco. While your videos always hit a home run, this one went out of the park for sure! I wish I still had my Coleco. 👍

[@GregsGameRoom]

Appreciate the kind words! These homebrews prove the CV could do some awesome games!

[@meetoo594]

Knight lore (21:51) is an iconic sinclair zx spectrum game by Ultimate, who became Rare (yup, the starfox and donkey kong Rare). They held this game back for a year after it was completed so they could release a couple of more basic 2d games as they figured no one would be interested in them after seeing Knight lore. Amazing confidence in how far ahead they were in the industry that they could do that. They made a few sequels, Alien 8 and pentagon before developing a scrolling 3d isometric engine which was again hugely impressive for the zx spectrum.

[@SmashCatRandom]

Yeah for sure - the Stamper brothers moved onto consoles just after Knight Lore was released, and UPtG's output really suffered after that. The games released on their isometric engine got steadily worse, and the conversions from the ZX Spectrum to other systems were pretty bad, honestly. But they redeemed themselves with their Nintendo work.

[@meetoo594]

@@SmashCatRandom They were the first european company to get an official licence from nintendo to develop nes carts iirc. Quite ironic as the nes didnt do very well in the UK, being roundly trounced by the sega master system until very late in the 8 bit era and the nes turtles tie-in. Jetac is my fave speccy game by ultimate, it still holds up today as a fun arcade shooter.

[@SmashCatRandom]

@@meetoo594 Yep, I'm probably going to convert Jetpac next to my little game engine on the original Arduino 8-bit. I'm bit-banging composite output, with 256x256 tilemap +sprite graphics :) So far converted Manic Miner, Space Invaders and Scramble to it. It's challenging with only 32K of program memory, and some of that used for the display rendering :)

[@meetoo594]

@SmashCatRandom that sounds like a fun project. I wrote a version for the Sony psp back in the day. Wrote it with the unofficial sdk and the sdl (2d sprite engine) library iirc. Pity the source code is probably long gone although I have a feeling I still have the executable on a memory stick somewhere.

[@CooChewGames]

Knight Lore is a version, and it looks like a pretty good one, of the Ultimate Play the Game, (later to become Rare) games for the ZX Spectrum. The 'Filmation' technique of the 3d caused a massive wave of clones and variants thereafter. You have to find the cauldron; this will tell you the ingredients you need to find to place in there to make a cure for your lycanthropy. It was the third in a trilogy of Sabre Wulf and Underwurlde.

[@Wasabialt]

I was going to comment that.

[@robertgijsen]

That Bomb Jack music is Magnetic Fields from Jean Michel Jarre, an epic song! How dare you call that annoyi... Ah well yeah it sucks monkeyballs in this game. Very nice video! Lots of MSX1 games in there indeed. I think I can name them all.

[@GregsGameRoom]

It’s always been the music for Bomb Jack as far as I remember.

[@The_Badseed]

Great video. Never had a coleco, had a 2600 and Intellivision. Cool to see all the home brews. And you can never go wrong with an all Rush mix tape

[@GregsGameRoom]

Philip J. Fry would agree.

[@atariforever2002]

I'm sure you probably seen it already but if not check out a cool Moon Patrol homebrew called Matt Patrol. It's outstanding. And love your channel by the way. I'm subbed!

[@pabloarucas1185]

My fav Collecovision game is lady bug 🐞 I wish they made a version for the gameboy/gameboy color that would be amazing! Thanks for all the suggestions some of these are great conversions and super impressive for the system! ❤😊

[@GregsGameRoom]

Definitely a CV classic.

[@shaky6669]

Mario Bros Runs on stock Colecovision hardware. I got my rom when I got my Atarimax SD Flashcart as part of the purchase. The Homebrews on this system are SO Awesome. Very active homebrew scene for this console.

[@GregsGameRoom]

Really? No Super Game Module needed? Wow!

[@tursilion]

@@GregsGameRoom The Super Game Module doesn't add that much, really. It's just used for a lot of the more impressive looking titles because they are ports from the MSX, and the SGM adds extra RAM and the MSX sound chip to make the port more direct. ;) Mario was coded from scratch, no porting. Thanks for the kind comments!

[@xeriland]

@@GregsGameRoom The Super Game Module has zero ability to improve graphics. It has the MSX sound chip, so programmers don't need to redo the all the sound when porting games. Any game using the SGM could be made without it if they spent the time.

[@MoviemaniaNick]

I played this system years ago as a kid when my cousin had it. It was very interesting.

[@AstonsVintageTechnologyWorkshp]

I'm impressed that they managed to port over 'Knight Lore' from the ZX Spectrum to the Colecovision. It looks like a pretty solid conversion. Anyway, that's where it's from by the way. 🙂

[@AstonsVintageTechnologyWorkshp]

P.s. I'm surprised you haven't seen any of the isometric speccy games from AGC and various others, there are dozens of them, and they're sort of famous and kind of on most of the 80's computers. 😛

[@GregsGameRoom]

The developers must have just reskinned a lot of those games since they seem so similar.

[@asa-punkatsouthvinland7145]

Was it called "Knight Lore" on the specky? I don't know the system well & am aware many similar games 3xist but I thought this was Saberwolf..or is that just a similar looking game?

[@Zoyous]

@@asa-punkatsouthvinland7145 Knight Lore is one of the sequels to Sabre Wulf.

[@AstonsVintageTechnologyWorkshp]

@@asa-punkatsouthvinland7145 Nope,😁 Sabre Wulf was 2-D, whereas Knight Lore was isometric 3-D. Same company though (A.C.G. later known as Ultimate).

[@PuzZLeR_00]

Children of the Night. (yeah)

[@retroarcadefan]

Great overview of many impressive home brews! The wrestling game control scheme is the same as the arcade original.

[@GregsGameRoom]

I thought maybe it was an accurate port. Kinda weird.

[@edburns00]

My pal Werner says at 26:49 "best adventure port i have seen so far". But does it have the secret dot and the Easter Egg?

[@PhillyMJS]

Just stumbled across this video. Kevtris was the very first homebrew game released for the Colecovision, back in the 90s. Only 100 numbered copies were sold, using repurposed Donkey Kong cartridge bodies. I’m the original and current owner of copy #20. It’s been a while, but I remember it being quite playable on the original hardware with actual Colecovision controllers. 21:08

[@AstonsVintageTechnologyWorkshp]

The alien splitting into two thing is a 'Space Invaders II arcade' thing 😎

[@GregsGameRoom]

Yeah I realized that afterwards. Still pretty cool update.

[@johneygd]

Yeah except that STUPID joke about space invassion to be not a space invaders clone while i could simply presume that it is a space invaders clone.

[@Pridetoons]

Collectorvision also has a wide list of Colecovision games they sell in their Colecovision Collectors Vault.

[@GregsGameRoom]

Yeah I saw a lot of good ones there I wanted (but couldn’t) try.

[@Pridetoons]

@@GregsGameRoom Yeah you got to get the Vault Collection.

[@Pridetoons]

@@GregsGameRoom Also Team Pixel Boy's WP has game on it too.

[@BURRITO44]

Awesome video

[@xTerrySunderlandx]

I did had a coleco, but i didnt rememeber how good the games looked for time

[@GregsGameRoom]

Some of these have the benefit of years of advancements compared to then.

[@xTerrySunderlandx]

@@GregsGameRoom yeah i lnow but it amazing to see the real capability the console had

[@mikewest6569]

Many nanoseconds of gaming enjoyment

[@ashtar4413]

Gulkave, Children of the Night, Mecha 9, and Quest for the Castle got my attentionw

[@atmaweapon2803]

"The music [in the Goonies] is good enough..." I see what you did there...

[@lurkerrekrul]

Spelunker - Yes, the original versions of this were brutally difficult. I'd try playing the C64 version occasionally, and always got frustrated with how easily I died.

[@GregsGameRoom]

I really want to like it but dang…

[@TheArmchairrocker]

A lot of these were ported to the TI99 as well. There's a CV basic compiler that has been ported to a bunch of systems, ColecoVsion, TI99 and others that use the same video and sound chips that allow developers to make games for multiple systems.

[@elektronzer3809]

Goonies did not come out on a offical NES cart but it was in the arcades in their Playchoice 10 machines.

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

On a Colecovision controller, I think you can rotate the knob in addition to moving in the 8 directions. This is probably how "Frontline" is supposed to be controlled (just like the arcade version), but I don't know.

[@GregsGameRoom]

Pretty sure it doesn't do that. The Fairchild Channel F and (I think) the Astrocade controllers twist.

[@jamespaterson503]

As a Colecovision owner I can confirm that the knob doesn't rotate. There was a super action controller for the original version of Frontline.

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

@@GregsGameRoom I never owned a CV but that knob sure looks like it could do that. I guess not. In any case, they missed an opportunity there!

[@RailRide]

​@JustWasted3HoursHere Early protoyypes had a scroll wheel beneath the joystick, much like the Super Action Controller, but it was deleted from the production versions. If you open up the controller, you can see where the reed switches would have been mounted on the circuit board.

[@richardadams4928]

@@jamespaterson503 So is this one some kind of remastered homebrew? Cruz I was just about to post that Frontline was NOT a homebrew, but a Coleco licensed release from back in the day. I had the commercial release back in the 80's.

[@NaderGator]

I think Goonies was originally made for MSX systems by Konami back in the day ..

[@ArtoPekkanen]

Btw the Jetpack game seems like a conversion of the Section Z arcade game (which was also on NES back in the day). Check it out :)

[@BoanergesTWELF12]

Late to the party, even though i grew up with 16 bit games, im thuroughly impressed by the developers for these games; ima give them a shot

[@JustMe99999]

The Colecovision was such a great system for the time. Its only real Achilles Heel is that it doesn't do scrolling very well (evident in several of these).

[@Rocky1138]

Four player Boot Skell would be amazing.

[@litjellyfish]

For the king fu master it would be hard to have any background as then it would shine through the sprites

[@RainerK.]

"pseudo 3D graphics" aka "isometric" :)

[@captainbeastazoid7084]

Most of these games are amazing for a Colecovision... The fact that some of these games are almost NES quality is amazing. It's 1982 hardware.

[@legendsflashback]

Very cool video

[@BdR76]

0:30 "Aerial" looks like a SkyKid clone, and 2:21 "Battlot" looks a lot like Battle City

[@GregsGameRoom]

I figured Battlot was a clone of some kind.

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

Does "Quest for the Golden Chalice" have the "Created by Warren Robinett" Easter egg in it?

[@GregsGameRoom]

Good question!

[@SevenCompleted]

frontline used a dial like ikari warriors and you could fully rotate actually

[@litjellyfish]

For bejeweled what happens if you go to a jewel. Press and hold the button. Press in the direction you want to move it and release the button? Do that work?

[@GregsGameRoom]

It seems like you have to select and move at the same time. It was so quick which is why I thought the rapid fire was enabled but it wasn’t.

[@Blas4ublasphemy]

1st game reminds me of Skykid by Namco.

[@GregsGameRoom]

Or Looping.

[@litjellyfish]

About all single color enemies. I mean that is what you can expect with colecovision not so sprite powerful hardware really

[@GregsGameRoom]

Mario is multi-colored. But I guess it was too much for the other sprites to be also.

[@litjellyfish]

@@GregsGameRoomhere is only single colored sprite. Mario is composed by several overlayed sprites (3 assume) problem is that it eats up a lot of sprites so usually only the main / most important sprites was made in several colors. If the sprites is more static so they don’t overlap vertically you can be a bit more generous. That is why the last game into the Clíp there is several rows with sprites that has three colors = using 2 sprites per row for those bull runners + 2 for the player = 4 sprites horizontally

[@RailRide]

​@GregsGameRoom Colecovision could display up to 32 sprites onscreen, but no more than four could occupy any scanline, hence the sprite flicker anytime a fifth sprite lined up with any other four.

[@litjellyfish]

@@RailRide yup. I think he got it from what I wrote above but always good the state it several times. I feel this was a thing that REALLY hampered the Colecovision. It it had 8 sprites in a row like say C64 other systems it would be a very different story. Like 32 sprites in itself is not bad at all it could have been like 8 overlayed (3 color sprites) plus 8 sprites for bullets etc.

[@ArneChristianRosenfeldt]

@@litjellyfishI just cannot grasp how much silicon storage of 32 sprites takes. Or is 32 just the number of cycles in a scanline which can be used to check sprite y? So it is just subtract. While x compare needs to be much faster and is more expensive. Maybe the coleco vision cannot steal cycles from the CPU and has smaller borders and hence smaller and less patterns can be loaded?

[@Atarifan72]

Where do you buy these Roms? This is making want to purchase a Colecovision again. Great video!

[@NorthWay_no]

The SpectraVideo and Sord M5 were also platforms based around the same chips. I see lots of stuff I recognize from MSX screenshots from 80s magazines. Knight Lore is a ZX Spectrum original and this is probably a hostile port of the MSX version - the Stamper brothers were kinda control freaks on quality and access so I'm guessing this is a recent port (the only 6502 version I know of that they OK'd was the BBC B one).

[@RobiticDuck]

I only have the Coleco on a chip, aka the Colecovision Flashback. But even with that plug and play system being not amazing, it still made me really enjoy the spirit of the console. I want to get my hands on a real machine one day. 2024 update: Finally after waiting I finally was able to order a working console!

[@SmashCatRandom]

If you're American you probably wouldn't recognise Knight Lore as a class ZX Spectrum game. It was the first isometric game as far as I know, made by Ultimate Play the Game - now known as RARE. The sounds are sparse, as they're matching the original.

[@3dtexan890]

I wish someone would have a way to install other games on the Colecovision Flashback.

[@GregsGameRoom]

Tricky. There’s no USB access is there?

[@CanKenMakeIt]

Front Line was an official game with the Super Controllers.

[@PONTOCRITICO]

I was really impressed with the ports of Children of the Night and Goonies. There are also several other good games like Star Castle that show how this hardware was still capable and differentiated in its generation, because it was very well made. Some consoles like the SG-1000 and the Atari 7800 that were from a later generation left a lot to be desired compared to the ColecoVision.

[@GregsGameRoom]

Star Castle was awesome. Probably my new favorite home port.

[@mazinz2]

Front line was given an official release on Colecovision back in the day. I still own it. I’m also positive it used the super action controllers which is how you could rotate the gun. So are you saying someone possibly then cloned it or maybe modified the game in some way for it to be in your video?

[@GregsGameRoom]

Don’t know. It was included on a website that had homebrews. Maybe it’s re-coded.

[@mazinz2]

Very possible then they may have changed, fixed or updated something with it. Def used the super action controllers becuase I remembered the camouflage covering overlay that fit on top of the controllers for button info (most games which used they controller had a similar overlay). Thanks for the video

[@mazinz2]

Ps: sorry for the typos, “edit comment” isn’t working on the phone

[@Darkuni]

Mario Bros FTW!

[@luchooilco.325]

So... what *CONSOLE* are you using?

[@mikebell2112]

Children off the night. What music they make.

[@frankschalk7790]

What emulator are you using?

[@lapalourde75]

Bonjour Très intéressant comme vidéo Il y a dungeons and trolls A very good game realised by Michel louvet Au plaisir Thierry

[@dallase1]

Maybe BATLOT is a play on Camelot like Battle Camelot .

[@intel386DX]

5:55 this looks lice a CGA game :D

[@axtrifonov]

31:51 it barely manages to display even single color mallets! (I hope you know what Colecovision can do and what it can't)

[@xeriland]

It can do way more than that. Check out DK Arcade that puts 16 sprites on a scanline.

[@ridiculous_gaming]

I wonder if Mario Bros was something created decades ago, but never released?

[@GregsGameRoom]

Don’t know. It’s so good I can’t imagine it being that old.

[@johneygd]

If mario bros & pac man would,ve been released on the colecovision,it would,ve sold waaay more units.

[@rameybutler-hm7nx]

Just a question? If your not playing on a coleco, why are you playing them?

[@GregsGameRoom]

Because I want to?

[@rameybutler-hm7nx]

@@GregsGameRoom duh. The homebrew games lose some of their appeal if not using the o.g equipment. Do you have a coleco? There great machines very simular to the sega master system but after a while they do need tlc, but emulation doesnt do it justice. I grew up playing a coleco i loved it.

[@BaccarWozat]

Pitfall 2 didn't have an arcade game. It was on consoles and computers.

[@lpbbinc]

Battlot = Battle + Robot

[@dalecummins689]

Definitely Mario Bros is the best

[@dallase1]

Is this on a emulator or real hardware?

[@BBfanfun]

FrontLine is one of the original Coleco releases for the "Super-Controller" (4 buttons) late release , not really Fun. better stick with Commando or Ikari Warriors ...

[@robertofortuni6886]

the goonies guy is a copy of the Elevator Action character

[@dallase1]

What's wrong with the Wrestling game requiring you to select moves from a list bad? That make it easier to know what moves you are executing. Gauntlet couldn't have come out for Colecovision because it came out after the North American Home Video Game Crash and the Colecovision was discontinued the same year Gauntlet came out in the arcades? The Ghost Blaster game is playing a simplified version of the song Ghost Busters.Front Line is not a home brew game it's a n official Coleco game that requires the Super the Super Action Controllers.

[@siriokds]

HI. it would be more correct to divide real homebrew from game hacks taken from other consoles. Effort is different Don't you think?

[@Peatmoss0979]

The first game is more like looping for colecovision check it out homie

[@GregsGameRoom]

LOL, I said the same thing in another comment reply!

[@Peatmoss0979]

@@GregsGameRoom LOL I was like this is a looping clone.. good stuff buddy

[@JetScreamer_YT]

As an eight-year-old child I knew that Dick Cavett was streets ahead of Carson.

[@GregsGameRoom]

Hah! Glad I’m not the only one who remembers him!

[@johndeaux3703]

There's no such thing as PAL or NTSC Colecovision games. They're the same worldwide. It's the systems that were NTSC or PAL. It's not like Atari 2600.

[@Mrshoujo]

Ikari is pronounced "Ih ka ree." Not Eye Cah Ree. Ikari in Japanese means Anger or Angry.

[@crich95]

Angry Warriors Tracks. You'll be ok.

[@braillynn]

I play Get Booty in real life 😏 I'm not good at it 😒

[@twh563]

Homebrews should be pushing the limits of the systems. Most of these aren't even VCS quality.

[@GregsGameRoom]

Well, I appreciate anyone who can make a game for these old systems.

[@The_Wandering_Nerd]

Not everything can be a visually-astounding tech demo. What's important is the gameplay, and having something else to play on your ColecoVision when you're bored of the small number of official releases.

[@xeriland]

Dumb. Many of these are free ROMs. Still that are plenty that blow away anything the VCS can do. He only showed a small portion of Children of the Night. It is a massive game with an incredible graphics and soundtrack. It beats Zelda on the NES, which is often touted as the best game on that system.

[@teddym2808]

The bomb jack music was actually a terrible version of the C64's Jean Michael Jarre music (which was also on a small loop but sounded amazing).

[@MisterSplendy]

Super nice delivery, casual videos. Love it. New subscriber. I have a question. What emulator did you use? I am trying some of these on RetroArch and I get a "Super Game Module" error. How did you get past that?

[@ThePbrook1967]

Mario Bros. Yes you need an SGM (Super Game Module) Shame they couldn't make the SMS light gun work on Operation Wolf

[@xeriland]

No, Mario Bros. does not require an SGM. Why comment when you don't know?

[@Nebulous6]

A real homebrew stand-out is Risky Rick (a Rick Dangerous clone); it really pushed the ColecoVision to the max. kzbin.info/www/bejne/f5q4dqyinr15jqM Frontline was an original game on the ColecoVision back in the day. Works well on the AdamEm emulator for the original XBOX. Try the triggers or B and X for left and right rotation.

[@Angelina-bi1ld]

NOT COLECOVISION,.............................. those are cheap version NES games that didnt make the list at time.....thats all