Ah, my first blog entry... What to say? What to write? Where to begin?
Well, I can start by presenting myself. I'm Luc, and I'm the maintainer
of this web site. This is not my first experience as webmaster, as you
may have seen some of my previous projects, like the Mega Man Mainframe,
or the e-Reader Zone (for which a
mirror site still exists) to
name just a few.
These days, I'm very much into the ColecoVision, which was by far my
favorite video game console before Nintendo came along with the NES. That
was over 20 years ago, when I was a young lad with plenty of free time to
play games. Back then, I had an ADAM computer, the standalone model. I
mostly played games on it, and I dabbled in SmartBASIC too. And of course I
had a sizeable collection of ColecoVision carts which I played to death,
especially 2010 and Gateway To Apshai, but others too like Bump'n'Jump,
Burgertime, Roc'n'Rope, Venture, Spy Hunter... Ah, such good times... I
was the kind of kid who turned his nose up at the Atari 2600 because the
ColecoVision's graphics and sounds were soooo much better. Of course,
I gained a little wisdom since then... ;-)
There's always been a special place in my heart for the ColecoVision, but
until recently, it was just a distant nostalgic memory for me. Thanks to
the wonders of emulation, I was able to play ColecoVision games on my PC,
and that led me to discover the ColecoVision homebrew scene. I've seen some
pretty good games done by ColecoVision hobbyists, but nothing prepared me
for Eduardo's work, which I saw for the first time on the AtariAge forums in
November 2005. I contacted Eduardo soon after and we became good friends
over the following months. When he saw my talents as a pixel artist, Eduardo
knew we had the potential to do great things together.
Fast forward to fall 2006: During a casual discussion about how I could
contribute to his efforts, Eduardo said he needed a "producer", someone who
could take away some of the burdens of his ColecoVision programming hobby,
and also maybe sign a few checks along the way. Making games is fun, but
turning game software into real cartridges can be quite a hassle. Eduardo
has always insisted on offering commercial-looking boxes and manuals with
his games, and as a perfectionnist, he gained quite a reputation in the
homebrew community.
Of course, I accepted his offer, although I prefer the title of "executive
coordinator" over the more pompous title of "producer". So what will I be
doing for Opcode Games? Not much at first. The current project, Pac-Man
Collection, is already well under way and there's no need to implicate
myself in it. But after P.M.C. is done and released, I'll take on a more
active role in managing all future Opcode projects. What this means exactly
has not been precisely defined yet, but Eduardo and I will work this out
soon enough.
The real goal in getting me involved into Opcode Games is to speed up the
rate of Opcode releases. Up until now, various elements have kept this rate
at about one new game per year. As you can guess from the list of projects
in the sidebar of this web site, we'd like to increase that number to 3 or
perhaps even 4 per year. But it won't be easy, as streamlining the whole
process of going from basic software to box+cartridge+manual will be quite a
challenge. I've never done this before, mind you! But with Eduardo's help,
I'm confident I'll work my way through it.
My first major piece of work for Opcode Games was the revamp of this web
site. Ya like it? It's pretty basic, but it works, in my humble opinion.
Most of the site will remain unchanged over time (games in the "Projects"
section will move up into the "Games" section in the sidebar as they are
released) but I'll be using the blog section as an outlet for my creativity,
and also to share some news, when appropriate. Don't expect any blog entries
from Eduardo, by the way, because he's not a diary-writing kind of guy.
In conclusion, you might be interested in Opcode Games' immediate future:
After Pac-Man Collection, which is slated for release in spring 2007, our
next game projects for 2007 will be Road Fighter and Konami Sports Vol. 1.
We'll do our best to have both games released before the end of the year,
but we're not making any promises! In parallel, Eduardo will also work on
the Opgrade Module, which will really take the ColecoVision to the next
level.
I'll be adding more blog entries very soon, so drop by again!
