The story behind the first Colecovision adult games (BUSTin-Out series)

 Hi folks,

Last night i was doing some cleaning on one of my hard drives and found an old text that Daniel Bienvenu (now aka Amy Marie "Purple" Bienvenu) sent me on December 12, 2000 (yup, 21 years ago) about a cheat code for any BUSTin-Out games...Holy crap! Completely forgot about this! But right after, a flooding of memories when Daniel, Marcel Thériault and me were having discussions about doing an adult game for the Colecovision on Yahoo Messenger.

So many (good and stupid) ideas came out of these conversations until Marcel send us (Dan & me) some pictures of one of his girl friends (Julie) and that what inspired us to make the very first adult game for the Colecovision! (Thanks Julie for inspired us).

 So Daniel started coding to see if the pictures would display on the Colecovision (remember, it was 2000 and not so many tools existed and Daniel all made his own tools!). We took black & white pictures as these took less space than a color pictures. Daniel was the coder and i helped with finding pictures that could look good with the help of one of his tools (CVPHOTO and CVPHOTOC). The first "ROMS" were actually pictures of Julie and some Playmates and until version 0.4, these Roms were unplayable as we couldn't move the paddle since it was just to see how the pictures were displaying (too bright or too dark or too pixelised).

As you can see, some are too dark, too bright or some too pixelised. If we had the tools that exists now, things would have been much different but that was then, we did what we could. But for 2000, this was indeed a great effort. 

We didn't wanted to do a porn game or anything explicit or smutty, just something exotic/erotic like the magazine Playboy. But since the screen of the Colecovision was only 256 x 192 pixels, that didn't leave to much details so we took only women which we could see from the head to their belly-buttons so that left seeing their natural busts (now you know why it's called "BUSTin-Out") ;)

What i don't remember is how many Volume 1 we made & sold but it sure wasn't a 100 copies. Here's the original cover for Volume 1:

 And this was the cartridge label for Volume 1:

But since we couldn't fit many pictures into a cartridge, Dan had the idea of making a serie of volumes and put a reference dubbed "collect'em all!" which he took from the Pokemons (catch'em all), so after making volume 1, Volume 2 came out right after:

And as for Volume 3, i don't ever remember doing a cover for this edition and i have no picture(s) in my database, but at least i do have the cartridge label:

 All cartridges, boxes (VHS), covers were either made by us to sell to members of the C.C.J.V.Q. or was made and sold by John Dondzilla for the rest of North America/Worldwide. At one of the C.C.J.V.Q. meeting (March 24, 2001), Dan & me we signed a couple of BUSTin-Out while having fun (and goofing around):

In case some of you didn't know, Dac-Man was Daniel very first game published!

And no...Dan didn't pinch my ass if it's what you're thinking...just me goofing. ;P

So if anyone of you has a copy signed by both of us, these are the rarest ones.

But that's not all, we even wanted to make a newer series called "Super BUSTin-Out" which instead figuring real women, we were going to use Hentai-type (but nothing smutty) girls from the waist up and in color this time. But with the poor success we had with the previous serie, we just did two different labels. The first is a Pre-Super BUSTin-out featuring a girl in bikini:

 But this was done before we wanted to use cartoon girls and if you did read the label, it states "(BUSTin-Out Volume #3)" which was also before we made the other Volume 3 label. So this label is a sort of in between projects (Volume 3 & Super BUST-in Out). After this label, this was the one we were going to use for the first Super BUSTin-Out:

 And again, still states "(BUSTin-Out Volume #3)" as we were not sure if we were going to release Volume 3 or Super BUSTin-Out !! There is a ROM of Super BUSTin-Out that exists but it's only a demo of the title screen:

 Click "HERE" to download the ROM.

After this project, Dan & me worked on another game and that one was a hell of a success. Just a hint: it's the non-official sequel of Space Fury. ;) I think Daniel released the ROMS not long after when we "retired" the BUSTin-Out project. He released Volume 1 to 3 and also a Volume 0.5. 

A couple of years later, someone at CollectorVision asked Dan if they could re-release all three volumes of BUSTin-Out and redone the covers:

And i would bet this was the guy who asked to do these re-editions:

 I'll give you some hints: this was his first C.C.J.V.Q. meeting on November 10, 2001 and has been a long time partner (still is) of CollectorVision and is the owner of the only prototype "Energy Quiz". Can you guess his name ? ;)

So if anyone of you want's a copy (or all three) of BUSTin-Out, then i invite you to buy them on the site of CollectorVision. Oh and almost forgot! The cheat code for any BUSTin-Out ROMS (Volume 0.5, 1, 2 or 3) - (original French text from Daniel):

Truc pour voir toutes les pitounes
dans BUSTin-Out Volume #1 et #2:

Quand tu démarre le jeu. Tu vois la fille, tu entends le son de mon logo.
Tiens la touche correspondant à # (ou * si tu utilise VirtualColeco) jusqu'à ce
que tu entendes un bruit après que la musique soit terminée.

Au menu, tu fais 5 pour enter dans le mode de visualisation.

Ça marche pour tous les BUSTin-Out ce truc là... et c'est le seul truc!

And here's the English translated text:

Trick to see all the girls
in BUSTin-Out Volume #1 and #2:

When you start the game, You see the girl, you hear the sound of my logo.
Hold the key corresponding to # (or * if you are using VirtualColeco) until
that you hear a noise after the music is over.

On the menu, you press 5 to enter the viewing mode.

It works for all the BUSTin-Out that's out there... and that's the only code!

So hope you have like the story and have fun folks! :)

The "Beyond" Game Module for the Colecovision

 Hi folks!

I finally revealed what was the "Beyond" Game Module project i was working on since end of May 2021. But this project is way much older as between 15 - 20 years ago, i had a discussion with Daniel Bienvenu (now AKA Amy Purple) that it was real easy to connect a game console (say...the Intellivision) to the expansion port of the Colecovision or any device that has an A/V output. I don't remember much of the conversation but that still "stucked" in my head since then.

Now past May (2021), the idea resurfaced so went to get all my old schematics, datas, etc. and began to make the "AV-to-CV" adapter. After an hour, it was finished. So a couple of days later, i tested it with a Jakks TV P&P Ms.Pac-Man:

Sorry for the hand, just blocking the "AV-to-CV" adapter (for now). And right after that, i've tried out a Famicom clone (or aka Famiclone) with the Pac-Land cartridge:

Took those pictures on May 31, 2021. So the AV-to-CV adapter works! But with this, you can plug any game console or device with AV output (DVD player, Camera, etc..). After that, i was thinking...could this be really useful ??!? Huummmm....good question. So i've put this aside until November, when i saw someone by the name of Robb Alvey on the FB Colecovision Lunatics group, which he has posted Retropie images called the CVPie...wait....why not use a real PI and plug it in the CV expansion port ? OK i know...why do this when you can use it as a standalone device ? Well first, you can play Megacart games and SGM (Super Game Module) games with the CoolCV emulator by Oscar Toledo (aka Nanochess). I've always wanted to buy one of these SGM but the last time, they sold like hot cupcakes on the fly and buying one on UPAY...are you nuts ??? Some sellers are asking over $800!! Really!! I'm not a money-tree damnit!! So have to wait for the next batch of SGM (if any will be made). 

But Robb gave me an idea...a great idea in fact! Plugging an actual PI on the CV so i could play Colecivision games (even if i have an Atarimax Ultimate SD cart) but also SGM games (and even ADAM games too). But...why stop there ? A Pi with EmulationStation (let's call it by it's all-well known name: Retropie!) can emulate so many game consoles and systems! And not only that...Arcade games, old computer games, electronics games...etc!! So was born the "Beyond Game Module"...so to speak because at first i wanted to call it the Ultimate Game Module but "Ultimate" was already used for the Atarimax cart and also the Colecovision Flashback conversion kit (The Ultimate Colecovision Flashback). The next name was "Infinite Game Module" but after rethinking of it...can't ever be infinite because of space on a Micro SD card or USB key...so scratch that name. 

But if you ever saw one of the Disney Toy Story movies, the you must know the catch phrase of Buzz Lightyear "to infinite and...beyond!".....beyond ? Beyond!! That's it! Playing new games and game consoles, etc... is expanding "beyond" what the Colecovision can do. So i finally found the name of my new game module: the Beyond Game Module!

So on December 4th, 2021, i reveal the first pictures of the Beyond Game Module on FB Colecovision Lunatics group: 

And after a few days, here's the final splash screen of the Beyond Game Module:

I was going to show it off January 1st, 2022 but since i cought the ?&?**$@ Omnicron virus, had to wait another 5 days so now, January 5th, i have finally shown the Beyond Game Module. Here's the video of the BGM when i plug it and boot it on a Colecovision:

And here's a video showing which games systems and electronics games i've put on the Micro SD card: 

As for now since it's still a work in progress, i can play these:

* Colecovision Games with Megacart & SGM games (& also ADAM games)

* Sega SG-1000 Games

* Atari 2600 games

* MSX & MSX2 games

* TI99/4A Games with Speech Synth.

* Many Classic Handheld games (like Coleco Pac-Man tabletop)

* Entex Adventurevision games 

* Entex Select-A-Game (all 6 games)

* Arcade games (about 185 Golden age games- the best ones!)

* Löve (my OdySim - need to modify it to make it work)

* Arcade hacks (like Donkey Kong Xmas and Halloween)

* Vectrex games

* And also Atari 7800, NES and SMS games.

I will eventually put more like Intellivision, Magnavox Odyssey2, Bally Astrocade, Channel F, Game Boy, etc. Always dreamed to expand the CV and now this has come true (and for less than $100!!). ;)

Here's some more pics: 

The next post will be how to make your own PI-to-CV connector (schematics, part list, etc), which is simply the AV-to-CV adapter. This will be my gift to all Colecovision fans to celebrate the 40th anniversary! 

Until next folks, take care and have fun! =)

- Sly DC -