Coleco 1983.

[Aswald]

Victory, with the flawed programming.

Space Fury, Mr. Do!, Time Pilot, Blackjack/Poker. Well, that last one was o.k., but was not quite as good as the Intellivision version!

Subroc.

Gorf.

Buck Rogers.


Although there were a number of great games from Coleco that year- Carnival and Pepper 2 come to mind- it seemed as though many of the games were rushed out before they were really ready. Mr Do! should have had at least a multi-colored main character, as did Cosmic Avenger and Ladybug, along with more polished programming, and what the hell was the deal with Victory; that game played like it was defective!

From what people around here (many of whom did work for Coleco, or knew someone who did) tell me, much in the way of manpower, time, finances, and effort went into the ADAM computer (looks to the side...PUHHHH!), and this is why the overall quality of the 1983 games did not live up to the overall level of the 1982 games. Logically, the 1983 games should've been better.


We have some knowledgeable people here about this sort of thing. Is this true? It would seem so, from what I've been told (including just why so many ADAMs were defective...). What have you heard about it?

[boatofcar]

That sounds about right. 1982-83 was right before the crash, and I'm sure a lot of companies were setting their sights on the home computer market. Atari is the most obvious example. I think the Tramiels took over in 1983, and pretty much killed off support for any new consoles, choosing to focus on the XL and XE line of 8 bits, and later the ST line of 16 bit computers. It wouldn't surprise me if the bigwigs at Coleco were moving towards the home computer industry around that time as well.

[Zadoc]

delete

[diskoboy]

Yes - that is absolutely true.

The CEO of Coleco wanted all company resources devoted towards the ADAM, and cancel all development on CV since the home computer market was beginning to boom. They made it bacwards compatible with the CV, but Coleco wanted to go strictly ADAM.

I remember the hype vividly. Coleco really had a brilliant marketing strategy, and a shit ton of people wanted the ADAM. But the CEO made Coleco eat it's words when he announced the unfinished system would be released for Xmas. Big mistake - almost the entire first shipment of ADAM's were defective, which basically destroyed the ADAM's rep. Not to mention Coleco.

Even after they got things right, they still had alot of problems with the system. Namely if you left a tape in when you powered up - say goodbye to the data! And if your printer died, so did your ADAM.

It was a total mess. As much as it pains me to say this about a video game company, Coleco got what they deserved.

[ColecoNation]

I'm not sure that Coleco's mania with the ADAM would have necessarily directly translated to them taking resources away from their game development. Sure, most of Coleco's in-house programmers were put on the task of developing the ADAM, but most of the ColecoVision games were programmed by third-party developers anyways. Also, Coleco's decision to make the ADAM backwards compatible with the ColecoVision means that they would still have had a desire to put out quality games for their systems on cartridge, especially since the data tapes weren't working out as planned.

I've recently interviewed both Dave Johnson (head of Video Graphics department at Coleco from 1982-85) and Paul Jaquays (head of Game Design from 1980-85) for issues of the on-line webzine, ColecoNation, and both mentioned that their jobs really didn't change with the introduction of the ADAM. They were still pumping out cartridge games for Coleco.

That still doesn't answer your question, though. Every system is going to have the rotten eggs, regardless of the year. Most likely Coleco got a little lazy and was eager to put out just about anything to build up the ColecoVision's game library.

Mr. Jaquays talked specifically about the failures of two games, Victory and Destructor. At some point between the programmer finishing the game and the EPROM getting made, Victory became buggy but the higher-ups at Coleco didn't want to take the time and money to fix the game and it was released as is. Destructor was essentially a prototype of a game that was never allowed to be refined. Coleco decided once again to release the game as is.

Actually, when you think about it, both of these examples were games that used the accessory controllers (Roller Controller and Steering Wheel). Whenever a company releases a speciality controller, there's instant pressure to release games that take advantage of these accessories. I guess there should be no surprise when many of these games turn out buggy and seem rushed.

I encourage those who are interested (and didn't know about it already) to check out www.ColecoNation.com. It's a bi-monthly webzine that just released its ninth issue. All back issues are still online and available to be read. Even if you're not a diehard ColecoVision fan, you'll probably find the interviews of Dave Johnson (#8) and Paul Jaquays (#9) to be interesting.

BTW, wasn't Carnival released in 1982?

+ Nathan