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Industry | Video games (formerly) Electronics (as StarDot Technologies) |
---|---|
Founded | 1988-1996 |
Fate | reformed as StarDot Technologies |
Successor | Wisdom Tree StarDot Technologies |
Headquarters | , |
Key people | Dan Lawton (founder/co-owner) [2] |
Products | Various video games for Nintendo Entertainment System IP cameras (as StarDot Technologies) |
Color Dreams (d/b/a StarDot Technologies) is an American company formerly known for developing and publishing unlicensed video games for the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The company left the video game industry in the mid-1990s, shifting its focus to IP cameras and related surveillance equipment. [3] [4]
While most companies that developed NES games obtained an official license from Nintendo to produce game cartridges, Color Dreams was unusual in that it developed NES games without an official license. [5] To produce these unlicensed games, Color Dreams had to bypass the NES's "lock out" chip (the 10NES). [6] The company successfully bypassed the system, developed a game ( Baby Boomer ), and released it in 1989. Several other titles followed in 1989 and 1990, including Captain Comic , Crystal Mines , and Robodemons .
As a result of its reputation for releasing poor games, Color Dreams formed the label Bunch Games in 1990. Bunch Games was meant to be a label that Color Dreams could use to release lower quality games so that its reputation would not be damaged further.
In 1991, Color Dreams formed Wisdom Tree for the purpose of releasing Christianity-themed games. The Wisdom Tree label resulted in Color Dreams' best selling titles, including Spiritual Warfare and Bible Adventures . Wisdom Tree is also noted for creating the only unlicensed SNES game to ever be released in North America, Super 3D Noah's Ark . [7] While Wisdom Tree remains active today and is still selling religious video games, Color Dreams left the video game business in 1996 to focus on digital camera development, now trading as StarDot Technologies. [2] [4] [8]
One Color Dreams project that was never released was a game based on the movie Hellraiser . [2] The game cartridge, or “Super Cartridge” as it was called at the time, contained an extra processor that modified the tiles in the cartridge RAM without alerting the NES processor. This allowed for enhanced graphic effects rarely seen on the NES, such as a fully animated background running without the lag usually found with such tricks. The extra processor also performed palette swapping between scans of the TV to give the illusion of extra color. Because of delays in production, development problems, lack of a market for unlicensed games based on horror movies, and the exorbitant amount of money it took to make each “Super Cartridge”, the project was eventually abandoned. [9] [10]
In August 2011, Ken Beckett, the programmer of Crystal Mines , released the source code under a custom permissive license to the public. [11] [12] Artwork is still proprietary but can be shared for non-commercial, personal use. [13]
All games were developed for the Nintendo Entertainment System unless otherwise noted.
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, commonly shortened to Super Nintendo, Super NES or SNES, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Europe and Oceania and 1993 in South America. In Japan, it is called the Super Famicom (SFC). In South Korea, it is called the Super Comboy and was distributed by Hyundai Electronics. The system was released in Brazil on August 30, 1993, by Playtronic. Although each version is essentially the same, several forms of regional lockout prevent cartridges for one version from being used in other versions.
The Super Game Boy is a peripheral that allows Game Boy cartridges to be played on a Super Nintendo Entertainment System console. Released in June 1994, it retailed for $59.99 in the United States and £49.99 in the United Kingdom. In South Korea, it is called the Super Mini Comboy and was distributed by Hyundai Electronics. A revised model, the Super Game Boy 2, was released in Japan in January 1998.
Super 3D Noah's Ark is a non-violent Christian first-person shooter developed by Wisdom Tree for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and was ported a year later to MS-DOS, and re-released in 2015 on Steam for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. The game was an officially licensed id Software Wolfenstein 3D engine title, but was not licensed by Nintendo, so it was sold in Christian bookstores instead of typical video game retailers.
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Wisdom Tree, Inc. is an American developer of Christian video games. It was an offshoot of Color Dreams, one of the first companies to work around Nintendo's 10NES lockout chip technology for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Color Dreams formed the Wisdom Tree subsidiary in 1990 in an effort to circumvent Nintendo's restrictions against publishers of unlicensed video games for the NES by selling their games at Christian book stores which was not subject to pressure by Nintendo.
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Noah's Ark is a platform game for the Nintendo Entertainment System produced by British studio Source R&D and published in 1992 by Konami. It was only released in Europe. Unlike most other games based on biblical content released around the same time, this one was officially approved by Nintendo. It is based on the biblical story with the same name. The game was re-released on Steam in 2021.
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The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the Family Computer (FC), commonly referred to as Famicom. It was redesigned to become the NES, which was released in American test markets on October 18, 1985, and was soon fully launched in North America and other regions.
The Checking Integrated Circuit (CIC) is a lockout chip designed by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) video game console in 1985; the chip is part of a system known as 10NES, in which a key is used by the lock to both check if the game is authentic, and if the game is the same region as the console.
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Color Dreams' games circumvent the Nintendo lockout chips and can therefore operate on the Nintendo system.