RVG Interviews: Jean Francois Dupuis.

Here is our next Interview.. With Jean Francois Dupuis from CollectorVision.. These guys have released some wonderful looking games to the homebrew scene and have expanded from just Coleco games to making games for various systems.

Enjoy

zapiy

Tell us a bit about you and how you got involved in game development?

Jean Francois

My venture started in 1996 when I visited newcoleco’s website (Daniel Bienvenu) This where I saw CV homebrew for the first time!  On the website, there was some CV tools developed by Daniel, one of them caught my attention, the program was VOIROM.

I loaded it up and hacked my first game: Winky Trap , A mix between Mouse Trap and Venture.  Fun fact, Winky Trap is more than often credited to John Donzilla, I made Winky Trap,  JFD stands for my name: Jean Francois Dupuis.

In 1998, I made 5 complete and boxed copies of Winky Trap and auctioned them online with the profits, I started my own publishing label, namely CollectorVision. What I had in mind (and still) is creating stuff for collectors, hence CollectorVision. Next year will be our 5th Anniversary, and we will be happy to present more cool stuff for 2013.

zapiy

Have you ever thought about converting games across of systems?

Jean Francois

Yes, I do want to make games for other systems too.  Actually we will soon make games for the OUYA, Our company will develop games for the Ouya under the name of Rewind Masterminds, a division of CollectorVision. I also want to make games for the NES as its my second favorite system.

zapiy

Why ColecoVision?

Jean Francois

ColecoVision introduced me into the world of videogames that was my very first system.

Greyfox

I have noticed that many of your games are conversions from other platforms, why is it that with some games you have changed the name but with others you have kept it. Is this just where you couldn’t secure the legal rights? Because I was very surprised to see Mario Bros. and Zelda among them.

Jean Francois

Some of our games are our own property however, with this very low scope “market”, it’s pretty though to get Licence(s). We tried with Mario Bros and we never got response from the big N.

zapiy

How long does it take you on each project?

Jean Francois

Time varies from project to project for example, Mario Bros took almost 2 years to be completed, and the Arcade Quality Controller took 4 years , Mr. Chin took about 6 months.

Greyfox

I have read that the ColecoVision hardware is almost identical to that of the MSX and Sega SG1000. Have you been converting some of your games from those platforms?

Jean Francois

We plan to translate our CV version of Mario Bros to MSX, Stay tune!

Greyfox

I find the ColecoVision controller really horrible to use. I saw that there is somebody converting Atari Jaguar controllers to use with the ColecoVision, have you thought about producing a new joypad?

Jean Francois

We released The Arcade Quality Controller and they become sold out very quickly. We plan to make a small batch sometime in January/March. The big plan is to make a control pad mold, then we will be able to make new controllers. More info will be revealed on our website over the next year.

Shadowrunner

On your website I see a link for the Super Game Module. Are you involved in that anyway or developing games for use on it?

Jean Francois

I’m not involved into the Super Game Module itself but we will support the SGM by making exclusive games for it. Our very first SGM game will be available at the SGM launch. The game is Roller Ball, a pinball game and a Pinball Controller will also be available.

More SGM games will available such as Leisure Suit Larry which is in development. The game is actually in graphics stage.

Finally

Huge thanks to Jean-François for agreeing to this interview, you can follow CollectorVision HERE.