Color Dreams

Color Dreams
Origin	USA
Years	1989-91
Consoles	NES, SNES, Mega Drive, Gameboy, Atari Lynx
First game	Baby Boomer
Last game	Secret Scout
Sounds used	Color Dreams
Engines used	Various
Aliases	Bunch Games, Wisdom Tree
Published games by	Color Dreams, Sachen
Games published by	Hacker International, Daou Infosys
Related companies	Bunch Games, Wisdom Tree

Color Dreams was a company that developed video games for the NES. While most companies that developed NES games obtained an official license from Nintendo to produce cartridges, Color Dreams was unusual in that it developed NES games without an official license. To produce these unlicensed games, Color Dreams bypassed the NES' "lock out" chip (the 10NES). The company developed a game (Baby Boomer) and released it in 1989, followed by 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 Super Nintendo Entertainment System game ever released in North America, Super 3D Noah's Ark. While Wisdom Tree remains active today and is still selling religious video games, Color Dreams quit the video game business in the mid-1990s. Wisdom Tree is no longer associated with Color Dreams.

One unreleased Color Dreams game was based on the movie Hellraiser. 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.

Staff

• Anthony Henderson - Programmer for Castle of Deceit and Captain Comic, all of Super Noah's Ark 3D.
• Dan Lawton - Founder of Color Dreams.

• Dan Burke - Graphic designer, sound designer.

• Frank Waung - Composer for Raid 2020 (With Dan Burke), programmer.

• Jim Treadway - Programmer.

• John Borchert - Composer for Baby Boomer.

• John Dwyer - Composer.

• Judye Pistole - Composer for Castle of Deceit and Captain Comic.

• Ken Beckett - Programmer for Crystal Mines.

• Nina Stanley - Graphic designer.

• Rick Waldron - Composer for Crystal Mines.

• Sandy Sims - Composer for Operation Secret Storm. (Alias for John Dwyer?)

• Roger Deforest - Programmer, graphic designer, sound designer.

• Vance Kozik - Composer for Wisdom Tree games.

Games

• The Adventures of Captain Comic
• Baby Boomer
• Castle of Deceit (under their Bunch Games label)
• Challenge of the Dragon (unrelated to the Sachen game of the same name)
• Crystal Mines (released in South Korea by Daou Infosys)
• King Neptune's Adventure
• Menace Beach (released in Japan and South Korea by Hacker International and Daou Infosys respectively, the former as Miss Peach World 1)
• Operation Secret Storm
• P'radikus Conflict
• Pesterminator: The Western Exterminator
• Raid 2020
• Robodemons
• Secret Scout in the Temple of Demise

Links

• Story of Color Dreams: Parts 1, 2, and 3
• NEWWorld.com Interview with Jon Valesh of Color Dreams
• Color Dreams fan site

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