Interactive Dreams Version 5 is Live now

Who thought Interactive Dreams would see version 5 of the engine to see the light of day right before the start of 2013? Version 4 (made in 2008) was really outdated and had some bugs (due to Blogger getting improved but our site did not). The differences are small I guess, but the size is really streamlined (it contains 50% less code, built up from the ground again). We now have a top link bar (which doesnt work yet) but the overall layout stayed the same. I hope this will keep the site interesting in the coming year! If you have any tips on how you would like the site to look like, let us know!

Ps. The picture is a screenshot of version 2 (2006), the one I am still the most proud of, it was full of features like the link tree and the top columns, but in the end it was getting slower and slower, unfortunately.

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Possible one of a kind CD-i player by Intercare/Philips

A few sources posted a link to an eBay auction brought to our attention by Alan's CD-i Zone: This is (rumoured to be) a "specially designed and adapted CD-i player for use in a doctor's surgery". According to the seller, it is based on a 450 player, with a top loading and locking mechanism. The description is below:

"This is a very rare version of the Philips CD-i that is as far as I can tell completely undocumented anywhere on the internet so far. I find no search results and no one else seems to have heard about it before aside from one person on www.digitpress.com forums that says he's seen one before. I am the only one that I know of who owns one as of right now.

I believe this system to be a retooled CD-i 450 or 470, it has a built in Digital Video Cartridge. It has been designed for a doctor's office. The CD lid has a locking mechanism that can be locked with a star bit. It uses a standard power supply and controller as well as either A/V cables or a Coaxial cable to hook it up to your TV. [As many other CD-i players these days,] it has a dead Time Keeper Battery."

At first I was a little sceptical if this was really a CD-i player. From the box itself, it's nowhere to be recognized as a CD-i player. But then, the controller port on the back is the exact one, but even more: The power button on the right side is the same power button as on a 450 player (and it's even positioned on the same place). It looks like if the shell is completely made of metal, and probably units like these were used as a kiosk system, allowing to advice people about their health.

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Mutant Rampage advertisement in USA CD-i Magazine

Source: USA CD-i Magazine issue 2. Alan's Philips CD-i Zone

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Rise of the Robots 'Digital Video version' prototype

Apparently a CD-i version of Rise of the Robots may exist in proto form, according to its original coder, Pete Dabbs. "Proto versions, depends really, what I've still got on a hard drive here could be classed as one, the probably 30 versions Philips had for testing etc could be too, if any of those survive or not, I have no idea." We also asked him five years ago.

"I've always found it a bit weird that I did do two "final" versions, one for DV and one not because there was a massive rush on at the end of the project and I didn't have time to fit code for both into the same thing so it looks like only the non-DV version got released and got packaged as requiring (or using) DV?? I've finally managed to dig out what may be a RotR CD-i proto. It's dated (from the path_tbl) 17/05/1995. I can't remember exactly when Rise was released so don't know how close that is to final. It's nothing special, just a Philips CD (gold label, those things cost stupid money at the time) with my untidy scrawl on it. "

In other words; Interactive Dreams is still looking for the DV version! The version was programmed ro have a changing scenery, including effects like tilting would start a different sequence in the back. 

Source: Digit Press forums

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Happy Christmas!

Dear CD-i fans - It's been another quiet year here at Interactive Dreams but nonetheless our office had lots of fun keeping it alive for already seven years now. I'm very thankful our CD-i member Alan started his CD-i Zone at Facebook to reach a much wider public for his valuable CD-i memories. All interesting trivia and pics that surface we'll show here at Interactive Dreams, so next year will happen as always. I'm sure a few small surprises will pass by (Hi Devin!). We at Interactive Dreams wish you a very happy Christmas and thank you all for your support.

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Space Safari on CD-i

The game was published by New Media in 1994, but was only available to my knowledge for a very limited time from McNo of Colchester. Programmed by BEPL, who also created Wordplay and Food of France. Programmer Mr Graham Trott very kindly shares his experience with me on producing this quality game..

''Space Safari was quite a challenge; the animations required some special graphical coding techniques to keep their size under control. But the use of the meta-language meant we could develop piece by piece, and once each piece was done it rarely needed much changing. The system was so modular that things
almost never interfered with each other...I look back with some nostalgia at Space Safari. It was a very difficult title to program, requiring a good deal of ingenuity to handle the needs of the graphics. But I always liked the result''.
Many thanks to Graham for his time.

The game involves classifying animals and their habitats. You must 'beam' them into their correct categories; for example a toad is an amphibian. There are difficulty levels too, and I like how you have to work against the clock which makes the game challenging. Also good is the space age theme.

Courtesy of Alan @ Philips CD-i Zone

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New CD-i website: Philips CD-i Zone (By Alan!)

Here's something new: Long-time CD-i fan Alan started his very own CD-i website. In 2012, nobody needs Blogger or Black Moon anymore, but here's the first new CD-i website on a social media channel: Facebook (Why did I never think of that?)
Philips CD-i Zone on facebook triggered my attention with new pictures of rare CD-i stuff. Alan: "Welcome to ''the cd-i zone''! My aim is to bring to you everything possible about this fantastic multimedia machine which I have enjoyed for the last 18 1/2 years. So much entertainment, from games, music videos, photocds, films and documentaries. It was so far ahead of it's time, which is why it has stood the test of time."

You can find it here: Philips CD-i Zone

The promise "Check out the rarest cd-i games, unreleased games, promos, rare hardware, news, reviews, and (hopefully) interviews with publishers, developers and executives. Please feel free to get in touch - would love to hear about your Philips cd-i experiences!" may lead to a new community thanks to the huge population of Facebook, we'll see!

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Second disc existence of Voyeur 2 CD-i prototype

A bag of 'old' CD-i discs surfaced today from a guy who saved them from work. I've seen a lot of CD-i demo discs and CDr version, but this time was a little different:

"Today I saved box with CD-i games from the thrash at work. I don't have much knowledge about CD-i so I don't know if there is anything really interesting. The box was a mixed bag of seemingly retail, test, beta and burned CD-r discs. I don't know all the games work, especially the CD-r versions. My 21TCDI30 player, the TV one with builtin CD-i which I also saved from the thrash at work a few years ago, seems to have some disc reading problems, even with the retail discs I tried (I need to check if there's something I can do about that)"

There were two Voyeur 2 discs on it! You may remember we found a prototype of Voyeur 2 first in 2007 but we only had the first disc. Like with Creature Shock CD-i, Voyeur 2 was a game that needed two discs. Moreover we've only see a CDR beta version. In 2010 we published some videos of the CD-i version (disc 1 only)

On these pics you see a official test disc which indicates the games was full and done, something we were never be able to test in our CDR beta version. So that's a clear fact we have today: Voyeur 2 is a complete CD-i game, full and done. I really don't understand why Philips, after all the development that was put in, didn't finish it by publishing it.
However, there's now new CD-i stuff on the horizon and hopefully we will see more of Voyeur 2 on CD-i here on Interactive Dreams soon.

To get an idea of which beta and CDR versions surfaced, here's a list:

500 Years After – Disc 1, 01/03/93, cat 816 0001, Testing – Phase 1/ FPD
Brain Dead 13, 1.03 - 11/06/96, cat 810 0309, Testing – Beta
Drug Wars, final version - 30/12/99, cat 811 0059, Testing – Final Version
Kingdom: Schadoan, 1.02 - 11/06/96, cat 810 0280, Testing – Beta
Lucky Luke, 1.03 - 21/06/96, cat 810 0328, Testing – Beta
Mad Dog McCree, 1.01 - 26/08/94, cat 818 0045, Testing – Phase 3
Marco Polo (game disc + documentation disc), 1.01 - 02/05/95, cat 812 0044 G/D, Testing – FPD

Max Magic, 1.02 - 18/08/94, cat 690 1132, Testing – Phase 2
Mutant Rampage Body Slam, 1.01 - 05/08/94, cat 690 2822, Testing – Phase 1
Thunder in Paradise, 1.01 - 24/02/95, cat 810 0198, Testing – FPD
Uncover Tatjana, 1.01 - 18/09/96, cat 810 0331, Testing – Beta
Voyeur 2 (disc 1 + 2), 1.04 - 11/06/96, cat 810 0281, Testing – Beta
What's It Worth, 1.03 - 30/05/94, cat 811 0046, Testing – Phase 2
Who Shot Johnny Rock, 0.01 - 24/04/95, cat 810 0285, Testing – Pre-FPD
Zelda's Adventure, 1.1 - 05/08/94, cat 690 2292, Testing – Phase 2

And for the CDR discs:

7th Guest, 1.13 - 14/04/94, CDR
Apprentice, 1.05 - 20/10/94, CDR
Earth Command (Dutch), 1.1 - 29/09/94, CDR
Flashback, 1.14 - 04/07/95, CDR
Hieperdepiep Ik Lees (Dutch), 1.05 - 16/03/96, CDR
Les Guignols de l'info, 1.08 - 22/05/96, CDR
Lingo, 1.07 - 07/03/95, CDR

Lucky Luke, 1.03 - 13/03/96, CDR (disc seems to be unreadable)
Namco Classics, 1.15 - 04/09/96, CDR
Rise of the Robots, 1.1 - 20/09/95, CDR
Space Ace, 3.03 - 14/01/94, CDR
Tim en Beer bij de film (Dutch), 1.02 - 14/03/95, CDR
Wining & Dining, 1.02 - 27/03/96, CDR

We'll study on the dates to see if anything interesting comes up comparing them to the retail versions.

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The Lost Ride - Video Review by HalfBlindGamer

A brilliant review of one of the more impressive CD-i games: The Lost Ride. Itś also one of the first times Youtube allows you to watch footage of the Water World and the Future World of The Lost Ride...... Recommended!

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MAH BOI - a keyboard interface to use with CD-I emulator

As many probably have noticed, playing action games like Hotel Mario or Zeldas with CD-I emu tends to be a pain in the ass because of the lack of keyboard control.
Controlling those with mouse is extremely unpleasant if not practically impossible.

CD-i member dem0 developed quickly a program that allows you to play games (currently templates exists only for Hotel Mario and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon and Link: Faces of Evil) with your keyboard like any other game.

The program emulates mouse movement based on the pressed keys and makes the gameplay much more pleasant. The program is still pretty buggy and lacks templates, but he is going to develop it further.

Download:

Adf.ly link (if you want to support me )
http://adf.ly/BUvfM

Or direct link:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/75020308/mahboi_ver1.zip

Some clip of the tool (doesn't show much)


Notice! To hide the twitching mouse out of your way in the emulator, I recommend a program called "nomousy".

MAH BOI is for Windows only!

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Flashback CD-i: a close look of the big box version

K1ngArth3r posted a nice picture where we get a great look at the details inside the big box version of Flashback CD-i. Particular the Philips Media signs printed in the inside I find very interesting. Why did Philips release a few of its games in this types of CD-ROM boxes?

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My 'brand new' CD-i 470 player arrived today

It's been quiet at Interactive Dreams the past three months! As you may know my good old workhorse 490 player died last year and I didn't have a functional CD-i player anymore. Recently I found a practically 'brand new' CD-i 470 player including a Digital Video Cartridge, for only 5 euros at our local second hand store. Today I got it here and tested all my good old gems which I hadn't seen for months. You all claim CD-i is dead but I had a lot of fun with exclusive games like Max magix, The Apprentice, Dimo's Quest and all the others. You all claim CD-i players like this one will die soon. My new player is un-touched, probably with the original battery inside. I hope it will have a long lasting life at the Interactive Dreams office!

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Golgo 13 is a rare japanese CD-i game

...And CD-i member Spacemonkey has one and posted a picture of the cover and the CD...

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CD-i Emulator 0.53 beta versions expired, waiting for an update

The CD-i Emulator website reports that CD-i Emulator version 0.52 is currently the latest version available, because the 0.53 versions all have date limits, which all expired January 1st. Cdifan reports:
"Because these are beta versions, cdifan included date limits.
Version 0.5.3-beta1 no longer works as of 2011/01/01.
Version 0.5.3-beta2 no longer works as of 2012/01/01.
The same goes for version 0.5.3-beta3 (not public).

It was my intention to release beta4 over Christmas, but it has been delayed due to other demands on my time (work, family, etc).

The new beta will be there within a few weeks, but expect no big new features. It will have better support for some exotic CD-i player system ROMs, a screen snapshot feature, and the MPEG support is much less buggy but still not really "working" for most CD-i titles.

At present there are no functional beta versions (public or otherwise) working for anyone. If you really need it, you can (temporarily) reset the clock on your PC. "
[Thanks, cdifan]

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Lil' Champ CD-i Arcade Machine, now with a CD-i 450

We had a 'Lil Champ' CD-i arcade machine on Interactive Dreams in 2009. But it's a different one because this one was using a Magnavox CD-i 210! What interests me about these Lil' Champ machines is that there aren't any coin mechanisms. I wonder if perhaps it was used at a daycare, or in some kind of youth group. It looks like a user-made, custom built setup to me, but as I've seen more of them, I doubt that it's a custom made, hand crafted cabinet.

[Thanks, Austin]

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CD-i Reader Rating: Creature Shock is worth a 7,8

In the following months (years?) we let you decide what each CD-i game is worth. We like to know how you would rate every single CD-i game. Keep an eye on the polls in the right column to see if a new game is up. We'll come up with lists once we have some input. Thanks for your vote!

Creature Shock was rated with a 7,8 in total (10 being the highest/best). That means we have a new number #3#! Search the site to find more info on the game. From today, we start with Dimo's Quest; the top down puzzle game made by the guys behind the excellent The Apprentice. Check out the label 'Poll' to read all previous entries in the CD-i Reader Rating. The top 6 until now is as following:

1. Burn: Cycle (8,7)
2. The 7th Guest (8,3)
3. Creature Shock (7,8)
4. Atlantis: The Last Resort (7,7)
5. Brain Dead 13 (7,1)
6. Accelerator (3,9)

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The Kyocera Pro 1000S CD-i player

It's since 2007 when we had a closer look at a Kyocera CD-i player, now another one popped up on ebay and was bought by Austin. I have never seen one for real. Kyocera was one of the co-developers of Philips for the very first 180 players.

Austin: "It cleaned up very nicely and it really feels like a tough unit. Games seem to load fine, and the menu interface for the system isn't too bad (although not quite as nice as the Philiips one as I saw some say in older posts). It's also tiny, which is great. The downer: There's no DVC in this thing. It's an interesting little system though. Manufactured in Japan during May 1994 from what the bottom of the system says. Built like a rock from what I can tell, and it uses 1/8" jacks for it's audio and video-out. It also has an I/O port, plus the Mic port for the Karaoke stuff (no karaoke options built into the system though, so I guess this was done through external software or on a karaoke CD). It also has a "video-in" port, which is the most-interesting feature."

[Thanks, Austin]

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Le Monde du CD-i and Philipscd-i.com domains disappeared...

A long time back I told you about the promising return of Le Monde du CD-i with all its old glorie and content. We also had the promising new start of Philipscd-i.com (not to be confused with Philipscdi.com) - Unfortunately with the start of 2012 both website engines disappeared and they now relink to a different site of the same owner. Theworldofcdi.com now links to DJKoelkast's own Retroforum.nl and Philipscd-i.com now relinks to Scarecade.com. It's a last sign of the end of both projects. Too bad!

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