Welcome to "The Black Moon Project". We aim to become the premier resource for Philips CD-i related material. Including Reviews, Movies, Articles, Interviews, Boxart, Manual Scans and anything else that could possibly be related to the CD-i. Hope you enjoy our project and keep checking back for regular updates. Have fun!!
The first fully functional emulator for Philips CD-i system has been released named simply as CD-i Emulator. From this official website you can demo a time limited release of the emulator bearing in mind you need the full original CD-i ROM (BIOS) in order for the emulator to function. Full support including player compatibility listings and details about how to obtain your CD-i players ROM is also provided.
Chris Adamson Review - The Apprentice
11/07/2010 | 21:57 GMT - Devin | Blog | Forums
During the early 90's video game journalism had barely left its embryonic state, with many dedicated magazines on the receiving end of publisher pay cheques! It was difficult to seperate the sales pitch from the review and CD-i was no exception. As even the exclusive CDi Magazine published in the UK and to a limited extent in the states only existed because of Philips funding. Reviews were vetted and press releases moulded in to frenzied announcements. However, amongst the chaff was a single voice. Opinionated, colourful yet whole heartedly independent, that voice was Chris Adamson.
He chronicled many CD-i releases, mostly games but also on occassion the odd reference or aerobics title! With the blessing of Chris, we will recreate all his reviews and pretty them up for your viewing consumption, starting with one we can all agree as the greatest game on CD-i, The Apprentice.
May 30, 2010
The Apprentice 2, Pipe Dream or Reality?
30/05/2010 | 16:36 GMT - Devin | Blog | Forums
Been working on this for a while now hopeful to uncover a few more nuggets of information but for now at least, this article represents our total knowledge about The Apprentice Mark 2! We've managed to uncover lost concept artwork, a tech demo and even discovered that it wasn't just PixelHazard involved in the games supposed development. Read more about The Apprentice 2, Pipe Dream or Reality?, under the Interviews & Articles section of Black Moon.
In further news we have also tidied up the Links and Movies section for your viewing pleasure. It should look much better on netbooks now!
May 3, 2010
It's official, Philips CD-i was the first dual-layer DVD player!
03/05/2010 | 12:10 GMT - Devin | Blog | Forums
Black Moon and the associated sites have often been asked the same question, "can I play my DVD in a CD-i player"? To which we sigh and then go to great lengths to describe what a CD-i player is and how it came before DVD so you'll have to settle with the VideoCD tech that an upgraded CD-i player offered. However it appears we were wrong to assume CD-i was only capable of playing VideoCD, at least theoretically! Whilst rummaging around our store of newspapers we found an article about the beginnings of DVD tech and how, as an early demonstration, dual-layer DVD technology was first incorporated in to a Philips CD-i player. Read on through these clippings for the full scope...
Perhaps its hardly surprising since Philips CD-i has been adpated to all sorts of uses including touch screen kiosks, adapted as an early example of video on demand (probably another first!), even in an arcade jamma environment for quiz games! Although is has to be said that a dual-layer DVD Philips CD-i player is probably the pinnacle of this technology that we would love to get our grubby mits on!
April 3, 2010
Did Burn:Cycle pioneer viral marketing?
03/04/2010 | 15:30 GMT - Devin | Blog | Forums
It's almost a given that any high profile video game is preceded by a steady stream of trailers, screenshots, developer interviews and even the phenomenon of viral marketing! Just google 'I Love Bees' and you'll discover the viral marketing campaign for Halo 2 as an example. However, unknown to even the Black Moon crew, Burn:Cycle received similar treatment as stated in this newspaper article...
A world away from 'I Love Bees', but then again this is an early example of cross media/platform promotion. We would have loved to resurrect this site for you like we did with the Ram Raid homepage, but even the mighty internet archive came too late to save this piece of video game history. That is unless some wizard who worked at Philips has saved the content, we live in hope!
October 27, 2009
Holy grail in reach? Have we acquired the marketed range?
27/10/2009 | 22:03 GMT - Devin | Blog | Forums
Being the 'Game of the Decade' on Black Moon it should come as no surprise that I am obsessed about Burn:Cycle! I know everything about this game and also that it doesn't bloody work in any emulator to date. Well, finally thanks to CD-i Fan the hordes of Sol Cutter worshippers can see a glimmer of hope with news that CD-i Emulator is showing signs of life when playing this game. Much better than the Black/Blue screen the emulator splutters out at the moment in the commercial release! It's reported the game plays just shy of 5 minutes before faltering, fingers crossed this number can be improved for the 'Green Stamp' of full support!
October 18, 2009
News Round Up - The Endians are Coming!
18/10/2009 | 14:27 GMT - Devin | Blog | Forums
In a feeble attempt to hold back the damn of CD-i news hitting us, here's another news round up!
First there has been a great deal of movement on the MESS CD-i driver as you can see from these videos showing Lemmings, Hotel Mario, Whack-A-Bubble and Pac-Panic.
In further news on the emulation front, the CD-i Emulator website has been updated with pretty pictures of the Digital Video Cartridge in various guises. Although be careful if your viewing these pictures in a place of work as they do contain bare circuit boards. A very fine selection of robot porn I might add, which can be found under the hardware section.
If that hasn't titilated you enough, then Bas has posted some more on interactive Dreams trying to define what it is to be CD-i, is it 16 bit or 32 bit? The mystery of CD-i continues!
October 14, 2009
Forget the Zelda Games!
14/10/2009 | 23:36 GMT - Devin | Blog | Forums
So if you had the time to read this months edition of Games™ you'll find yet another article about Zelda's Adventure and how crap it was! Well actually it was the 'collectors corner' where some Joe Smoe was showing off his original copy of the game like it's some fantastically rare item. Which incidentally, it's not, just over-priced and under-rated! Yet they still manage to put a shoe into CD-i with the classic line, 'it did have a few good games but nothing compared to the [insert console here].' Not that the publicity is unwelcome, I just wish they'd get over peddling CD-i as some mystical machine with strange, bizare and unknown games (List is under the Games Archive if you care to read Mr Games™!). Then again maybe a decent article in the 'Retro-Chic' of gaming publications is too much to ask for? An In-depth analysis of Philips ADS, the downfall of Philips Media empire and dare I dream it, an article about The Apprentice? No, it's Zelda games, that Mario prototype and the plumber in a Hotel!
This is a nice example of the synergy that the MESS guys and CD-i Fan have developed whilst working on their individual wares. So I've pulled it out of the techno babble posted on the Emuversal forums under the CD-i WIP thread, which, if you can make sense of it, your a better reader than me!
In laymans terms this is what CD-i Emulation of the pinball game Zenith looks like with v0.5.2...
This is what it looks like on the developmental v0.5.2a courtesy of CD-i Fan on YouTube...
Quite a difference I think you'd agree!
October 12, 2009
News Round Up
12/10/2009 | 20:18 GMT - Devin | Blog | Forums
It seems the long CD-i drought has ended at last, so it's a pleasure to write a little news round up of all things CD-i...
First, after a vacation putting Black Moon to shame The New International CD-i Association has spun into action with a deluge of technical notes to daze and confuse most but maybe useful to a few of the engineer ilk. Speaking of which, if you have the notion to belittle yourselves with lack of 'te tek speak' then head over to the Emuversal forums where you will find some technical sorts discussing a new CD-i Emulator. Just check out this thread where the boffins working on MESS, otherwise known as Multiple Emulator Super System, are constructing a driver to enable CD-i wares! Our very own CD-i Fan is on hand to provide advice. With a wash of screen shots and videos it's fascinating to see the pace MESS CD-i Emulation is advancing!
Not one to be left out of the action, the CD-i blog, interactive Dreams, has produced news of a CD-i game in concept called 'Falco & Donjon & The Sword of Inoxybur'. The article shows a mosaic of pixels typical of the time, displaying various icons, letters and characters intended for the game itself. It's a very intriguing find and one to keep an eye out for in the future. Also a few short days ago some cheeky chap going by the name Devin posted the following image on the CDinteractive forums...
Seems to be a teaser of sorts and I suspect we'll learn more in the coming weeks!
September 19, 2009
Sanyo CD-i Player Prototype?
19/09/2009 | 22:45 GMT - Devin | Blog | Forums
Whilst scanning the vast interweb I happened upon something very peculiar...
What appears to be a Sanyo CD-i player. Now it's not unusual for a prototype design to fall foul and never see the light of day. As the late Silas Warner described to us in his statement, before launch half the worlds supply of CD-i players were made redundant by a small technical fault! Did the same fault strike down a series of Sanyo CD-i players? We can only speculate at this point, however it is a tantalising prospect and a damned nice looking CD-i player!
August 31, 2009
The Black Moon Project Relocated
31/08/2009 | 16:02 GMT - Devin | Blog | Forums
We have just relocated The Black Moon Project to our local server. Now this involves a massive change of web code since our migration from the Game Spy server. For you this will mean that the main sections are available such as Games Archive and Movie Archive however we're still in the process of updating a great deal of the resources here. So a few pictures and screenshots will be missing along with articles, guides and cheats accociated with the various games we write about. This will be resolved in the coming weeks (not months!) and we'll resume regular updating!
