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.
History
Color Dreams was based in Brea, California, and was started by Daniel Lawton, a self-educated computer programmer and vocal opponent of Nintendo's licensing policy. Founded in 1988, Color Dreams was one of the largest producers of unlicensed games for the NES, but, due to pressure from Nintendo, it faced many difficulties getting retailers to stock its games. Although Color Dreams violated no laws in opting out of the Nintendo licensing system with its workaround of Nintendo's 10NES lockout chip, Nintendo was displeased that it was receiving no revenue from Color Dreams games, and wanted to prevent other companies from following. Nintendo threatened to cease selling games to retailers that sold unlicensed NES games.
Because retailers could not afford to stop doing business with Nintendo, unlicensed companies were at a disadvantage. Color Dreams had great difficulty accessing the retail market, and worked outside of mainstream NES distribution channels. Also, many of its games were reported to have problems getting to run properly, occasionally even requiring instructions on the cartridge, and were criticized for their lack of quality and gameplay. Kozik later commented, "No one knew it was going to take off, but it took off like crazy."
Color Dreams also published games with the Bunch Games label. In 1996, its StarDot Technologies division started selling digital security cameras. As the only North American Super NES cartridge to not use the standard Nintendo-manufactured shell, its shape resembles the Super NES Game Genie or Sonic & Knuckles on the Genesis, with a pass-through cartridge port at the top; the game requires a Nintendo-licensed cartridge plugged into this pass-through, bypassing the Super NES's lockout protection.
King of Kings was listed as the honorable mention in Gamespy.com's "Seven Christmas Games That Make You Hate Christmas", due to its unentertaining gameplay and the farcical feel of dodging "acid-spitting camels".
Color Dreams pamphlets tout a lineup of Genesis games, all of them ports of Amiga games, but were all canceled.
In 2015, a PC remake of Super 3D Noah's Ark was released on Steam through the Steam Greenlight service.