Sportsfriends: Building a Better Pole Riders

[Commander Fury]

In 2010, when I started making <a href="http://www.foddy.net/PoleRiders.html">Pole Riders</a>, my original plan was to make a straight pole-vaulting game, like the ones in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Games">Summer Games</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daley_Thompson's_Decathlon">Daley Thompson’s Decathlon</a>, both games that were super-popular when I was six years old. Back in 1984, local multiplayer games were nearing the peak of their popularity. In the arcades, there were games like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joust_(video_game)">Joust</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_%26_Field_(video_game)">Track & Field</a>, but at home, and in the public libraries, the Epyx compilations ruled the roost: not just Summer Games but <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_%26_Field_(video_game)">Winter Games</a> and the immortal <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Games">California Games</a> too. I was absolutely obsessed with the pole-vault event in Summer Games and for the longest time, I wanted to make my own version of it.

 

Perhaps it’s no coincidence, then, that I’m now involved in <a href="http://www.sportsfriendsgame.com">Sportsfriends</a>, which is a spiritual successor to Summer Games - a compilation of four sports-themed games, to be played by up to four friends on the one couch. But unlike the old Epyx compilations, none of the Sportsfriends games play it straight.

 

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