''Sky Jinks'' is a vertically-scrolling,
air racing
Air racing is a type of motorsport that involves airplanes or other types of aircraft that compete over a fixed course, with the winner either returning the shortest time, the one to complete it with the most points, or to come closest to a prev ...
-themed
video game developed by
Bob Whitehead for the
Atari 2600 video game console, and published by
Activision in 1982.
Gameplay
In ''Sky Jinks'', the player pilots a low-flying
Seversky XP-41 airplane through a
time trial. To complete a
game level, the player must
bank around a prescribed number of
pylons (left for blue and right for red). The XP-41 can bank left and right, as well as accelerate and decelerate. Flying into a pylon (which counts), tree, or
hot air balloon slows down the plane.
The game has four courses: Polo Grounds, Aero Race, Love Field, and Speedy Meadows. There is also a
pseudo-randomly-generated course called Thompson Tourney.
Legacy
In the mid-1980s,
social psychologist Roy Baumeister used the game in his
psychological research into
performance anxiety.
Activision anthologized ''Sky Jinks'' in the
PlayStation
is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divisi ...
title ''A Collection of Activision Classic Games for the Atari 2600'' (1998) and in the
multi-platform
In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software r ...
collection ''
Activision Anthology'' (2002).
See also
*
List of Atari 2600 games
*
List of Activision games: 1980–1999
*''
Skiing'' (1980), a similar skiing game written by Bob Whitehead for Activision
References
External links
''Sky Jinks''at Atari Mania
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sky Jinks
1982 video games
Air racing video games
Atari 2600 games
Atari 2600-only games
North America-exclusive video games
Top-down racing video games
Video games developed in the United States
Single-player video games