''Steeplechase'' is an
sports video game
A sports video game is a video game that simulates the practice of sports. Most sports have been recreated with a game, including team sports, track and field, extreme sports, and combat sports. Some games emphasize actually playing the sport (s ...
by released in arcades 1975 by
Atari, Inc.
Atari, Inc. was an American video game developer and home computer company founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Atari was a key player in the formation of the video arcade and video game industry.
Based primarily around the Sunny ...
Developed by Atari subsidiary
Kee Games
Kee Games was an American arcade game manufacturer that released arcade and video games from 1973 to 1978.
History
Kee was formed by Joe Keenan, a friend and neighbor of Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, in September 1973. In reality, Bushnell h ...
, it simulates a
steeplechase-style horse race. It was distributed in Japan by
Nakamura Seisakusho (Namco) in 1976.
Gameplay
Up to six players can play against each other, each choosing a horse while the computer controls the seventh horse on the bottom. Each player's horse begins galloping, and the players must jump over obstacles in their lanes by pressing their colored buttons. The horse that successfully jumps all obstacles smoothly becomes the fastest horse and wins.
Development
The game was originally called ''AstroTurf'', and all
printed circuit boards
A printed circuit board (PCB; also printed wiring board or PWB) is a medium used in electrical and electronic engineering to connect electronic components to one another in a controlled manner. It takes the form of a laminated sandwich struc ...
still have the name on the board.
The game is housed in a custom extra wide cabinet that six individually colored and lit buttons used to make a player's horse jump. The monitor is a 23" black and white CRT monitor with 6 color overlays to make each of the 6 horizontally stacked lanes match their colored button counterparts. Sounds include a bugle, galloping hoof beats, and crowd cheers.
Ports
A conversion for the
Atari Video Computer System
The Atari 2600, initially branded as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) from its release until November 1982, is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977, it popularized microprocesso ...
programmed by Jim Huether was released under the same name in 1980.
[ It was developed at Atari and distributed under ]Sears
Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
' Tele-Games label.[
] It is one of three games from Atari exclusively for the Tele-Games line.
Legacy
A European version was released by Löwen-Automaten.[.
] A Soviet clone of this machine with exact gameplay and graphics, but different cabinet was called Skachki, which can be literally translated as "horse race".
References
External links
*
''Steeplechase''
(Atari 2600) at Atari Mania
1975 video games
Arcade video games
Atari 2600 games
Atari arcade games
Discrete video arcade games
Horse racing video games
Sports video games
Video games developed in the United States
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