''Summer Games'' is a

sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

developed and published by

Epyx Epyx, Inc. was a video game developer and publisher active in the late 1970s and 1980s. The company was founded as Automated Simulations by Jim Connelley and Jon Freeman, originally using Epyx as a brand name for action-oriented games before ren ...

based on sports featured in the Summer Olympic Games. Released in 1984 for the Commodore 64, it was

ported In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...

to the Apple II,

Atari 2600 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 ...

Atari 7800 The Atari 7800 ProSystem, or simply the Atari 7800, is a home video game console officially released by Atari Corporation in 1986 as the successor to both the Atari 2600 and Atari 5200. It can run almost all Atari 2600 cartridges, making it one ...

, Atari 8-bit family, and

Sega Master System The is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console manufactured by Sega. It was originally a remodeled export version of the Sega Mark III, the third iteration of the SG-1000 series of consoles, which was released in Japan in 1985 and ...

. In the UK, the game was first released by

Quicksilva Quicksilva was a British games software publisher active during the early 1980s. Quicksilva was founded by Nick Lambert in 1979. The name Quicksilva was inspired by a particular guitar solo in a track on the album Happy Trails by Quicksilver Mess ...

and subsequently by

U.S. Gold U.S. Gold Limited was a British video game publisher based in Witton, Birmingham, England. The company was founded in 1984 by Anne and Geoff Brown in parallel to their distributor firm, CentreSoft, both of which became part of Woodward Brown Ho ...

who later created versions for the Amiga,

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as the ''ZX81 Colou ...

Amstrad CPC The Amstrad CPC (short for ''Colour Personal Computer'') is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Si ...

and Atari ST for inclusion in compilations. In 2004 it was re-released on the

C64 Direct-to-TV The C64 Direct-to-TV, called C64DTV for short, is a single-chip implementation of the Commodore 64 computer, contained in a joystick (modeled after the mid-1980s Competition Pro joystick), with 30 built-in games. The design is similar to the A ...

. ''Summer Games'' was the first in Epyx's ''Games'' series which included: '' Summer Games II'', ''

Winter Games ''Winter Games'' is a sports video game developed by Epyx (and released in Europe by U.S. Gold), based on sports featured in the Winter Olympic Games. A snow-and-ice themed follow-up to the highly successful '' Summer Games'', ''Winter Games'' ...

'', ''

World Games The World Games are an international multi-sport event comprising sports and sporting disciplines that are not contested in the Olympic Games. They are usually held every four years, one year after a Summer Olympic Games, over the course of 11 d ...

'', ''

California Games ''California Games'' is a 1987 sports video game originally released by Epyx for the Apple II and Commodore 64, and ported to other home computers and video game consoles. Branching from their '' Summer Games'' and '' Winter Games'' series, t ...

'', '' California Games II'', ''The Games: Summer Edition'', and ''The Games: Winter Edition.

Gameplay

The game is presented as a virtual multi-sport competition called the "Epyx Games" (there was no official

IOC The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...

licensing in place) with up to eight players each choosing a country to represent, and then taking turns competing in various events to try for a medal. A score of 5:3:1 is used — gold medals 5 points, silver medals 3 points, and bronze medals 1 point. On most versions, world records can be saved to the floppy disk. The Commodore 64 version allows players to link ''Summer Games'' and '' Summer Games II'' to engage in one large Olympics, accumulating medals in a tournament from both games.

Events

The events available vary slightly depending on the platform, and include

pole vault Pole vaulting, also known as pole jumping, is a track and field event in which an athlete uses a long and flexible pole, usually made from fiberglass or carbon fiber, as an aid to jump over a bar. Pole jumping competitions were known to the Myc ...

, platform diving,

sprinting Sprinting is running over a short distance at the top-most speed of the body in a limited period of time. It is used in many sports that incorporate running, typically as a way of quickly reaching a target or goal, or avoiding or catching an op ...

gymnastics Gymnastics is a type of sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, dedication and endurance. The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the development of the arms, legs, s ...

freestyle swimming Freestyle is a category of Swimming (sport), swimming competition, defined by the rules of the International Swimming Federation (FINA), in which competitors are subject to a few limited restrictions on their swimming stroke. Freestyle races ar ...

, and skeet shooting. The game allows the player to compete in all of the events sequentially, choose a few events, choose just one event, or practice an event.

Reception

Epyx sold more than 250,000 copies of ''Summer Games'' by November 1989; ''

Ahoy! ''Ahoy!'' was a computer magazine published between January 1984 and January 1989 in the US, focusing on all Commodore color computers, but especially the Commodore 64 and Amiga. History The first issue of ''Ahoy!'' was published in January 198 ...

'' described it as "tremendously successful". As the first of Epyx's "Games" series, it founded what a historian later described as "the most sustainedly popular in the long life of the Commodore 64", the most popular home computer of the mid-1980s. In 1996, '' Next Generation'' listed the "Games" series collectively as number 89 on its "Top 100 Games of All Time". The magazine stated that though the games had great graphics for their time, their most defining qualities were their competitive multiplayer modes and "level of control that has yet to be equaled". In a retrospective review, Atari 7800 Forever gave only a 2.0 out of 5, criticizing the boring events.

References

External links

''Summer Games''
at MobyGames *
Interview with Scott Nelson
from The Epyx Shrine (by Cybergoth)

*
Review
in

GAMES Magazine ''GAMES World of Puzzles'' is a puzzle magazine formed from the merger of Games and World of Puzzles in October 2014. The entire magazine interior is now newsprint (as opposed to the part-glossy/part-newsprint format of the original ''Games'') an ...

{{Epyx Games series 1984 video games Epyx games 1984 Summer Olympics Summer Olympic video games Apple II games Amiga games Atari 2600 games Atari 7800 games Atari 8-bit family games Atari ST games Commodore 64 games Master System games U.S. Gold games ZAP Corporation games ZX Spectrum games Video games developed in the United States Multiplayer and single-player video games Quicksilva games

Gameplay

Events

Reception

See also

References

External links