Sportsfriends: Building a Better Pole Riders
In 2010, when I started making Pole Riders, my original plan was to make a straight pole-vaulting game, like the ones in Summer Games or Daley Thompson’s Decathlon, 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 Joust and Track & Field, but at home, and in the public libraries, the Epyx compilations ruled the roost: not just Summer Games but Winter Games and the immortal California Games 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 Sportsfriends, 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.
