California Games
| California Games | |
|---|---|
C64/128 Cover art
|
|
| Developer(s) | Epyx |
| Publisher(s) | Epyx |
| Designer(s) | Chuck Sommerville Ken Nicholson Kevin Norman |
| Composer(s) | Chris Grigg David Wise (NES version) Chikako Kamatani (SMS version) Andras Magyari (Genesis version) |
| Series | Epyx Games |
| Platform(s) | Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Apple IIGS, Atari 2600, Atari Lynx, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, MSX, NES, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Sega Master System, ZX Spectrum, Virtual Console |
| Release date(s) |
1987 Virtual Console |
| Genre(s) | Sports game |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Publication | Score |
| CVG | 37/40 |
| Crash | 36% |
| Sinclair User | 8/10 |
| Your Sinclair | 7/10 |
| Zzap!64 | 97% |
| MicroHobby (ES) |  |
| The Games Machine | 92% |
| MegaTech | 80% |
| Mega | 60% |
| Award | |
|---|---|
| Publication | Award |
| Zzap!64 | Gold Medal |
California Games is a 1987 Epyx sports video game for many home computers and video game consoles. Branching from their popular Summer Games and Winter Games series, this game consisted of some sports purportedly popular in California including skateboarding, freestyle footbag, surfing, roller skating, flying disc (frisbee) and BMX.
The game sold very well, topping game selling charts for winter months. It also got very positive reaction from reviewers, many of whom consider California Games to be the last classic Epyx sports game, due to staff changes not long after its release.
The game was followed in 1991 by California Games II, but the sequel failed to match the original's success.
Several members of the development team moved on to other projects. Chuck Sommerville, the designer of the half-pipe game in California Games later developed the game Chip's Challenge, while Ken Nicholson the designer of the footbag game was the inventor of the technology used in Microsoft's DirectX. Kevin Norman, the designer of the BMX game went on to found the educational science software company Norman & Globus, makers of the ElectroWiz series of products.
The sound design for the original version of California Games was done by Chris Grigg, member of the band Negativland.
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Wikipedia