Game analysis # 7

Track and Field

Track and Field is an Olympic themed sports game, also known as Hyper Olympics, and was released as an arcade game in 1983. The game was popular because of its fun and simple gameplay and its obvious competitive element.

The game involved up to four players and used a simple system of pushing two buttons alternately as quickly as possible to run, jump etc. And depending on the event another button would be pushed to set the angle of the jump or the thrown object. The events were the 100m dash, 110m hurdles, hammer throw, javelin throw, high jump and long jump with two players being able to compete at the same time in the race events and then individual turns for the other events.

The players won the game by beating the qualifying criteria such as time or distance. By completing all events, a small award ceremony would be displayed on screen with medals being given and then the events would reset with a harder qualifiers. This allowed players to compete at increasingly challenging levels either with the computer or up to for friends. As well as the medals awarded, there was the chance to achieve bonus points by meeting certain conditions such as player 1 and player 2 finishing races at the exact same time or throwing the javelin off screen to hit a bird. The game was successful the very simple gameplay mechanics and the challenge of going though the events to beat your personal best time or distance.