How to play Summer Games online
- Run, swim, row and aim: arrow keys (each event works differently, see below)
- Fire button (choose a country, start an event, swim strokes, shoot): Space bar
- Second joystick for head-to-head races: T/F/G/H to move, A to fire
- One or two joysticks: F4 toggles the left difficulty switch (A = two joysticks, B = one joystick)
- Practice mode, and back to the country menu: F11 (the console’s Select switch)
- Restart from the middle of a game: F12 (Reset). Holding Select and pressing Reset returns to the country menu.
- Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it
Gameplay
After the title screen, every player picks one of eight countries: the USA, USSR, U.K., Japan, Greece, Canada, Spain or Italy. Two players cannot represent the same nation. Then the events follow one after another, with each country taking its turn in the same order every time. After each event the top three countries are shown, and at the end the medals are added up to crown a Grand Champion.
- Hurdles: hold right to run and tap up to jump each hurdle. Holding up too long slows you down, and crashing into a hurdle costs time.
- Swimming: push right just before the starting gun, press fire as each arm hits the water, and tap left to turn at the end of the pool.
- Skeet shooting: move the sight onto the clay targets and fire. You shoot from eight posts, and the most hits out of 25 wins.
- 100-yard dash: waggle the joystick in any direction as fast as you can.
- Swimming relay: the swimming controls with a team of three, each swimming two lengths.
- Gymnastics: a one-minute pommel horse routine worth up to 10 points. You gain points for a clean mount and dismount, for moving along the horse and for spins, and falling off the end disqualifies you.
- Rowing: move the joystick left and right in a steady rhythm.
| Medal | Points towards Grand Champion |
|---|---|
| Gold | 5 |
| Silver | 3 |
| Bronze | 2 |
If you play alone, the dash, the hurdles and the rowing give you a computer opponent. In two-joystick races, the left joystick controls the athlete at the top of the screen.
Tips
- Practise first. Press F11 for practice mode and try each event before competing. The pommel horse takes a few attempts.
- Tap, don’t hold, over the hurdles. A short tap is enough, and you should push right again straight after landing.
- Anticipate the gun in the pool. An early push gives a better start, but too early counts as a fault.
- Allow for the drift in skeet. The manual warns that the sight is pulled slightly downwards while you aim, so correct for it before you fire.
The story behind Summer Games
The idea goes back to Sweat! The Decathlon Game, a Starpath Supercharger project. Epyx bought Starpath, the Supercharger games were cancelled in the 1983 crash, and Sweat! programmer Scott Nelson moved to Epyx, where work started on Summer Games for the Commodore 64. It had no official Olympic licence, but it launched Epyx’s whole “Games” series, including Winter Games and California Games. By November 1989 Epyx had sold more than 250,000 copies across its formats.
The 2600 cartridge arrived late in the console’s life, and its event list differs from the computer versions: there is no pole vault or diving, but it adds rowing and a swimming relay.
