{"id":315,"date":"2012-12-13T19:12:24","date_gmt":"2012-12-13T19:12:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/?p=315"},"modified":"2012-12-20T15:26:00","modified_gmt":"2012-12-20T15:26:00","slug":"an-old-school-game-for-a-brave-new-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/an-old-school-game-for-a-brave-new-sport\/","title":{"rendered":"An old school game for a brave new sport"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/55503291?badge=0&amp;color=ff9933\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t expect a political punchline: there&#8217;s none.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/arcadebikepolo\/arcadebikepolo.html\" target=\"_blank\">Arcade Bike Polo<\/a> was created for <a href=\"http:\/\/fuckthisjam.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Fuck This Jam<\/a>, a friendly game making competition organized by <a href=\"http:\/\/vlambeer.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Vlambeer<\/a>&#8216;s Rami Ismail &amp; <a href=\"http:\/\/venuspatrol.com\/2012\/09\/fernando-ramallo-david-kanaga-tease-their-midi-controlled-musical-landscape-paranormical\/\" target=\"_blank\">Panoramical<\/a> creator Fernando Ramallo. Gameplay and graphics were completed by the end of the week-long jam but I decided to take some extra time to add sound, menus and other non-core features.<\/p>\n<p>Fuck This Jam challenged creators around the world to make a new game in a genre they hated. From the call:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Through utter ignorance for conventions and hate for the established rules of a genre, beautiful things will happen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Although <em>beauty<\/em> has never been and will never be a priority a for Molleindustria, parodying\/subverting the most obnoxious game genres (management sims, fighting games\u2026) has been a recurring strategy since the inception of the project.<br \/>\nThis time around I wanted to try a more direct approach and make a straightforward sport game. Not a stylized, natively digital multiplayer game like the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/gutefabrik\/sportsfriends-featuring-johann-sebastian-joust\" target=\"_blank\">Sportsfriends<\/a> ones (that&#8217;s definitely not a genre I hate) but instead a digital translation of an existing sport.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/sensible-soccer.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-316\" title=\"sensible soccer\" src=\"http:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/sensible-soccer.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"568\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/sensible-soccer.png 720w, https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/sensible-soccer-300x236.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The main inspiration for Arcade Bike Polo is Sensible Soccer, a frantic, streamlined and rather hardcore Amiga title from 1992. Sensible Soccer was a product of that awkward period of gaming history suspended between the symbolic\/iconic age (i.e. pong) and the forced march toward photo-realism starting from the mid-nineties.<\/p>\n<p>The choice of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hardcourt_Bike_Polo\" target=\"_blank\">Hardcourt Bike Polo<\/a> was obvious since it&#8217;s pretty much the only sport I&#8217;ve ever liked (full disclosure: I&#8217;m a terrible player). Moreover, Bike Polo is still not contaminated by rampant commercialization, exploited by cool hunting marketers, nor dominated by jock culture. On the opposite, it&#8217;s strongly connected with bicycle advocates, it&#8217;s decentralized and permeated by a DIY\/punk(ish) attitude.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_317\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-317\" style=\"width: 1190px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/bike_polo.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-317\" title=\"bike_polo\" src=\"http:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/bike_polo.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1190\" height=\"793\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/bike_polo.jpg 1190w, https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/bike_polo-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/bike_polo-1024x682.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1190px) 100vw, 1190px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-317\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo credit: Kyle Casteline<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<p>The beauty of Bike Polo is in being both elegant and messy at the same time. At first it may appear as a dangerous, clanging wreck of wheels and ski poles, but then comes the realization that hitting a small ball with a section of ABS pipe while riding a bike is not any more absurd than running around bouncing a basketball: it&#8217;s just a series of artificial constraints from which patterns, tactics and strategies emerge.<br \/>\nI wanted to create a videogame that, without any pretense of simulation and &#8220;realism&#8221;, captured some of the core dynamics of the sports. Namely: the fluidity of action resulting from the lack of fixed roles and from the bikes&#8217; affordances (you can&#8217;t instantly stop and change direction), and the asymmetry created by players with one strong side (the one with the mallet).<\/p>\n<p>Some crucial aspects like collisions, wrecks, and &#8220;dabs&#8221; are intentionally downplayed or removed to produce a more fluid gameplay. A real-life polo game tends to have a hobbling kind of flow, with frequent pauses charged with tension, and sudden breakaways; mallet-to-mallet contact (sword fight) is common and frenzied; players get constantly cornered to the side of the court. These are characteristics you won&#8217;t find in the game.<br \/>\nThose familiar with bike polo will notice some other artistic licenses: the court is over-sized, there&#8217;s no distinction between &#8220;hit&#8221; and &#8220;shuffle&#8221;, it&#8217;s possible to ride through the goal backward and then score, and so on\u2026 each of them would require a justification I&#8217;d rather spare you.<\/p>\n<p>I hope this silly videogame will introduce Bike Polo to a few uninitiated.<br \/>\nIf you are one of them, trust me: the real deal is much more fun.<br \/>\nChances are there is already a bike polo club in your own town!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Don&#8217;t expect a political punchline: there&#8217;s none. Arcade Bike Polo was created for Fuck This Jam, a friendly game making competition organized by Vlambeer&#8216;s Rami Ismail &amp; Panoramical creator Fernando Ramallo. Gameplay and graphics were completed by the end of the week-long jam but I decided to take some extra time to add sound, menus &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/an-old-school-game-for-a-brave-new-sport\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;An old school game for a brave new sport&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":325,"href":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions\/325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}