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Sweat!
Name:
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Sweat!
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Company: |
Starpath |
Model #:
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N/A |
Programmer:
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Scott Nelson |
Year: |
1983 |
Released?
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No
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Notes:
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Served as the
basis for Summer Games |
Sweat! was to be Starpath's version of Activision's Decathlon
for the Supercharger. Given the fact that the Supercharger
allowed for more memory and larger games, Sweat! probably would
have been an amazing game had it been completed. Of course
this never happened as the video game market was crumbling
rapidly and people weren't spending money on regular video
games, much less games that required special hardware. It
was around this time that the financially troubled Starpath
merged with Epyx. Most of Starpath's programmers
transferred over to Epyx and used Sweat!'s game concept to
create Summer Games.

Although Sweat! is the basis for Summer Games, little if any
code from Sweat! was used. According to Sweat! programmer
Scott Nelson:
"Actually, there's probably more of Party Mix in Summer Games
than Sweat!. Sweat! never got much beyond the concept
stage."
There are three known prototypes for Sweat, each at a different
stage of completion. The original prototype consisted only
of the running events (Hurdles, 100 Meters, and 400 Meters), this
version is the most widely known of the three prototypes.
Some time later, a second prototype was discovered which
only consisted of the Shot Put event and didn't contain the event
selection menus from the first prototype. This has lead some
people to speculate that this prototype was actually just a
separate load that was meant to be called from the original
prototype (although this currently doesn't happen). Recently
a third prototype was discovered that appears to not only have a
title screen, but a more complete event selection menu.
Unfortunately this prototype doesn't appear to have any
playable events, as it makes calls to loads that don't
exist. A fourth prototype featuring a different build of the
Hurdles event exists but has not been made public.
Prototype #1 (Running Events)
Sweat! uses an interesting text menu system for selecting the
events. The letters are nice and large, and seem to be
staggered up and down. This effect makes for a stylish yet
easy to read menu. The first menu will ask if you want to
practice an event, compete in a single event, or do the whole
decathlon. Since this prototype is incomplete only "Single
Event" or "Practice" really do anything. Selecting "Decathalon"
(note the spelling error) will allow you to select how many
players there are (from one to nine), and then bring up a name
entry screen. You can enter your name if you want, but after
that you'll see the message "Why Not Pick A Different Event" and
be brought back to the main menu.

If you chose "Single Event" or "Practice", the event select menu
will appear and list all ten of the planned events. Since
work was stopped quite early on Sweat! only three of the events
are actually selectable. Selecting anything other than
Hurdles, 100 Meters, or 400 Meters will result in the message "Why
Not Pick A Different Event". These events appear to be more
or less fully playable, although there is no sound. Once
selected you'll see your man at the starting line, and the words
"READY", "SET", and "BANG!" will appear on the wall. Once
you make it to the finish line the game will freeze, but pressing
select will bring you back to the main menu.

The controls for Sweat! are a bit odd, as the first player
joystick port uses the paddle controllers (used for navigating the
menus and the Shot Put event), and the second port uses the
joystick controller (used in the running events). The
joystick controls are similar to Track & Field or Decathlon in
that you must move the joystick left and right to simulate
running. However, unlike T&F and Decathlon the running
motion isn't very smooth, and if the joystick is moved too rapidly
the game will not pick up on the movement. A medium-fast
motion is recommended for the best results. Pressing the
button will cause your player the jump, which is only useful to
get over the hurdles (although you can hop your way to the finish
line if you wish).

The graphics on the race screen though are very impressive, even
for the Supercharger. The graphics are large, brightly
colored, and very detailed. As your character runs or hops
his way to victory, you can see the three layers of the background
scroll at different rates in what may be the one of the most
advanced uses of parallax scrolling on the Atari 2600. The
stadium is on one layer, the hills are on a second layer, and the
mountains in the background are on yet a third layer. The
scrolling is very smooth and really adds a lot to the game.

Prototype #2 (Shot Put)
This prototype starts up immediately with the Shot Put, and it
appears no other events are present (or at least not selectable).
This is probably because this prototype was not meant to be
a stand alone build like Prototype #1, but rather a tape load to
be called from the game engine itself (see Prototype #3 for more
details).

While this event may be a little hard to control, it appears to
be fully functional. Unlike the running events, this event
uses the paddle controller in port 1. Moving the paddle will
select how much power your man is using (shown by the gauge in the
middle of the screen), while pressing the fire button will throw
the Shot Put. To successfully throw the Shot Put, your must
press the fire button before your man gets through all four
throwing motions. The optimal time to press the button is
right as your man reaches the final motion (as shown below), if
the button is pressed earlier the Shot Put will not travel as far.
The more power you use the faster your man will go through
the motions, and thus the more difficult it is to time it
correctly.

Prototype #3
This recently discovered version of Sweat is interesting for a
number of reasons. Not only does it contain a title screen
(complete with a nice rendition of the Star Spangled Banner), but
the game engine itself seems to be much farther long than the
other two prototypes. In this version of Sweat, when an
unimplemented event is selected the game will display a fake score
of 000 and declare Contestant #1 the winner, rather than asking
you to pick a different event. This build also allows the
player to select menu items using the joystick rather than the
paddle controllers, which is a welcome change. Also take
note that the 100 Meter and 400 Meter have been renamed the 100m
Dash and 400m Dash (which makes more sense), and that the line
between the contestant number and name has been removed from the
name entry screen.

Another interesting change to the game engine is that rather
than accessing the running events (Hurdles, 100m Dash, and 400m
Dash) from the prototype itself (as was done in the earlier
prototype), it tries to access separate tape loads for each event.
This is how the final version of the game would have worked
(each event would have been a separate tape load), and shows that
the game design was finally taking form. Unfortunately none
of the loads that this prototype is looking for have been found,
so there isn't much to see. It is thought that Prototype #2
(which consists only of the Shot Put event) might be a lost load
from this prototype.

Obviously a lot of effort was being put into this game, it's a
shame that it never was finished. Thankfully the concept was
saved and used as the basis for the ever-popular Summer Games
series. Even though Summer Games was eventually ported to
the 2600; one can't help feeling slightly gypped. Sweat! was
obviously the more graphically superior of the two games, and it
sported 10 events as compared to only 7 in Summer Games. But
since the 2600 already had a Decathlon game (The Activision
Decathlon), maybe it's just as well.
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