Motocross


INTELLIVISION CARTRIDGE [Mattel Electronics #3411]
Release 1983
AKA: MX
Design: Rick Koenig, Rick Levine
Program: Rick Koenig
Graphics: Rick Levine, Joe Ferreira
Sound: Mark Urbaniec
DEVELOPMENT HISTORY
Started by Rick Levine in 1981 as his follow-up project to PBA Bowling, Motocross was put on hold when Rick left Mattel. (Tired of commuting from Irvine to Hawthorne, Rick took a non-gaming job. Later, he went to work for Imagic, where he programmed the Intellivision games Microsurgeon and Truckin'.) Months later, biker Rick Koenig took a stab at completing the game. After several weeks, he got permission to scrap the existing code and begin from scratch. Only Rick Levine's basic concept and graphics were kept, with new animations by Joe Ferreira.
Rick Koenig approached the game scientifically, writing routines to simulate all the movements of the cycles according to the laws of physics. The result is motorcycles that accelerate, skid and jump realistically.
Although announced in Mattel catalogs in 1981 and 1982 as part of the Intellivision Sports Network, by the time the game was released in 1983 the themed "networks" had been dropped. The Sports Network isn't mentioned on Motocross's final packaging.

