California Games is a 1987 sports video game originally released by Epyx for the Apple II and Commodore 64, and ported to other home computers and video game consoles. Branching from their Summer Games and Winter Games series, this game consists of a collection of outdoor sports purportedly popular in California. The game was successful and spawned a sequel.
Development
Several members of the development team moved on to other projects. Chuck Sommerville, the designer of the half-pipe game in California Games, later developed the game Chip’s Challenge, while Ken Nicholson, the designer of the footbag game, was the inventor of the technology used in Microsoft’s DirectX. Kevin Norman, the designer of the BMX game, went on to found the educational science software company Norman & Globus, makers of the ElectroWiz series of products.
The sound design for the original version of California Games was done by Chris Grigg, member of the band Negativland.[citation needed]