Hunchback at the Olympics

The Games of the XXIII Olympiad were held in Los Angeles in 1984 and for the
first time since the advent of the video game industry, this king of sporting
competitions was to be held in a first-world nation. In simpler times, this
might have inspired people to head out to a track or gymnasium to try their
stuff, but now for the first time an industry was poised to let the hands of
the middle-class masses do all the work virtually, through joysticks, needing
no facilities or specialised equipment (beyond a video game console) to try
the whole gamut of events.

Since numerous companies realised this around the same time, from a marketing
perspective, the only serious question is: what’s going to make your Olympiad
game stand out from the rest? Will you have an expensive celebrity endorsement
by a Gold medal-winner? Will you implement the flags and national anthems of
all participating countries? Perhaps you’ve been beaten to the punch. Well,
here’s a tack no one has considered yet — have the player control the
Hunchback of Notre Dame, as he shambles faster, higher and stronger toward
Olympic gold! He’s an established hero of video games plus his public domain
status makes him cheaper to use than, say, Sam the Eagle, the mascot of the
1984 Summer Games.

I don’t know what elapsed at that board meeting, but the pitch was green-
lighted, and so we ended up with a game in which our unlikely hero Quasimodo
is guided, through dedicated joystick-wiggling, through the 100m sprint, long
jump, shot put, discus throw, javelin throw, 110m hurdles and high jump, all
in hopes to impress Esmeralda, the object of his affection. It’s a far cry
from the belfries and gargoyles of the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, but
perhaps the change of scenery will do him some good.