Sports Story is a major step forward from Sidebar Games’ highly-regarded original game, Golf Story. Where Golf Story revolved around golf, Sports Story expands to include BMX, cricket, volleyball, fishing, and even more golf. It couldn’t have been an easy project to work on, which is why fans were more than comfortable waiting the five years it took to finish the game. But a slew of technical issues has some wondering why Sidebar Games didn’t take even more time to polish Sports Story.
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Due to certain technical issues in Sports Story, players have been able to glitch out of bounds in ways that Sidebar Games likely never expected. Using this method, players found a secret room otherwise inaccessible filled with developers from a fake game studio named Cold Catridge. The room is surprisingly detailed, so someone clearly put a good amount of work into it. When talking to the NPCs in the room, however, the tone takes a somewhat serious turn.
The NPC at the entrance of the room mentions that their game, GALF, will be releasing any day now. A second NPC then shouts, “You said that a year ago!” The first NPC responds, “You might say we’re experiencing a troubled development.” Other NPCs then mention GALF’s original vision no longer existing due to requests for new features, and maybe that they should have “made the game work instead of adding features.” Given the state of Sports Story, the atmosphere of the room is quite dour.
To be clear, by all appearances this room, the development studio of Cold Catridge, is supposed to be taken in good humor. It’s a joke meant to break the fourth wall, making fun of game development and also perhaps Sports Story’s development. It was, perhaps, at one point in time supposed to be in the game itself and not hidden away. The state of Sports Story may have prompted Sidebar Games to hide it away, though.
Game development is extremely challenging, especially for a smaller indie studio that’s also publishing its game like Sidebar Games with Sports Story. At some point, money will always become an issue, and the money rarely lines up with the schedule of development. Sports Story is, by all accounts, a very good game despite its technical issues. Here’s hoping Sidebar Games is able to polish Sports Story quickly, and have the resources necessary for its next game to be that much better.
Sports Story is available now on Switch.
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