Stunts is a racing game from the year 1990. The game was released by DSI and Broderbund respectively, in the versions 1.0 and 1.1 for pc. At the same time, Mindscape released the game under the name 4D Sports Driving, in the versions 1.0 and 1.1 for pc and 1.2 for the Amiga. The game came out with 3D-polygon-graphics, which were stunning and revolting at that time. The influence from the predecessor Test Drive (also released by DSI) was easy to spot because of the similar graphics and game structure.
The game
On a big square area defined and surrounded by a fence you can race on a track (or off the track) in different cars, with either automatic or manual transmission. You can either race against the clock or choose between six different opponents. The goal is to go from start to finish as quickly as possible. A great thing about this game is that you do not have to race only the racing tracks that come with it: there is a built-in track editor that lets you design your own tracks with different track parts in a very simple way. The game is called Stunts because of special track parts such as loops, jumps (over tall buildings!), slalom roads and corkscrews. You can save every race you drive as a so-called "replay", and then watch them again and again afterwards from several different perspectives.
Stunts today
Although the game obviously is more than 10 years old it is still greatly loved all over the world. When close to the end of the 90’s, the game was first declared abandonware and then finally declared freeware by the game developers themselves, many people discovered it again. Already in the middle of the 90’s the websites about Stunts and the first online Stunts downloads were created. First of all, the game spread quickly over the internet because the game size is less than 1MB when zipped. When the first online competitions (in which the competition master would receive race replays on certain tracks per email) started, the game began - considering its age - to boom. Even today there is a world-wide Stunts community. Several competitions are acitve right now, and there are hundreds of Stunts websites, a very vital Stunts forum and a Stunts chatroom. In early August this year (2004), the first World Stunts Meeting took place in Budapest, Hungary.