Motocross [Model 3411]

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.

Gravity is a factor in the motion routines. During testing, Rick made gravity adjustable to determine the best looking arc when jumping. Several unsuspecting programmers were invited to test the game, not knowing gravity had been set to zero. The first time their cycles hit a ramp, the cycles would sail up-up-and-away off the screen, while the programmers frantically tapped the controller discs, trying to make them come back down.

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.