• Backyard Football Field
• Backyard Football 2002
• Backyard Football 1999

Backyard is where friends play and talk. Backyard merges flawless video, voice & text chat with everyone's favorite games, all in one place. Backyard Football is basically a highly simplified football game that can be picked up easily without having an in-depth knowledge of the sport. For instance, there are only five players on the field at one time, the plays are simple, and the rules are relaxed. Back after the success of Backyard Baseball and Soccer in 1999, Humongous Entertainment created Backyard Football. The 1999 version is the first of the Backyard Sports games to feature professional real-life players and sports teams. It was also the first computer game to include a custom player creation. Following the 1999 release, new versions were released every year from 2001's Backyard.

Pick players from the Backyard Kids and 10 kid-versions of real NFL players. Direct all the action, set the positions and call the plays. Earn offensive and defensive power-ups, play head-to-head.

Backyard Sports (originally branded as Junior Sports)^[1][2] is a series of video games released for consoles, computers and mobile devices. The series is best known for starring kid-sized versions of popular professional sports stars, such as Albert Pujols, Paul Pierce, Barry Bonds, Tim Duncan, Clint Mathis, Kevin Garnett, Tom Brady, David Ortiz, Joe Thornton and Andy Macdonald. The Backyard Sports series is licensed by the leading professional U.S. sports leagues: Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Football League (NFL), the National Hockey League (NHL), and Major League Soccer (MLS).

The series includes Backyard Baseball, Backyard Basketball, Backyard Football (American football), Backyard Soccer, Backyard Hockey (Ice hockey), and Backyard Skateboarding. In the games, players form a team consisting of Backyard Kids and pro players, which they take through a 'Backyard League' season, attempting to become the champions. Players can create their own athletes, starting in Backyard Football (1999). Another aspect of the games is the use of Power-Ups, allowing players to gain 'super-abilities'. For instance, 'Super Dunk' allows a basketball player to make an incredible dunk from nearly anywhere on the court, 'Leap Frog' allows a football player to jump over the entire defensive line, and 'Ice Cream Truck' causes the other team to be completely distracted for a brief period of time.

Some of these games are playable with the ScummVM emulator.^[3]

History[edit]

The series began in late 1997 with Humongous Entertainment creating the first game in the franchise: Backyard Baseball. Humongous Entertainment was then owned by GT Interactive.^[4] Later Infogrames bought GT Interactive^[5] and along with it came all of the game titles. Infogrames allowed Humongous Entertainment to expand the series, and Humongous developed more titles such as Backyard Soccer, Backyard Hockey, Backyard Skateboarding, Backyard Basketball and Backyard Football. Following the buyout by Infogrames these titles from the Backyard series were released for game consoles, including the Nintendo GameCube, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, and Wii. Infogrames in North America eventually changed its name to Atari Interactive.

On July 24, 2013, private equity firm The Evergreen Group, bought the Backyard Sports franchise during the Atari bankruptcy proceedings, for its portfolio company Epic Gear LLC.^[6] It was later sold by Epic Gear to Day6 Sports Group.^{[citation needed]}

On December 11, 2014, Day6 Sports Group announced the relaunch of the Backyard Sports series with Backyard Sports NBA Basketball for smartphones and tablets, with Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry as the cover athlete.

In 2016, Day6 Sports Group was 'acquired by a European investment group'^[7]

Backyard Football Field

On April 19, 2019, Humongous Entertainment tweeted an image of the original Junior Sports logo, hinting at a possible re-release of the original games and/or the developer having re-secured the rights to the series proper.^[8][1][2]

Games in the series[edit]

Film[edit]

In 2016, it was reported that Cross Creek Pictures and Crystal City Entertainment were developing a film based on Backyard Sports with Brian Oliver and Ari Daniel Pinchot producing.^[9]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abSchmidt, Eugene (April 24, 2019). 'Humongous Entertainment coming to consoles'. Barrelrolled. Retrieved May 17, 2019.
2. ^ ^abFrech, Ricky (April 24, 2019). 'Humongous Entertainment is Bringing Their Collection of 90s Classics to Consoles'. DualShockers. Retrieved May 17, 2019.
3. ^http://gamesdbase.com/list.aspx?in=1&searchtext=backyard&searchtype=1
4. ^News, Bloomberg Business (1996-07-11). 'COMPANY NEWS;GT INTERACTIVE ACQUIRES HUMONGOUS ENTERTAINMENT (Published 1996)'. The New York Times. ISSN0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-12-31.
5. ^'History of Infogrames Entertainment S.A. – FundingUniverse'. www.fundinguniverse.com. Retrieved 2020-12-31.
6. ^http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20130724006402/en/Evergreen-Group-Agreed-Acquire-Backyard-Sports-Video/
7. ^Kram, Zach (2017-10-10). 'How 'Backyard Baseball' Became a Cult Classic'. The Ringer. Retrieved 2020-12-31.
8. ^Humongous [@HumongousEnt] (April 19, 2019). '[Image-only tweet; image shows a red exclamation point on a transparent background overlaid with the words 'It's Junior Sports' in blue.]' (Tweet). Retrieved May 17, 2019 – via Twitter.
9. ^Fleming Jr, Mike (March 30, 2016). ''Backyard Sports' Video Game In Movie Deal With Cross Creek & Crystal City'. Deadline.

External links[edit]

Backyard Football 2002

• Official website (2007 archive on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine)
• Backyard Sports series at MobyGames

Backyard Football 1999