Summer Challenge

Summary
Game for the Summer Olympics that includes show jumping as an equestrian event. Not purely a horsegame, but one of the first examples of horse riding in video games.

Game Design
Pixely pseudo-3D, pretty impressive for it's age. Behind view while riding. The horse is always a chestnut, the jacket colour of the rider changes. There is sadly only one course, but that is pretty hard to master.

Gameplay
The menu can be navigated via mouse or keyboard. "Train" let's you, well, train for a chosen discipline. A tournament consits of eight disciplines: "Equestrian", i.e. show jumping; high jump and steeplechase without horse, kayaking, cycling, pole vault, javelin and archery. There are also animations for the opening and closing ceremony. Players can chose from different countries and pictures for their avatar.

Riding Mechanics
Arrow keys (up=faster, down=slower, left/right to steer) and space to jump, just like in many newer horse games. "Knockdowns" give a time penalty, a fall ends the run immediately (there are no refusals).

Differences between Releases
Not to be confused with the 1988 game of the same name, which does not feature horses.

Additional Media
The description of "Equestrian" in the manual is quite funny: It highlights the dangers and risk of injury, probably to make clear that this isn't just a sport for little girls!

System Requirements & Compatibility
The game can be played directly in the browser as part of the Internet Archive MS-DOS Library. As part of the original copy protection, there may appear a window prompting to enter a number from a "code wheel". In this case, just hit enter to proceed, the online game is already cracked.