The following is part of our 25-day Holiday Countdown Calendar! Every day from December 1st through the 25th, we’re posting a cool game history treat, daily updates from the VGHF, giveaways, and more! To make sure you don’t miss a day, sign up for our email list:
This is all part of our annual Winter Fundraiser donation drive, where we ask those who are able to generously give what they can so that we can continue thriving. If you’re able to make an additional one-time charitable contribution, this really is the best time to do so, as your donations will be DOUBLED thanks to a generous group of sponsors! Head on over to gamehistory.org/donate to learn more and give today.
Mutant League was a sports game franchise that turned normal human sports, like football and hockey, into extreme, violent, post-apocalyptic carnage. Naturally, kids loved it, and it got spun off into an animated series. And that got spun off into a line of action figures, seen here!
This commercial for Mutant League action figures comes from the collection of Mike Mendheim, the veteran game designer of the original Mutant League Football. Mendheim has had a decades-long career going back to the 80s, including titles like Fester’s Quest, Taz-Mania (SNES), and the Army Men series. We’re excited to be digitizing and preserving his collection. which is one of the exciting additions we’ve made to our library thanks to your ongoing support for the Video Game History Foundation.
Today’s Sponsor
Today’s sponsor is Nightdive Studios, a game developer known for its remakes of classics, such as the recent System Shock.
They’ve offered to DOUBLE every dollar put toward our goal this year, up to $1,000! As I write this we’re still pretty far from our goal, so if you’ve been waiting to give this year, this would be a really great time.
A commercial like this can tell us a lot about how game franchises like Mutant League were marketed, but we’ll let the kid in the commercial say it himself: “It’s not for wimps!”
GOG Bundle Now Available!
GOG, along with a group of game developer friends, has put together a game history bundle for our benefit!
We’ve personally curated a selection of three historically important and interesting titles: The Last Express by Jordan Mechner and Smoking Car Productions, The Manhole by Cyan, and Wasteland by InXile (or originally, Interplay).
Not only have these three publishers agreed to donate all profits to us, so has GOG! If you’re interested, the bundle is available now through December 20th.
You can see tomorrow’s post right now!
Members of our Patreon who support us at $5 a month or higher get access to our daily Holiday Countdown Calendar posts one day early!
If you’re a patron, today you can check out a rarely-seen piece of Nintendo and Tetris history, announcing an historically fascinating moment – and a middle finger to rival Atari.