In development for Elite, this was one of Mark Kelly’s first games being developed and was based on an ancient arcade game of the same name. It was American football and was to be another Elite arcade conversion.
For reasons currently unknown, although the game was finished, Elite never released the title. However this was apparently the title which got Mark Kelly the start he needed in industry.
According to people who worked with Mark, the game was terrible and this could be the reason why the game was never released. Mark recently confirmed that he was working on the game and that it was a mess from the start.
There was no coin-op for Mark to use as a reference point and he originally got the job to work on the game after someone else bailed out on the conversion. As the game finally got started after a coin-op was found, the artist was then moved onto another project. In the end, the game was canned and was one of Mark’s one and only games never to get fully completed.
Unfortunately it seems that this one may be completely lost, but Mark offers the hope that he may still have something of it tucked away. We’ll wait and see I guess!
Contributions: Andrew Fisher, Mark Kelly, Ross Sillifant
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Creator speaks
Mark Kelly talks about 10-Yard Fight:
“Boy this brings back some memories. I only have vague memories go the project … Looking back, it was mess from the start. We couldn’t get a coin op for me to play test the game then when things started to finally get underway, artist would be moved on. It was a freelance project for everyone involved. I got it after someone else bailed out on doing it. It was the one and only game that I never got the chance to finish but was the start of my career, so I can’t complain.”
You can find Mark talking about it in the 2-page interview with Probe in Zzap 64 issue 55, pages 34-35, if you want to put scans up….