Sky Jinks

Sky Jinks is a vertically scrolling, air racing-themed video game developed by Bob Whitehead for the Atari 2600^[2] and published by Activision in 1982.

Sky Jinks
Developer(s)	Activision
Publisher(s)	Activision
Programmer(s)	Bob Whitehead[1]
Platform(s)	Atari 2600
Release	NA: 1982
Genre(s)	Racing
Mode(s)	Single-player

Gameplay

In Sky Jinks, the player pilots a low-flying Seversky XP-41^[3] airplane through a time trial. To complete a game level, the player must bank around a prescribed number of pylons (left for blue and right for red). The XP-41 can bank left and right, as well as accelerate and decelerate. Flying into a pylon (which counts), tree, or hot air balloon slows down the plane.

The game has four courses: Polo Grounds, Aero Race, Love Field, and Speedy Meadows. There is also a pseudo-randomly-generated course called Thompson Tourney.^[3]

Legacy

In the mid-1980s, social psychologist Roy Baumeister used the game in his psychological research into performance anxiety.^[4]

Activision anthologized Sky Jinks in the PlayStation title A Collection of Activision Classic Games for the Atari 2600 (1998) and in the multi-platform collection Activision Anthology (2002).

See also

• Video games portal
• 1980s portal

• List of Atari 2600 games
• List of Activision games: 1980–1999
• Skiing (1980), a similar skiing game written by Bob Whitehead for Activision