Nintendo Switch: This surprise game at the end of the year is a huge flop, we explain why

A real surprise release at the end of 2022, Sports Story was released on December 23 for Nintendo Switch. This is a production of Sidebar Games who had had decent success with their previous game Golf Story. In this novelty announced during the Indie World Showcase Nintendo, players can indulge in games of golf… but not only ! It is possible to virtually practice fishing, cricket, BMX, or even volleyball. But following taking five years to complete Sports Story, the Sidebar Games teams do not seem to have convinced their audience…

Bugs in spades

While many gamers were looking forward to spending their year-end vacation on Sports Story, they were disappointed when they realized that the production is quite buggy. Various problems have been reported by users: colossal enemy hit-box, glitches across rooms, texture bugs preventing them from crossing an obstacle, … In short, player complaints are numerous.

But let the players be reassured, the patched version 1.0.3 will arrive soon. However, a curious discovery has made many users react. It looks like the development of Sports Story didn’t go as planned.

“A patch is being worked on to fix some issues that have been reported. If you have any issues, please email them to us with ‘Bug Report’ in the title. It should be ready soon, but the patch processing time might be a little longer with holidays.”

@sidebargames

(Source)

“We can say that we are experiencing a disturbed development”

The various bugs on Sports Story allowed players to travel through textures and therefore… walls. This is how some have discovered a secret room in which there are several NPCs. While it’s not meant to be discovered by Switch users, it’s still surprisingly polished. The place is called Cold Catridge (or cold porridge in French) and seems to bring together a team of developers. The mysterious NPCs say they want to create a game called GOLF, which should be released soon. Of course, this is a fictional story within the game of Sports Story. However, the situation darkens when the players chat directly with the characters present in the room.

While it is undoubtedly a little joke to break the fourth wall, some rather dark dialogues invite themselves. Cold Catridge becomes a place of contention, where developers only complain or even fight once morest each other. Here is a small anthology of the conversations that can be observed there:

“-Our game is going to be released any day now.
– You said that a year ago!
– We can say that we are experiencing a disturbed development…
-You can also say that someone kept asking for new additions to the game and my original vision no longer exists.
-Others might also say that we might have made the game playable instead of trying to add things to it.”

Would these disputes be inspired by real facts? Could it be that the developers of Sports Story have encountered similar problems? This is what many players now think. Could it also be possible that these recurring bugs are linked to “disturbed development”? So many questions regarding which the Sidebar Games teams have not yet spoken. For now, the mystery remains…