Yetisports is yet another example of a virally-spreading game that just won't quit getting more popular. It was created by Chris Hilgert early in 2004, and in mid-January a sort of beta version leaked out to the public of their first game, Pingu Throw.
This game consisted of rather simple play mechanics. A penguin stands on top of a large rock, with a yeti wielding a club at its base. Click the mouse once, and the penguin nosedives. Click again, and the yeti swings at the penguin. The penguin flies into the air, with little signs indicating how far you've hit it along the way. It'll either faceplant into the ground, or keep bouncing along allowing its momentum to keep it going. Either way, when it stops, a sign pops up telling you your score.
When the early version was leaked/released, it didn't have much polish (the signs were just boxes that told you your score). However, due to the ingenuity of the general Flash community, people were able to hack into the game and do all sorts of things with it, whether eliminating gravity or making it so momentum hardly died on a bounce (resulting in huge scores that took 15-20 minutes to earn), or changing the graphics. One version included large skeletal obstacles in the way and the yeti was wielding a bloodied, spiked club about 5 times the size of the original. Another replaced all the graphics entirely and just left the engine intact, with a large fat woman diving down instead.
The Yetisports site came up soon afterwards, and Chris Hilgert has been releasing games at a steady clip since the first.
Yetisports Two - Orca Slap is more of a target shooting game, with penguins jumping out of the water and the yeti slapping them into a target.
Yetisports Three - Seal Bounce has the yeti twirling the penguin around and around in between two walls, and the penguin ricochets off of these walls after being thrown. The score in this is how high you can get the penguin to go, with walruses who bounce you up higher to help you.
Yetisports Four - Albatross Overload - A yeti stands next to a seesaw with the penguin on the other end. The yeti steps on the seesaw and sends the penguin flying into the air, where albatrosses are flying. The penguin latches onto one, and after this clicking the mouse causes the albatross to flap its wings, using a small amount of a power meter at the bottom but speeding it up and angling it up high. Hitting the top of the screen slows you down and forces you to waste some power getting back to speed, and the lower down you click, the more you accelerate.
Yetisports Five - Flamingo Drive is somewhat similar to the first game, where you hit a Pingu with a Flamingo. The difference is that a vulture will eventually carry your Pingu a farther distance, and various animals, such as giraffes, get in your way.
Yetisports Six - Big Wave is the latest game as of this writing (9/1/04), and is probably the most different from the other games in the series. It involves controlling the Yeti on a surfboard on a really huge wave. You get points for knocking Pingus out of the air, as well as jumps and tricks. The controls are kind of simplistic for this one, but it works.
Yetisports Pentathalon - This is a game that's not in the main series, per se, but is accessible through the Yetisports website. It is, essentially, a pentathalon, with attempts made at the Yetisports games up to number 5. It culls your scores from each event, and gives you a total.
The Yetisports website is located here: http://www.yetisports.org