4th & Inches is an American football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 computer game by Accolade. It was released for the Commodore 64

Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...

 (1987

1987 in video gaming

-Notable releases:* January 14, Nintendo releases Zelda II: The Adventure of Link in January for the Famicom Disk System in Japan only. The game would go unreleased in America for nearly two years afterwards.* February 20, Konami releases Contra...

), Apple II (1988

1988 in video gaming

-Events:*June — Nintendo releases the last issue of "Nintendo fun club news";*July — Nintendo releases the first issue of Nintendo Power magazine.-Notable releases:*January 8, Konami releases Super Contra....

), DOS

DOS

DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...

 (1988), Amiga

Amiga

The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...

 (1988), Apple IIGS

Apple IIGS

The Apple , the fifth and most powerful model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. The "GS" in the name stands for Graphics and Sound, referring to its enhanced graphics and sound capabilities, both of which greatly surpassed previous models of the line...

 (1988). It was designed

Game design

Game design, a subset of game development, is the process of designing the content and rules of a game in the pre-production stage and design of gameplay, environment, storyline, and characters during production stage. The term is also used to describe both the game design embodied in a game as...

 by Accolade co-founder, Bob Whitehead

Bob Whitehead

Bob Whitehead is a game designer and programmer. He is a renowned pioneer and entrepreneur of the video game industry, having been instrumental in forming two video game developers. One, Activision, was the first third-party video game developer.-Career:...

, who also programmed

Game programming

Game programming, a subset of game development, is the programming of computer, console or arcade games. Though often engaged in by professional game programmers, many novices may program games as a hobby...

 the original Commodore 64 version (additional versions were ported

Porting

In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...

 by Sculptured Software

Sculptured Software

Sculptured Software Inc. was a late twentieth century video game developer in the Salt Lake City, Utah metropolitan area. They specialized in porting games to different platforms, especially from arcade games to home console games.-History:...

, with Craig Conder (Amiga), Tony Manso (Apple IIGS) and John Motter (DOS) doing the programming).

Description

Like other sports games by Bob Whitehead, 4th & Inches was hailed upon release, combining the action of previous titles with the new feature of strategic play calling. For the first time in a computer football game, players could choose from a number of plays. The player initially designated a formation, and then selected one of five plays based on the formation. These plays included a great number of offensive strategies, including draws, curls, sweeps and long bombs, among others. Defensive tactics equally were varied, with the player being able to choose a defensive formation based on what they thought the opponent would attempt.

The game required the player to select a position to control before the play began while on offense, but were not able to switch control during the action. Because there was a limited area of the field in view at any one time, it occasionally prevented the player from seeing important parts of the play develop. Rather than scrolling smoothly when the player being controlled would reach the edge of the screen, as modern football simulations do, it re-drew the visible section of the field entirely, placing the controlled player in a new position on the screen. While on defense, the player being controlled could not be changed either, but would be automatically selected as the player closest to the offensive ball carrier on each screen redraw.

4th & Inches followed another title for Accolade (also designed and programmed by Whitehead): Hardball!, a baseball

Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

game. Many of the graphics and several sound effects from that game were re-used in 4th & Inches.