Motocross Challenge

Development on the game was started in May 2004, with 3 main developers: David Doucet, Étienne Houle and Daniel-David Guertin. David and Étienne were employed in the games industry full time and worked on the game part time. They dealt with indie artists for the website and music tracks. DevKit Advance was used for code and graphics were created with various software, such as Gimp and Photoshop. All other tools used were developed in-house such as the track editor.

In 2006 they announced to have signed a contract with a major publisher. They had to slice the game to its core and cancel planned features. The publisher wanted to have the game on the smallest and cheapest format cartridge, without memory batteries. Therefore the developers had to remove a profile system that allowed different saved games on the same cartridge, high scores for every tracks, 4 additional music tracks, alternate colors for the enemies, special animations for the menu, a special ending for completing the game with a 100% ratio, a deeper trick system and secret achievements to beat for every event in the game. Ultimately the publisher backed off because they thought the game would not have enough commercial value.

They were soon picked up by another publisher (but now with a contract without the advance payment of royalties). The game was finished in February 2007 and in its final testing when the new publisher decided to cancel the game as they thought the market of that time would not support enough sales of a non-licensed game. All what was needed to be done was to burn the code on the cartridges to sell it. They started working on the game when the Nintendo DS was first introduced, and still considered harmless, but by the time they were working with a publisher, the DS Lite nailed the coffin of the GBA shut and publishers were backing away.

Frustrated, tired, disappointed, publisher-less and with a gold game in their hands, the development team decided to offer the game for free on their site in April 2007 and encourage to spread it.