Backyard Basketball

Backyard Basketball is a series of basketball video games aimed at children, developed by Humongous Entertainment. It ranks as the second sub-series within the larger Backyard Sports franchise, following Backyard Baseball. The initial game was created and released by Humongous Entertainment themselves for Microsoft Windows and Mac in 1997, and it did not feature any real NBA or WNBA players; professional players were added in later versions.

The game offers two main ways to play: Single Game, where a player picks a team to face a computer-controlled opponent, and Season Play, where a player guides a team through an 18-game season, followed by two best-of-three playoff rounds and a best-of-five championship series if enough games are won. Single Game also supports two-player matches or solo practice with one character. Before a game starts, players can adjust settings like court choice, AI difficulty (easy, medium, or hard), rules such as fouls, fatigue, violations, shot control, and power-ups, as well as sound options, controls, team names, and jersey designs.

Controls default to mouse use, relying on a point-and-click style to move players, but keyboards and game pads are also supported. Team selection works in two ways: First Five Picks lets each player freely choose their roster, while Full Draft forces alternating picks. Every potential team member is rated on five statistics from 1 to 10: Inside Shooting, Outside Shooting, Ballhandling, Defense, and Quickness. Players can also create rookie characters with manually set or randomly assigned stats, heights, skin tones, shooting hands, birthdays, and names. Rookies generally have lower stats than pre-made players, but if the team reaches the playoffs in Season Play, all their stats can increase by three levels.

During a game, three characters are on the court at once. On offense, clicking a location moves the ball-handler there; clicking a teammate passes the ball; and clicking the basket icon attempts a shot. If shot control is on, rapid clicking fakes a shot, and holding the click releases it. If off, the shot fires automatically when the basket icon is clicked. On defense, players switch characters by clicking them, then guide them by clicking court locations. Clicking an opponent with an 'X' symbol nearby triggers a steal attempt, and clicking near the basket when hands appear prompts