Editing The Way of the Exploding Fist (section)

==Production==
Before creating ''The Way of the Exploding Fist'', designer Gregg Barnett converted ''[[The Hobbit (1982 video game)|The Hobbit]]'' and ''[[Sherlock (video game)|Sherlock]]'', two adventures from Beam Software, to the Commodore 64.<ref name="yourcomputerbarnett">''[[iarchive:your-computer-magazine-1985-08/page/n41|First Fist, Then...]]'' In: ''[[Your Computer (British magazine)|Your Computer]]''. August 1985, p. 42.</ref> It was one of the first games to borrow heavily from the [[Data East]] arcade game ''[[Karate Champ]]'', which was released the previous year. The Commodore 64 version uses over 600 sprite images to animate the player's movements.<ref name="zzap64review">{{cite journal|date=11 July 1985|title=Way of the Exploding Fist|url=https://archive.org/details/zzap64-magazine-004/page/n29/mode/2up|journal=[[Zzap!64]]|issue=4 (August 1985)|pages=30–32}}</ref> Karate champion [[Geoff Thompson (karateka)|Jeoffrey Thompson]] was signed<ref>Jeoff Thompson: ''Karate: The Pursuit of Excellence''. Gallery Books, 1988, p. 126. {{ISBN|0-8317-5304-8}}.</ref> to promote the game but was not sufficiently well known to have the game named after him.<ref>Jim Lennox: ''Why the sports stars are loaded''. In: The Guardian, January 16th 1986. – In his article Lennox discusses how, spawned by ''[[Daley Thompson's Decathlon]]'', a number of British sportsmen have endorsed and lend their name to computer games. Among them are ''[[Frank Bruno's Boxing]]'', ''[[Barry McGuigan World Championship Boxing]]'', [[Ian Botham]], [[Steve Davis]] and [[Bobby Charlton]].</ref> A [[Nintendo Entertainment System]] version was developed by [[Beam Software]] but it was never released.

The game's soundtrack was written by Neil Brennan and it is based on the 1952 orchestral piece [[Dance of the Yao People]]. It has been praised for the excellent atmosphere it provided and was one reason behind the popularity of the game.