Skate Story hands-on: Kick, push, shatter

Push. Push. Push, push, push, bounce —

All 4 wheels reconnect with the glowing pavement in a slap of crisp plastic and crunching wooden.

Push, push, push, push, bounce kickflip —

One other slam, a fast screech.

Push, push, push, ju —

A shattering crash. The world flips on its head in an explosion of glittering blacks and iridescent pinks. I set free a small giggle, modify the controller in my arms, and lean ahead. Reset.

Push.

In a hyper-chilled demo area at Summer time Recreation Fest, Skate Story creator Sam Eng drew an image of a flaming skateboard on a enterprise card whereas I performed his sport, sometimes lifting his head to giggle at my crashes and reply my questions. He described Skate Story as an try to seize the sensation he typically has whereas skateboarding, invincible in a single second and completely weak the subsequent. Fragile, like glass.

Skate Story completely crystallizes this sense. You play because the glass skater, a demon made from translucent ache, and your aim is to skate to the moon, eat it, and escape this hell. The sport takes place in a collection of surreal playgrounds within the Underworld, providing lengthy catwalks for gaining velocity, winding pathways lined with deadly crimson shards, and open areas dotted in concrete ramps, gaps and waxed ledges. The Satan and his minions are your enemies, and their solely weaknesses are your candy methods.

Skate Story is coming to PC and I performed the demo with a typical Xbox controller: Press Y to hop on the board, A to realize velocity, X to powerslide and B to ollie. Holding A pushes the glass skater ahead in a gentle rhythm, holding B does a better ollie, and mixing the set off and bumper buttons with a bounce executes a trick. I leaned closely on ollies, kickflips (left set off + B) and grinds (close to a ledge + B), however I additionally landed a couple of strikes that included these inputs plus a nudge of the precise analog stick, swapping stances.

As I ollied my manner via the Underworld, I encountered a wide range of floating stone heads — some pleasant, some vicious — and I collected gadgets to unlock new development areas, slamming my board into the bottom to resolve little puzzles. There was a store with customized decks and components on the market, and wide-open areas for practising methods. The demo’s concluding boss struggle, versus an enormous stone thinker’s head no much less, supplied a concrete enviornment for me to carry out methods and deal injury with my rad skateboarding prowess.

I’m craving a couple of uninterrupted hours with the sport, ideally at residence and after a couple of edibles, so I can excellent its mechanics, unlock upgrades and study new strikes. I crashed a dozen instances in my 45-minute demo, typically in the identical spot repeatedly and all the time with a powerful, shattering explosion — however resets have been swift and never too punishing. The crash all the time hit tougher after I’d discovered a circulate state, holding down A to push and leaping easily over neon spikes embedded within the shimmering black asphalt, taking a danger and touchdown a kickflip, reaching peak velocity, feeling utterly free. After which I’d clip a sliver of concrete and the journey could be over, sudden and harsh. In Skate Story, sidewalk-high edges are simply as harmful as glowing-red obstacles, and the sport requires a continuing buzz of situational consciousness. Quite a bit like skateboarding in actual life, I’d wager.

Skate Story induces a limbo-like haze via its mechanical rhythm, VHS-filtered visuals and the fixed, low whoosh of the glass skater’s wheels rolling throughout the Underworld’s concrete. Technique turns into inconceivable and the one choice is to really feel your manner via the brutalist, pearlescent landscapes. The sport’s soundtrack is supplied by New York artist Blood Cultures and it is a soothing, lo-fi vibe fest, like OlliOlli’s circulate music however with a distorted edge. It looks like an ideal match.

Skate Story encourages you to enter a peak state early on, solely so you’ll be able to chase that feeling the remainder of the sport. It’s an extremely compelling loop, with room for payoff or failure in each push.

The Underworld is a lot bigger than the slice I explored in Skate Story’s Summer time Recreation Fest demo. The complete sport has greater than 70 methods to study, contemporary gear to accumulate and a leveling system to unlock. Skate Story looks like a sport that can simply swallow hours upon hours of my time. As simply as consuming the moon, no less than.

Skate Story is due out this 12 months (not 2023, as urged by the highest trailer) on Steam, developed by Sam Eng and revealed by Devolver Digital.

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