STREET SKIERS | Thomas Greeney

Extreme Sports Tricks Around
Urban Playgrounds!

Skiing and Parkour Combined!

Street Skiers is the ultimate fusion of skiing and parkour where the “extreme” in extreme sports is cranked up to 11! Put your rocket-powered skiing tricks and platforming to the test around wacky sub-zero cityscapes! You have 5 minutes to increase your multiplier and get the most ridiculous score you can!

To download the link from itch.io, click here.

WALKTHROUGH VIDEOS

Game Design Process

This game was made in Unreal Engine as a solo project in the span of four milestones. Here is a summary of the Game Design process.

I created the concept through iteration and researching games I took inspiration from, such as Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.
I created the Level and Character Design and used UE's Geometry and Modelling to implement them into the game.
I created the blueprinting to give mechanics like the trick system and score multiplier functionality.
Overall, the project was a worthy challenge that really improved my blueprinting, though programming rail grinding was the hardest aspect.

I created a Game Design Document to establish what Street Skiers would be like and how it should be made. Within it, I included details like the game's core concept, its controls across all platforms, its environments and game progression. I also created a research document gathering material that inspired my vision for the game.

To download one of the full documents, click the icons below.

Game Design Document

Research Document

I made this vertical slice project in Unreal Engine, using it for blueprinting the game's main mechanics, hazards, collectables and score system, alongside building the level design using Unreal's built-in geometry and modelling features. When making this game, I wanted to take one of my favourite pastimes, skiing, fuse it with parkour, and make it an extreme sports game, combining the score-based gameplay inspired by Tony Hawk, with the stat-increasing system inspired by Kirby Air Ride's "City Trail".

My design intention for Junior Junkyard was to teach players the basic mechanics by making a condensed area focused on platforms, ramps and grind rails. These mechanics were placed in safe locations to make it easier for players to learn the mechanics. The level is still open for exploration and experimentation with hidden areas that reward the player's ability to jump on grind rails with point-based and secret collectables, like snowballs and vinyl records.

San Francouver was a combined inspiration from the real-world San Francisco and Vancouver. I wanted the scale of the level's map to be larger than Junior Junkyard and filled it with more hazards that can remove some points. This is to challenge the player after they have learned the ropes from the first level, and give players more freedom to experiment with tricks and collectables to increase their score. I also found the idea of outrunning a train and grinding on the giant bridge's suspensions to be fun ideas for setpieces (the latter was inspired by Sonic Adventure 2).

I have taken care to ensure the random spawning of items works as intended. I created a box trigger that, with a timer blueprint node, spawns an item every second, and ensured that these stat-boosting (and decreasing) items disappear after a few seconds. This was made to save memory, while also motivating players to collect these items before they disappear, alongside avoiding the ones with spots that decrease their stats.

One development roadblock I ran into was implementing the grinding mechanic. I included this into the project because I believed it was an essential feature for an street skiing game to have. It was difficult to implement the feature and make it so the player automatically grinds on rails when jumping on them but researching instructions on spline movement helped me achieve this implementation. Directional grinding was a challenge to implement, so I made changes to the level design to ensure players do not attempt to go backwards on certain one-way rails.

I also had the idea of creating a freeze meter that, when filled up to the max, freezes the player, majorly deducting their score in the process. The only way to prevent that would be by performing tricks to reduce the meter. Issues with implementation had me decide to remove it from the vertical slice, but I do plan to reimplement and polish it in the future.

This project improved my blueprinting skills in Unreal Engine, teaching me how to implement spline movement and a multiplied score system. I aim to apply and further sharpen these skills to future game design projects and hope to implement them in another score-based game, one with more consistently condensed level design.

Level 1- Junior Junkyard

A junkyard in the middle of the street has been reworked to be suitable for skiing after being covered in snow. Skiers can go down the giant slope, grind on metal poles repurposed as rails, and even bounce off used cars. This is the first map of the game and it serves as the tutorial for the game's base mechanics (movement, jumping, tricks, grinding etc.). The area is condensed for players to learn the ropes, while still being open for minor exploration.

Level 2- San Francouver

The game's second level takes place in the big city of San Francouver. Skiers can shoot down the city's famous slopes and bounce onto its building's rooftops, while avoiding cars and trains, and grinding on its many rails, including its famous bridge's suspensions! This second map is more open so the player can experiment with its level design and the game's trick system, while introducing more hazards that remove points from their score.

Boost your Stats With Collectables

On both maps, the player will encounter helpful items, some placed within them and others that randomly spawn around certain locations. Power Orbs increase the player's stats (Speed, Acceleration, Jump, etc.) for better movement and they also have fake variants that decrease them. Other Items include Snow Balls that increase the player's score, batteries that refuel the player's boost meter, and "X" Marks that increase the score multiplier.