Skate Story’s vibe gripped me right away. Its liminal, Vaporwave-inspired levels mix hyper-realistic concrete textures, lighting effects, and objects like a chain-link fence or The Moon with engrossingly impressionistic flourishes like The Skater’s body, which is made of kaleidoscopic glass, or the on-looking, ever-judgemental eyes whose disembodied voices screech in unison in disdain for your quest. It’s a lot to take in, but never too overwhelming. These levels felt just wild enough to imbue each moment with its own distinct sense of cool without distracting me from the mission at hand: skating.
Skating might be the most normal thing about Skate Story. That’s not to say it’s bad or uninteresting, but it does feel exactly how you’d want a skating game to feel. It has a great sense of speed as you accelerate by holding down or mashing the A button to go as quickly as humanly possible. This game’s tight camera really emphasized that sense of speed too, focusing on your crystalline avatar as they lean into any momentum they can get a hold of.
I saw a pretty early section of the game, so tricks and jumps—while fun—were pretty simple. Holding down a specific button controls one of The Skater’s feet, and hitting another button initiates the trick itself. Each trick and jump works on a timer, with a little notch sliding around the outline of an organic shape. Releasing the button for a trick or jump while the notch is floating around in the thicker part of said outline will execute it perfectly, and reward you with better air time. Doing a trick with imperfect timing didn’t seem to cause that much of an issue, but I’m certain it will become increasingly important later on in Skate Story.
The levels I played had me zooming down tight corridors, exploring a courtyard, jumping over deadly neon red nettles, and visiting museum gift shops at the behest of verbose statues. Although that speed demonic camera worked wonders for Skate Story’s feel, it sometimes betrayed its flexibility of movement and occasionally even fought against its own sense of speed and pace as it obscured certain objectives or obstacles in some levels. Obstacles are usually easy enough to vault over, even with a split-second’s notice. But The Skater is made out of glass, so even the slightest error can set you back a spell, making the camera problem a tad more frustrating than it would be otherwise.
Unreliable camera aside, each level presented a satisfyingly diverse approach to design and pacing with repetition cleverly punctuating important moments while twisting what I’d already seen into something new and fresh thanks to its unexpectedly charming writing. Developer Sam Eng told me that this semi-autobiographical story is inspired by true events, but didn’t go much deeper than that. The chunk I saw was so strange and impressionistic that I can’t wait to see where Sam takes the story next. In my half hour with the demo, I watched as The Skater set out on their quest to shatter the moon. Culminating in a trial to prove their worth—and their skating chops—Skate Story’s writing and sense of humor stand in a league of their own. This isn’t just because its metaphorical approach is weird, but because it had me chuckling all the way through.
With a promising story, absorbing vibe, and responsive skating controls, Skate Story has so much potential as both a distinct story and a damn cool skating game. It shot up to the top of my Steam wishlist after my hands-on demo at Summer Game Fest this year, and I can’t wait to see the weird places this wildly expressive skating game goes.
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