SKATER FROG

Game Description

Skate fast and don't get consumed by the grayness of lame. Go far distances, and go fast while doing it. Jump over trash, beach balls, and gaps in the road. Grind some rails, and just look cool. You've got some gnarly tricks too! Drop down immediately in air to get right back to the ground. Kickflip midair to double jump. Don't get wrecked!

My Experience

Skater Frog was one of the most interesting projects I've been on. I originally started it as a college class project with some friends. The original concept was a small mobile game, but as we worked on it we took the game in a very different direction. The game turned into a very over scope project. We wanted ten levels in the game, different tricks, unlockables, secret paths, and a lot more stuff we couldn't finish with the two semesters we had to work on it. During the second semester we decided to rescope what we were making, and just make one good level instead of ten underwhelming levels. I learned a lot working on this game about production and scope. Tasks need to get done at certain points, some features are too big or unnecessary, and it's okay to make cuts.

I worked on the gameplay with the other two programmers on the team. This was something we really had to fine-tune, and for most of development it didn't feel fun to play. Most actions would lock you into them, so if an obstacle came you couldn't avoid it if you were going too fast. To fix this we made it so almost every action could be interrupted by a new one. For example when you kick off the board to speed up, you couldn't do anything else, but now you can jump out of it. If you jumped you were stuck in the air, so we added a double jump and a ground pound. These changes made it so you have a lot more control and can consistently play at top speed. I also implemented most of the UI.