Announced in December 2022, Skate Story is a fascinating title, as much for its crazy artistic direction as its strange atmosphere or its original concept. During the Summer Game Fest, I was able to play it with Sam Eng, its developer, and clearly, it was one of my biggest favorites of the show as the experience is so refreshing.
Among all the AAAs revealed each year at Summer Game Fest, independent games are starting to take more and more space during the event even though they have already conquered the hearts of gamers for a decade. If we were treated to quite a few announcements during the live, the Play Days of the Summer Game Fest in Los Angeles were an opportunity to try out some of these games. This was the case for titles from Devolver, a publisher specializing in indie productions and original concepts, where I was able to play Skate Story with Sam Eng, its developer. And if you’ve never heard of it, hold on tight because it’s one of my favorites from the show.
An atmosphere as strange as it is fascinating
Before we get lost in explanations, let’s start at the beginning. Skate Story is, as its name suggests, a skating game… but not like the others. We play a strange mute character, the Glass Skater, who seems to be a demon whose goal is to devour the moon, just that. Obviously, the latter will be slowed down in his quest by astonishing authorities who will prevent him from achieving this crazy objective. But to achieve this, our avatar can count on his skateboard which allows him to break the rules of this dream world which are deliberately difficult to understand. We will therefore encounter entities, each more bizarre than the other, during our quest which will not be easy.
In addition to this perched scenario, Skate Story amazed me with its absolutely crazy graphics. If the game runs on Unity, Sam Eng explained to me that he did a lot of work on the camera to give a permanent fish-eye effect to the experience. Things then do not appear clearly to us, but it is a stylistic effect to give a dreamlike and surreal aspect to the game. More generally, the title is largely inspired by synthwave aesthetics, with deliberately low-detail and crude graphics to give a particular atmosphere. All this psychedelic and sometimes even epileptic side gives a unique charm to the game and this is by far its main strength.
= A skate game like no other =
Skate Story is cool, but what do we do there? For the moment, I have only been able to play a half-hour demo which corresponds to the start of the game, so difficult to say in the long term. But obviously, well, we skate there! Quite simply, our Glass Skater can get on his board to go faster, jump (or do Ollies for amateurs) and do tricks that we unlock as we progress. Funny enough, we get all of this through strange rituals that make skateboarding seem almost like a satanic practice.
Controller in hand, the sensation of speed is rather exhilarating because the camera is very close to the character, even if this means that we sometimes cannot see the obstacles… which can be fatal. And yes, since our skater is made of glass, as its name suggests, it loses life at the slightest sudden contact, which requires extra caution. But hey, rest assured, death is not punitive in the game.
Like a feverish waking dream
As for the more concrete course of the adventure, the title has us alternate between guided narrative sequences, open area explorations and platform levels with objectives. In moments when the player is freer, we are treated to a few small puzzles which obviously always have to be solved while skating. This can involve jumping over flames to put them out, but especially by doing tricks. Besides, the figures allow you to generate Souls points that can be spent as well as to do damage to enemies during boss fights. Yes, yes, Skate Story is indeed a Skate game, I assure you!
But the part that struck me the most were the more directive passages which resemble what we could call levels. These moments make us alternate between pure speed sequences and other more platform ones where we have to do tricks to progress. But what makes these passages charming is the music that accompanies them.. Sam Eng called on artists like Blood Cultures and John Fio who offer brilliant compositions which perfectly accompany the moment, especially since they are often deliberately very strong and almost saturated, which reinforces the orinic side of the title.
Our impressions
After playing it for half an hour, I completely fell in love with Skate Story. Obviously, it is through its dreamlike and unique artistic direction that Sam Eng’s title attracts attention at first glance. But in reality, it is its overall atmosphere that is most fascinating. Between its perched story, its synthwave atmosphere and especially its musical sequences, Skate Story is a truly original experience full of charm. We hope that the title will live up to its proposal throughout the adventure that we can’t wait to discover… on an unfortunately unknown date.
Editorial opinion
Exciting
