Everyone remembers their first experience picking up a new game — the controls feel foreign, the interface might be confusing, and/or the flow of gameplay isn’t yet second-nature. Some games have steeper learning curves than others, but Indie developer Byteparrot is looking to flatten that curve in its upcoming releaseSlopecrashers.
Thearcade snowboarding gamelooks to create an experience that both casual and serious players can enjoy. Game Rant spoke with developer Johannes Lugstein about how accessibility is baked intoSlopecrashers’design.
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Slopecrashers is Easy to Learn but Hard to Master
On its face,Slopecrashersis a relatively straightforward racer. Competing as a host of animal mascots,players race one anotheron downhill tracks on snowy mountain passes, arid desert dunes, and narrow city streets. Players can participate in an events-based campaign mode which includes races, stunt shows, and slaloms.
Tricks are a major gameplay element — players can execute “many moves” during races as part ofSlopecrashers’ stunt system, Lugstein said. The game also encourages social play, andSlopecrasherswill featuresplit-screen multiplayer for couch competition. While developing his game, Lugstein was inspired by similar titles that anyone could pick up and play.Mario Kartwas chief among those influences.
Nintendo’s party racer is easily accessible to anyone, even players not familiar with gaming. Even if someone pours hundreds of hours intoMario Kart, Lugstein said, “you can still have friends who have never touched that game that are still beating the crap out of you.” That’s something thatSlopecrashersaims to capture. “I really like that,” Lugstein said.
“I really want my game to be like that also — to have a very low skill floor, but a really high skill ceiling.”
Lugstein said that,during playtesting, he paid close attentionto the experience levels of his participants. “You quite quickly find out who is an experienced player of video games in general, and who has never really touched a game,” he said.
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Slopecrashers Works Accessibility Into its Core Gameplay
Based on the feedback he received from testers, Lugstein devised a couple of gameplay elements to makeSlopecrashersas accessible as possible. The first was an adjustable speed setting for races. “Very often, I got feedback that the game was either too slow or too fast,” Lugstein said. Using the speed classes, players can now select a more laid-back experience or the fastest gameplaySlopecrashersoffers, aptly named ‘too fast.’
“This isn’t something really new,” he said.Mario Kart’sengine classesprovided a similar feature for players looking for an easy start.
One ofSlopecrashers’more unique accessibility features has to do with its stunt system. Lugstein employed what he called a “stunt safety” feature. This gameplay assist will prevent players from doing a trick that would end in a wipeout, he said.
“Basically, it does a calculation before every stunt, and it won’t let you do the stunt if you’re going to crash face-down into the snow.”
The game’s stunt safety feature is enabled by default to give newer players a hand. More experienced slope-crashers would need to switch off the assist for a more challenging experience.
Tricks in general are also more forgiving in an effort to flatten the learning curve, Lugstein said. The game will still allow playersto complete a stuntif their timing’s off. “When you make a jump after a ramp has already ended, it still counts, or if you make the jump a little bit too soon, and you would have hit your head on the end of the ramp, it’s also okay,” he said. “Those are some of the biggest accessibility features for casual players.”
Slopecrashersis coming soon for PC and Switch.
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