Ski
Release type: Incomplete
Release date: 1996
Levels: 1
Author: Alan Caudel
Website: DummyDuck.com
Related games: N/A
Ski is one of Alan Caudel's many small-scale experiments. It involves a tiny yet well-drawn skier, endlessly schussing diagonally down the screen, from the upper-left to the lower-right. In the way are... trees. Avoid hitting the trees, and explore as you dare.
The mechanics don't really work, but that was the point of the game -- to tinker with the extremes of RSD's engine and see what it could do. Maybe with a little work Caudel could have gotten something decent out of Ski; it certainly looks nice enough, and the Brandon brothers made Seal Boarders into something workable. Evidently he didn't feel the need to force it, though.
The timeline is a little muddy, but the experiment here may well have paid off in Caudel's near-contemporaneous game based on Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. The centerpiece of that game involves an isometric speeder bike race, much as in Atari's arcade game -- and in that instance the perspective works marvelously. The only real differences with Ski are the direction of movement and the absence of a laser gun.
This is in many ways a typical Caudel game, interested more in testing or expanding what is possible than in following through to create a whole experience. It's an important impulse; someone has to blaze the trail. And though it doesn't work in the form we see it, there is something intriguing to Ski. Just to see it opens a few doors, and gets the mind moving.
Story
N/A
Instructions
Avoid the trees.
- Arrow keys: Move skier in those directions
- Enter key: Bob and weave
Credits
Designed by Alan Caudel.
Availability
Ski is not known to have been distributed in any form, prior to its addition to the Archive.
Archive History
After an earlier wave of rediscoveries, on July 13 2011 Alan Caudel provided another archive of previously missing Game-Maker material, including the following:
Links
Downloads
- Ski (79 kB)
