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[edit]
N/A
Instructions[edit]
Avoid the trees.
- Arrow keys: Move skier in those directions
- Enter key: Bob and weave
Credits[edit]
Designed by Alan Caudel.
Availability[edit]
Ski is not known to have been distributed in any form, prior to its addition to the Archive.
Archive History[edit]
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[edit]
Downloads[edit]
- Ski (79 kB)
