What happens if you teach a tame bird to ride a tiny skateboard? The American indie studio Friv2Online Games Studio tried to answer this question in its absurd sports simulator SkateBIRD. How convincing they turned out - we tell in a short review.
We have already raced boards as professional athletes. There were also unknown "no-names" with a meager arsenal of tricks. Were cartoon characters, plowing incredible worlds. But, perhaps, they have never been bird skaters.
Being a decorative bird is somewhat unusual in itself: a plump body, thin legs, generally not very suitable for flat surfaces. But some, no, but there are wings. And even though the birds in SkateBIRD can't fly, it doesn't cost them anything to wave them well for a more effective ollie.
SkateBIRD presents five small parks, although in fact they are not even parks, but the habitats of their Big Friend equipped for skating feathered skaters. For example, his small bedroom, in which the ramps are made from old magazines and cardboard boxes, and pencils or a juice tube will do for the rail.
Despite the toy scenery, your bird is quite determined to learn, and her friends hang out at the levels, who willingly share their skater experience and give out tasks that take several minutes to complete.
Otherwise, skating is not limited by time, and you are free to explore locations for secret items, only to get to most of them, according to the law of the genre, you need to become a little more skilled in the skater craft.
If in the same Tony Hawk Pro Skater, collecting objects on the map was a prerequisite for scoring the points needed to complete the level, then here it's just entertainment to replenish the collection of outfits, music and decks.
There are not so many tricks in the friv game, as you can guess. But the birds can do lifts and twists, balance, perform simple flip tricks. Boardslides, twists, nose grabs - a sufficient arsenal to rest a little for your favorite pastime.
If you flap your wings in flight, the bird will perform an air ollie - in our language, "double jump". And their light weight allows them to, for example, use ventilation turbines as springboards or slide over wires!
The game has a very nice customization system. Not only do you have a lot of decorations available by default, you can find even more if you carefully explore the levels. You can change a bird’s hat, put glasses on its muzzle, tie a scarf or bow tie around its neck, put a cape and a bag on your belt on your back, change the deck and wheels, and most importantly, choose the carcass itself. Budgerigar, Kalita, Pinto Wagtail, Pygmy Falcon, Cardinal Grosbeak - there are a lot of species of decorative birds here.
The developers welcome the relaxed gameplay, and therefore allowed the players to adjust the difficulty level in the settings in great detail. Starting with the availability of some tricks, the probability of falling off the board and the difficulty of balancing, and ending even with the speed of the game. If you wish, you can turn off the balance altogether and hang on the rails as much as the bird's heart desires.
SkateBIRD features a great soundtrack that the developers described as Lo-Fi bird-hop. The original Jazz-funk arrangement was written by composer Nathan Madsen, but the game also includes licensed tracks from ska-punk band We Are The Union, rock band Grave Digger, works by Illicit Nature and others.
The game has a terribly clumsy camera that constantly takes uncomfortable angles, then flies under a bird skate, then rests against the walls, limiting visibility. And sometimes, in very rare cases, she does not understand at all where she should go and arranges a real shaking.
They did a great job with the fonts. SkateBIRD has a localization into Russian, but the letters turned out to be very sweeping, which is why they often fall out of the window borders, run into each other or onto the images they describe.
The graphics in the friv game could be a little better. The birds themselves are drawn amusingly, the boards and some objects too, but the large scenery and backgrounds, which are very blurry, obviously due to their unpretentiousness, should have been worked out more scrupulously.
WORTH TAKING?
If you love skateboarding and have already played all existing projects, perhaps SkateBIRD will have some fun for you. This is a simple and unpretentious indie game with some absurd humor and a huge number of cute feathered creatures, but of course, you should not take it as a serious skateboard simulator.