It looks like Toronto-based Snowman Games is quickly becoming a busy studio.
Shortly after revealing Alto’s Odyssey, the sequel to Alto’s Adventure, as well as a joint project with The Game Band called Where Cards Fall, the studio has now shown off a new title called ‘Skate City.’
While little is known about Skate City, the game seems to be a 2D sidescrolling skateboarding title similar to OlliOlli. The game’s teaser trailer shows off a hand-drawn wireframe of a skateboard moving past a variety of objects, before displaying what looks to be its actual visuals towards the clip’s finale.
“We’ve been building a game that tries to capture the true essence of skateboarding, in a way that really feels at home on mobile,” said Ryan Cash, one of Snowman’s co-founders, in interview with MobileSyrup. Cash goes on to say that skateboarding has always been a passion of his and that his studio is working with Oslo, Norway-based developer, Agens, on the project.
“In one sense, Skate City is a side-scrolling skateboarding game. With that said, we’re working really hard together with Agens to rethink how games like this approach the 2D plane, and if we get it right, we hope Skate City will captures the expressiveness and experimentation of real skateboarding.”
A recent blog post Cash penned about the title also details his fondness for classic Tony Hawk video games and how the series has influenced Snowman as a studio, as well as the development of Skate City.
“I didn’t know it at the time, but seeing a game like that — which so perfectly captured the feelings of something I loved — would have a huge influence on our approach to building things at Snowman. It’s no secret that THPS influenced some of our design and creative decisions with Alto’s Adventure,” wrote Cash.
When asked if Skate City will share similarities with Alto’s Adventure, Cash said the following:
“I think that’s what Skate City shares most with Alto’s Adventure: the distillation of a sport down to the things that make it most beautiful. More than with Alto, we’re building Skate City to have the depth that skaters want from a game like this, but we’re also taking great care to nail down that feeling of fluid motion that I think is central to a lot of what we make.”
Cash says his studio plans to share the game’s development process via its official Instagram account, @skatecitygame.
As someone who grew up infatuated with skateboarding culture and skateboarding video games, Skate City looks to be the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater portable revival I’ve always wanted.
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