Downhill Dash

Itch Game description

Downhill Dash is a thrilling, physics-based 3D downhill longboarding racing game designed for mobile devices.

The game features two unique levels each lasting between one and two minutes, with a variety of twists, turns, and obstacles to test your mettle! Choose between Colombia or Norway.

Play in Solo Mode to race alone and try to set the best time possible. Play in Versus Mode to take turns racing with a friend. Player 1 will race as normal and then Player 2 will try to beat Player 1’s time, even seeing a ‘ghost’ of Player 1 during their run.

Use swipe controls or mouse/keyboard to control the skateboarder. Swiping/pressing Down will cause the player to crouch, increasing speed but making handling tougher. Swiping/pressing Up will return the player to a standing position and reduce the speed and increase handling. To steer the player, just swipe/press and hold left or right.

The game also features a Customisation screen, allowing you to rotate between three different outfits, and three different board designs.

Downhill Dash was created over approximately 3.5 weeks by Futuregames students for Group Project 2. The assignment was to follow a (theoretical) Request for Proposal from the game studio Turborilla to create a mobile game demo for a new extreme sports title that would fit alongside their current titles.

Credits:

Adrian-Robert Baluta

Gertrud Bondesson

Martyna Cichosz

Leo Dennett

Dennis Eriksson

Kyle Ala Figueroa

Oskar Gillberg

Harsh Kashinath Istalkar

Moa Jansson

Anja Jesske

Draco Sevak Nazloomian

Ana Marija Piperkoska

Bryan Shee

Alex Stenman

Reyn Teru

Jakob Torudd

Matthew Williams

The Process

For this game, we were tasked with following a Request for Proposal from Turborilla, to create a demo of an extreme sports game for mobile devices, one that would fit alongside their other games and work within the Turborilla brand.

To begin with, we conducted research on various extreme sports to see what sort of activities would translate well to a mobile game. Additionally, we downloaded various Turborilla titles and played them extensively to better understand how their games are designed, to help ensure we did not stray from the brand and their playerbase’s expectations.

After several game ideas were pitched among the team, the game designers settled on the sport of downhill longboarding (also known as speedboarding). The current Turborilla titles all have an emphasis on speed and are sports that people have some general understanding of. Speedboarding seemed appropriate as most people are familiar with skateboarding, and the basic goal of steering around turns and avoiding obstacles to get to a finish line seemed like one that would be easily picked up.

There are a variety of speedboarding videos on YouTube that inspired the game and the two levels/locations in the game. We chose Colombia and Norway so there would be distinct differences in environment and colour palette between the levels.

We intended to have more levels but towards the end of the project we realised how time-consuming it was to set dress the levels with art assets and adjust the turns and car pathing to optimise gameplay experience. As the game is experienced at high speed there is a lot more level to be designed and polished than initially anticipated or experienced with other projects.

Early on in the process there was a greenlight session to ensure that we weren’t overscoping the project. This helped us condense the ideas and features into a more managable list and ensure everyone had the same vision and understanding of the game.

One of the biggest challenges with creating the game was the large team size (17 people). Previous group projects had not been anywhere near this size and there was not a lot of time to develop the most efficient way to work remotely and communicate effectively.

I think the most valuable lessons learned from this project relate to how to create games for mobile devices, as well as gaining more experience with working in large teams. Whilst it was at times a stressful few weeks, the team remained positive and productive and we

are all very pleased with what we managed to create. We were also pleased to hear all the positive feedback we received from the jury at the end of the project alongside some valuable pointers for the future.