Posted July 13, 2021 by flippstudios
Creative Vision - Long Term, Idealistic Development Goals
Hey Skaters! This is the first entry in what will be a series of devlogs that will take a deep dive into several aspects of Beat Skater’s development. To set the stage for this first entry, Game Director Carter Costes will be going over the big picture vision for the game’s experience and some of the long term goals that he hopes to achieve while working on the project.
“It’s uh, weird to be talking to players so straightforward like this. My name is Carter Costes, I wear a lot of different hats in development but you could definitely refer to me as the Game Director.
Getting started with the actual topic, I suppose it’d be a good idea to discuss the inspirations behind Beat Skater. As of writing this, I’m 23 and have been skateboarding for the past 10 years. It’s been fundamental in teaching me so many lessons ranging from coping with failure to being confident in my actions. Almost the entire time I’ve been skateboarding, music has been a key part of the experience. The connection that skateboarding has to music is widely known and experienced, it can be seen at any skatepark now where many people will be listening to their own music in one ear. In the 90’s and early 2000’s, when skateboarding culture was at its peak (in my opinion with no basis outside of subjectivity), fisheye camera skateboarding videos featured satisfying synchronized music. Even people who don’t skate and only experience it through games can relate to this experience, where the soundtracks on the Tony Hawk’s and Skate series of games have been praised for the effects synchronization with action has on gameplay. When starting pre-production for Beat Skater, the goal was to enable players to more organically create those moments while playing and systemically reward them. Now, this was just the initial pitch. *The vision would narrow significantly as other questions such as difficulty, input method, release platforms, ect. would come up but the core of aiming to achieve that synchronization hasn’t changed.
Looking at where it is now, I’d say our initial vision goal has been met with the gameplay. Some of the critical components, such as the appearance of the Beat Meter, came later in development that I’d like to admit but were revolutionary in how they affected the feel of the gameplay. There’s a lot that I want to add to it, which I’ll get into in the next paragraph, but I’m very happy with the successful iOS launch and the release of Season 1 across all platforms. The team working on the game is amazing and I’m very lucky to work with so many great people, future devlogs will actually feature some of them.
I know there’s a lot of “Coming soon” in the music menu, and that’ll be addressed sooner than you think. . The new genre is really slick, but that’s all I can say right now. As for what else is actively in the pipeline, we’re working on adding further systems to enhance gameplay, such as a selectable grind type system and a new trick ability in manualling. Past gameplay changes, a major rework to the shop system(pictured below) and an expansion of the challenge system are being worked on now with an expectation of release next patch. Looking at newer systems, we’re starting pre-production on unlockable environments which will likely be coming in the future. None of these changes/additions have dates right now, but stay tuned to the Beat Skater social media to be updated on when they do.
To be frank, Beat Skater at this point is my baby and I’m happy just having something I’m this passionate about to work on. I love making games, and this game connects so much with my personal experience. I don’t see development fully stopping for the foreseeable future. Content might have variance in it’s frequency based on how asset acquisition goes, but systemic additions have few restraints with what I can do technically. I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who plays the game, everyone who has supported development of the game, and everyone who is reading this right now. Making games from my passions is my dream, and I’m so happy that what I’m passionate about can positively affect so many people.
*As a short aside, I think this is what happens in any ideal development cycle. The creative vision doesn’t go through major shifts or unexpect tonal changes, it remains in the same vein as the initial pitch but narrows significantly to something pinpoint. Radical vision changes can and has led to success, but in my opinion those circumstances would have rather warranted a new project to have started altogether.
Carter Costes
Game Director
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Thanks for that Carter! That’s all we had planned for this devlog, but come back in two weeks for a brief dive into the quirks that the game programming had on the technical architecture of the game. Please leave any questions or comments you have for Carter or the team overall below and we’ll respond! To keep updated on Beat Skater, make sure to follow our Twitter and Instagram. If you’re interested in trying the game, it can be downloaded for free on the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store. Thank you for the time and playing!