Surface is all about friction and inertia. We’re not so much worried about the story here, but it looks like we’re being chased by the authorities. Good thing this city is a grinding paradise, with its beautiful neon light strips, multi-tier scaffolding and plenty of architecture to skate, dash and slide across with flashy style. The environments themselves are eye candy, but you’ll be going too fast to grab every detail. Best to take it all in at a quick pace, because you’re not gonna want to slow down for a second. The current build of Surface gives us a leaderboard with scores and a “how far can you make it before screwing up” measurement.
The game drops players into a gorgeous city where they’re already skating for their freedom. You can speed up to really get some air, and it’s best to take off quick cause the faster you hit top speed, the higher you’ll jump, allowing you to reach the harder-to-reach areas of the level. You want to get up high, so you can really pull off those aerial moves and rack up a higher score. Some people (like me) enjoy flipping and beefing it hard by smacking into the ground, just to watch the character flap around. That’s fun, but it also spells the end of your run, and you’ll need to start over. There are a ton of obstacles which mostly revolve around different configurations of the grind rails and scaffolding to jump off of, and you need quick thinking to make it through without eating it big time. There are jumps and grind rails you need to hit just right, but there’s also moving traffic in some areas, forcing you to dodge those cars while dashing through the intersection. Maybe it’s easier to just jump over them altogether?
Download the student prototype game from the google-drive page.
Played it? We’d love to know what you thought about it.
