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Hot off completing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + (sorta) 4 and EA looking like it’s going, well, full on EA with Skate not-4, I was itching for some more virtual skateboarding goodness. The holy grail of oddities that is the Steam demo page came in clutch with a brand new demo for Stuntboost, a first-person miniature skateboarding game made by Byting Games. Replace a full-sized board with a Tech Deck and you get an idea of the scale.
As the game explains when you fire it up, Stuntboost is all about speed and flow instead of tricks. There’s no pulling off a nollie-heelflip-to-japan-air-to-blunt-tre-flip-out-nose-manual-to-360-melon for a silly bazillion point score like in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. In that spirit, it’s better played on mouse and keyboard, channelling the precision of a shooter rather than an arcade-leaning skate sim.
You navigate levels laid out in what appears to be a kid’s bedroom, reminiscent of Hot Wheels, Toy Story, and the 3D portions of The Lucky Squire. Dominoes, plastic tracks, wooden blocks, cardboard trenches, pencils, batteries, folders, glue sticks – it evocatively channels the younger mind’s ability to stack and arrange mundane objects into fun and play. I think that’s my favourite part of Stuntboost, just how light and playful it all is while still offering up enough of a challenge to make it engaging.
Stuntboost is deceptively challenging. Captured by VideoGamer
It’s all about flow. Captured by VideoGamer
Success is measured by how fast you can get through levels. Captured by VideoGamer
Stuntboost has some neat triggers puzzles. Captured by VideoGamer
The controls are deceptively simple. Movement is controlled with the mouse, you tap space to ollie, and hold shift to gain speed on downhill portions – but you’ll need to be attentive to avoid hazards, keep on tight tracks, and launch across massive gaps. It reminds me of games like the underrated Rollerdrome and the excellent OlliOlli World (RIP Roll7), where you reach a hyper-focused flow state and everything just clicks. Movement becomes almost poetic in its intentionality and precision.
As you get deeper, levels become increasingly more difficult, morphing into these sorts of environmental puzzles that require the clever use of ramps and shortcuts to reach ledges and platforms. The most obvious path is often the worst. In one level, you have to look at googly eyes to unlock doors, all while ollieing off ramps and soaring through the air. In another, you need to gain speed in a half-pipe to leap over a wheel careening towards you. Both are examples of the creativity at play in Stuntboost. You even get longboard levels all about carving up and down ramps to gain speed.
Success is measured by how fast you run through levels, with even an online leaderboard to see how you size up against other players. Speed is measured in cm/s – a nice touch. A neat ghost feature that tracks previous runs lets you see how you’re doing during levels. There are medals to unlock as well to prompt retries in search of seconds to shave off and improve your time.
The soundtrack is all original to boot and is suitably loud and obnoxious with Blink-esque power chords, angst-y vocals, thumping drum fills, Midwest emo twinkle, and squealing licks to accompany you through the levels. Call it a compromise brought on by a tight budget (at least compared to the stacked tracklist of a THPS game), but it gives Stuntboost a unique sonic identity that’s all to its credit.
The demo features the first 13 levels of the full Stuntboost release, so plenty to get stuck into, not to mention endless replays if you fancy it. As for the full release, it’s currently in TBA purgatory, but given just how sleek the demo is, it can’t be too far off. Expect grinds, flips, and stacks more levels to weave your way through. As always, if it’s your bag, wishlisting helps out the devs.
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