Solipskier

- Sponsored by: Kongregate.com
- Designer: Mike Boxleiter and Greg Wohlwend
- Year Released: August 29, 2010
- Significant Contributors to Game Development: Joe Stump and Chopin provided the songs
- Genre: Sports
- Other Games in Series: None

History

Mike and Greg were presumably friends before they decided to start their own company called MikenGreg Games. Mike is a programmer who enjoys designing games and bringing them to life. Greg makes the art that goes into the games they make.

Game Design Elements

Solipskier is a side-scrolling game that plays a bit like Line rider in the sense that instead of controlling a character, the player draws a path for the character that influences his movement and speed by the slopes of snow in front of him. The primary mechanic in this game is to draw slopes that make Solipskier go faster and gain score multipliers. The point of the game is to reach the highest score. Arrows of corresponding colors appear on the right side of the screen and warn the player about oncoming gates, jumps or tunnels by displaying their distance and location.

There are two types of obstacles in this game that can kill Solipskier: jumps and red gates.

Jumps are simply grayed out areas where the cursor cannot draw snow. The only way to avoid these is to either have enough speed to fly over it without losing altitude or by making an upward slope, making Solipskier fly over the crevice.

Red gates kill Solipskier instantly if he touches them. The only way to get past these is to simply draw slopes that lead Solipskier under or over them.

There are three ways to pick up speed and gain a score multiplier (as well as a stylish rainbow trail): Passing green gates, Passing tunnels (blue gates), or by doing tricks.

Green gates add the the score multiplier and increase Solipskier's speed. The multiplier evaporates after about 2.5 seconds if he does not pass another green gate in time. If he misses a green gate, he immediately loses half of his score multiplier.

Solipskier gets a bonus of 2x if he passes a green gate in mid air

He can also get points for gates if he is in the air, off camera, as they pass. When going really fast, this is an effective way to get several gates at once. Stars appear at the top of the screen for each gate you pass this way, but their significance (beyond simply being an indicator) is still a mystery to me.

Tunnels are blue gates that follow in a path. Missing a blue gate will not cause Solipskier to lose his score/speed multiplier, but it can still go away on its own if he does not pass a blue gate in 2.5 seconds. Every four blue gates increases the multiplier by one.

Tricks can be done if solipskier is in the air and the player stops drawing snow. Solipskier will immediately start doing tricks if there is no snow beneath him. The longer he keeps doing tricks, the higher the multiplier bonus is.

Fun Facts:

Under 10 kph, Solipskier must use his poles to move himself

At 25 kph, Solipskier bends forward to become more aerodynamic

At 45x speed, Solipskier's headphones fall off--the rock music stops playing and all you can hear is the wind.

Controls

Mouse left-click - draw snow

P - Pause the game

Plot

There is no real plot in this game. The player's job is simply to help Solipskier get as far as he can.

Characters

Solipskier is a stick man with head phones and a love for danger.

Art

Visual

2d stick person on skis wearing headphones. As the player draws snow, houses and square trees rise from it. The background is silhouetted mountains with houses on them. Flat clouds populate the sky. The cursor is a snow flake. All in all, it's a pretty simplistic art style, but it's effective for what the game is.

Sound

This is a very windy game--even before you start playing, you can hear wind in the distance. Other than that, there are different sounds for passing blue gates, green gates, green gates in mid-air, hitting a red gate or a vertical wall of snow, landing on the snow after a jump, and the sound of skis on snow.

Also, while the player is playing, rock music played by Joe Stump is looping until Solipskier reaches 45x speed, at which point he loses his headphones.

On the post-death/restart screen, a sad piano piece by Chopin is playing to reinforce the fact that Solipskier has died.

References

Mikengreg's website:

http://mikengreg.com/hello/