Slopecrashers Dev Talks Game Development, Publishing & What's to Come

Inspiration

I grew up with the game Snowboard Kids on N64 and always loved playing snowboarding games after that, especially the SSX series, which was something that I hold very dearly. 

So, for me, it was always clear that if I started working on a game, I wanted to work on a snowboarding game, especially since track-based snowboarding games have been absent since SSX 2012, and overall, a lot of snowboarding games have physics that I don't enjoy because they focus more on a simulation or simcade aspect.

But before I started working on it, I had no skills in gamedev yet. So I made a smaller game before, an Endless Runner that was similar to Subway Surfers but had tricks like a snowboarding game. It was my way of easing myself into a bigger project.

So after that was done, I started working on Slopecrashers in 2018 with my full intention of bringing it to PC and consoles. I knew it was an ambitious project, so I calculated that it would take me about two years. Little did I know how much longer the game would take in the end.

Production Process

The way I work on projects like this is to always focus on the most difficult task, the deal breaker. The one task that would fail the project, if it weren't achievable.

I first started working on physics because physics is the most important part in a snowboarding game. I worked months and months on that until I was happy with it. Initially, I tried a lot of templates and tutorials, but it never felt right until I restarted with a completely physics-based approach by moving a capsule with forces and thinking about what forces would actually happen towards the snowboard. 

My goal was to make it possible to use half pipes in the game, but also go around tunnels and be able to drive on walls and the ceiling.

Failed experiment 1

Failed experiment 2

First successes just with forces (no friction yet)

Tunnel physics

Half-pipe physics

Here is the video about the physics:

The next big thing was level design since I didn't think I could make interesting levels at first, but after laying out a few of them, I knew it would be doable, and I could continue with the next big issue. I did that for a while until there weren't any big things left, after which I switched to a more agile approach.

Level Design started on paper

Then switched over to landscape tools in Unreal (plus exporting those to Blender and adding more details there).

I also have a video on my channel about this:

Deciding on milestones, sprints, and structuring everything in small tickets, and estimating how long each ticket takes. This helped in getting things done, especially when I only had a little bit of time, I picked a shorter task.

And deadlines helped a lot, too, like a new festival submission, a new demo, etc.

Challenges

There was a time when I wanted to stop working on it. It was most of the time a project I made on the side and juggling both that and a full time job was getting tough and since at that time (2021) the wishlists were not getting anywhere (I was at around 1000 wishlists at that time), so I put everything on one card where if the game didn't get into a festival in summer 2022 and would get a lot of wishlists I would stop working on it. 

Luckily, after a visual overhaul, it suddenly got a lot more popular, and I was no longer considering canceling the project (The game had around 8K wishlists at the end of 2022 and launched with around 35K wishlists in 2024).

Slopecrashers before visual tweaks (January 2022)

Slopecrashers after tweaking the visuals to better encapsulate the cartoon aesthetic (March 2022)

Turning Point

I mentioned that I initially planned on finishing the game within two years. And I did – all the things I planned in the game design document were now playable in the game, but I had a big problem with the game, I didn't think it was that much fun. Also, the game didn't look very good in my opinion. 

Initially, I was happy with my design work, but since it was my first project, I slowly learned more and increasingly became frustrated with the game. So after two or 2.5 years, I decided I'll delay it indefinitely and try to find out what I can improve to be happy with it. 

It then took me another year to disassemble and put it together again in a more fun way. And at the beginning of 2022, I was suddenly way happier with it, but not just that, the increase in visual fidelity and artstyle suddenly helped a lot in marketing the game, both on social media and also getting the game into festivals like Guerilla Collective, etc. 

As part of the overhaul, I, for example, added more tracks per level. Initially I only had one track per level, but since I wanted multilap races in the game these races took too long and designing a whole world around one track was not feasible for a one person team, so I cut back on the amount of levels in favor of adding more tracks per level, which made it easier for me since I e.g. didn't have to create background assets, but the background assets were part of a different track. For example, there is a track in a city that goes through a shopping mall, which meant I had to fill the shops with assets, but so I don't JUST do it for the background, I made a track that goes through all the shops as well, and suddenly the track design of one track became the background for another.

Adding multiple tracks to a map that already exists (the pink line was the initial track, red, green, and blue were added later)

Shopping mall before adding the shops and other tracks:

Shopping mall center after adding shops to the left and right that are part of different tracks:

Publishing

I did consider partnering with a publisher. In 2023, I thought I wanted to focus on it full-time and not always work multiple things at the same time, so I could finally finish the game. So I talked to many publishers throughout the year – in the end, I signed with Neonhive Games for the pc release in 2024. Unfortunately, their business had quite some restructuring throughout 24/25, so shortly before the console release, we parted ways, and I had to do the console release fully by myself, which was tough. I wish I had support during this time, especially for the first console release with cross-play; this would have helped a lot. However, I did manage to publish it by myself on all the platforms in the end and even got a lot of support from the first parties, e.g., Sony putting the trailer on their YouTube channel and Xbox doing a whole lot of things with the game, like a launch day livestream, social media posts, an article, etc.

Marketing & Distribution

Since my previous mobile games didn't get an audience (because I didn't do any marketing), I had a different approach for the full game. Early on, I started posting on social media (initially Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Reddit, and later TikTok), with a few very successful posts, especially on TikTok and Twitter – the game was great to show off in a few-second clips. However, the biggest drive was online showcases like Guerrilla Collective, Cozy Quest, and Steam festivals like Racing Fest and Next Fest.

I also streamed the development on Twitch since 2021 (at least until I worked on the console versions). This helped a lot in getting feedback from players and formed the game into what it is now; it wouldn't be as good if I hadn't done that.

Another big point was Zlan 2024, where streamers from France competed in a huge tournament against each other for a cash prize. This was quite a lot of work to finalize the multiplayer for that event. I might have been a bit optimistic in my multiplayer implementation leading up to this event, the players took a month to dissect and destroy everything in my game leading up to the event, but in the end it luckily all worked out, even though I reprogrammed the entire multiplayer component of the game in that month and tried fixing exploits, but also trying to keep some things in that are actually fun for the players.

Also in the last years of development i exhibited at a lot of physical events like gamescom together with IndieArenaBooth and Nintendo, at WASD London and a lot of local events in Austria, this didn't help a ton with wishlists but it helped a lot with watching players interact with the game and being able to see issues that players have with it and improving them.

I also made a little video about the ZLAN with some snippets from Slopecrashers:

My Gamescom Nintendo Booth:

Platform-Specific Challenges

Consoles were a tougher cookie than I expected. First off, since it is a last-gen title, I didn't think it would be that complicated to get enough performance out of those machines to run the game (and I am not speaking of the Switch 1). Furthermore, since Epic suddenly dropped the support for Unreal Engine 4 a month before the PC release, there was no way for me (at least to my knowledge at the time) to release the game on consoles without upgrading to UE5. So after the pc release i had to do the upgrade and try to get it all working again before I could release it on the consoles. That is why it took so long between PC and console release.

Since I then had to fix a lot of things in the engine anyway to get it working on console, I think I would have the skill now to implement the console SDKs in the older UE4 engine and release it with that, but I didn't know beforehand and also due to all the NDA stuff with consoles you cannot openly ask for help or find solutions for problems and you are on your own if you encounter issues. So if anyone thinks of releasing an Unreal project on consoles, just be aware that you will, to some degree, shift from being a game developer to becoming an engine programmer.

Reflecting

Calculating a project when you never done a project like that doesn't mean much. The problem is you don't know what you don't know yet, and there is a lot to learn, and this can extend the time duration for a project like this. I mean, there is the mindset going around of creating small projects first, but I think that's only half the picture. Don't create small projects first, but try to make them commercially successful and publish them on other platforms too, so you can learn all the hurdles that come with that.

Also, a big lesson is finding the key identity of a project. Slopecrashers tried to be too much and fit in with too many audiences, which resulted in the people who play the game loving it a lot, but it overall confuses a bit, I discovered. As it looks like a fun casual racer, which it kinda is, but since it also tries to have as much depth as an SSX game, it is also a bit too complicated for casual players, but also a bit too easy or too cutesy for the hardcore audience. So it kinda has it all for everyone, but when you see the game, you don't know that, and marketing it to two audiences is impossible.

Future Games

It changed the way I look at the game-making process. Now that my dream project is done, I can finally focus on new games, and also have a better calculation for the duration of it that I didn't have before. 

Also, I learned that I need to think about game making in phases – do it like big studios, in which there is a pre-production phase and a production towards an MVP, and then go from there. Because in Slopecrashers I grew the game horizontally quite quickly and created a lot of levels, but then later I changed the physics and suddenly all the maps needed changing again for these physics to work, so next time I do something like this, I would first flesh out one map to the highest quality level and finish the physics with that map and after that is done not touch the physics again.

Plus, it probably wasn't the smartest decision to add all the things that came to my mind – initially, it was snowboarding, then I added the hanggliders, which became a central element that shifted a lot of the game, though, into having more control in the air. And later I thought, wouldn't it be fun if there were also a grappling hook, a rocket nozzle, or jetpacks? Some of which change the gameplay but also the level design drastically. I still love that I added all that, but I also think most players will probably not even discover all the different gameplay styles within the game, since I think there is a lot of content in it.

Also, hopefully, now that I had a (for me) successful game published on pc and consoles, it will be easier to find funding for the next projects, which also hopefully will allow me to hire more people to make more games faster.

Looking Forward

First, I had a small two-month break, which I needed. But I have already started working on a new game, this time with a better defined key audience and not trying to fit in with everyone – also, I think since I have a full game finished now, it will just be faster to finish the next one in a much faster time. My goal would be to release a game by 2026.

However, I also want to dedicate more time towards Slopecrashers, like fixing bugs, but also adding content if time and money allow it, and as soon as it's possible, creating a Switch 2 version of the game. Furthermore, I recently made a Slopecrashers board game, and I also want to bring back the old endless runner, but update it to modern standards.

So there are a lot of things that I want to do when it comes to games.

Here is also a first glimpse of a current prototype that I intend to form into a full game:

Johannes Lugstein, Game Developer