Game Story
Your name is Xak Matthews, an amateur skateboarder. All your life you’ve dreamed in competing in the largest competition in your field, the International Skateboarding Championships, held every year in San Diego, California. Your friend, Laryn, made it to the Championships this year but because of a suspicious accident she can no longer go. She has given her spot to you in order to win the competition and take home the trophy. The player must run the gauntlet of skill and unfair competitors to win the prize. Xak’s a Midwesterner so this first time to “crazy” Southern California as well.
Game Play and Look
The main part of this game will be in 3D, with a third person point of view, and rendered polygons representing Xak, the skateboard course, and the other competitors. The courses will not be realistic to real skateboarding competitions but will consist of whimsical and twisted layouts along with obstacles and other hazards. Some of the courses will require the player to think “three-dimensionally” like the popular game Descent. The player can control Xak with a joystick, keyboard, or mouse. Xak’s opponents will also have tricked out skateboards with modifications like weapons, rocket boosters, whacky stuff like rubber chicken crossbows and whatnot that will give them an edge over Xak in early races. However once Xak wins a couple of races he’ll gain access to a choice of upgrades or the option to continue to skate with his unmodified board.
When Xak is racing he will have access to standard skateboarding moves like jumps, flips, and whatnot. The courses are not just won by coming in first, but also by performing tricks, and finishing in a short amount of time. Points will be assigned on the difficulty of the trick. To avoid “cheating” the key combinations for the various tricks will be randomly generated for each playing through of the competition. Xak will have the option to learn tricks from NPC’s, through some character interaction and dialogue sequences, or experiment to find them out for himself.
The other main screen of the game will be a map of San Diego with various places to visit with NPC’s, chill on the beach, sightsee (i.e. Fisherman’s Wharf, Balboa Park),visit a skate shop, or a skate park to practice, among other things.
The most interesting part of the game is that it will be multiplayer over the Internet, LAN, or phone line. Beyond the basic campaign of Xak to win the Championship there will be free skate and competition modes. People using a system similar to other online ventures such as Everquest, Gamespy etc, will be able to drop in anytime to compete in a race, skate with friends, or just hang out in the online representation of San Diego.