Stick Skater

Whilst I enjoy spending time playing the bigger games on my iPhone, sometimes, it’s hard to find the time. This is why i’m always on the look out for the next big “quick-play” game, something that’s good if I just have a couple of minutes for a quick blast. Last week I stumbled across Stick Skater by Traction Games, which fits the bill perfectly.

Anyone familar with games such as Canabalt or Run! will be immediately at home with the premise behind this game. It’s a 2D scroller where the aim of the game is to make it through each level whilst avoiding all the obstacles in your way. As the name suggests, Stick Skater is a skateboard game, but if you’re not a skateboard fan, don’t switch off just yet, the game keeps things light and there’s no need to learn a bunch of complex controls in order to have some fun.

In fact, there are two control methods, beginner, where you have two buttons, one to speed up and one to randomly pull a trick, or the advanced, where you have a button to speed up and need to swipe in any direction to perform specific tricks. As the game is all about surviving the course it never matters what trick you pull off, but as I like to have control I chose the advanced method. Both sets of controls are easy to get to grips with and pretty soon you’ll be pulling of combos with the best of them as you try to avoid gaps, stairs and bollards put in place to make you bail.

Again, as the name suggests, the graphics are simple, but this fits the game well and the stick figure you control seems fluid and each trick you perform is animated well. The levels are based upon real skateboarding loataions including: DogTown, Wilshire and Hollywood. The gameplay starts of simple enough and it’s realitively easy to get to the end collecting all the bonus collectables to up your score. However, as you progress the levels do increase and you’ll find yourself bailing more and having to repeat sections which require you to link up a variety of tricks to avoid all the obstacles. There are checkpoints within the levels so you don’t have to start over everytime you come flying off your board.

You start the game with 5 lives and lose one every time you bail, you do appear to have infinite replays however, so I’m not sure what the point of losing lives is. Perhaps it would be better if it counted up the amount of times you bailed. Currently the game has around 24 levels which will take a little while to complete. Unfortunately, there is no option to go back and play a level once you have completed it. This is something I would really like to see because it appears that once you have completed the game, the only way to replay a level is to go through them all again, in order.

I have had a blast playing this great little game, a few additional game modes would be nice, maybe a random level that doesn’t end and you just have to see how fair you can get before losing all your lives would be a great addition, maybe even a simple level creator could be included so you could create and share you’re own runs.

If you enjoyed playing Canabalt and the likes, and are looking for something with extra skateboarding then this is one you should definately pick up. If, however, you’re sat on the fence a little, why not try the lite version? I did, and then bought the full version after one play.