Good Game Get! Solipskier
I suppose it’s telling of my age, but when I first played Solipskier, the wintry creation of Mike Boxleiter and Greg Wohlwend (Mikengreg Games) for browser and the iOS, it wasn’t the often-compared side-scroller Line Rider that first came to mind. Instead, I was transported back to the heady golden age of Windows 3.1 gaming and Chris Pirih’s venerable SkiFree, its similarly-themed ancestor and the first PC skiing simulator to plague the workplace. Eighteen years later, I’ve finally found a worthy, productivity-devouring successor.
Solipskier is a high score driven side-scroller which tasks you, with either mouse click or finger swipe, to create the slopes your skier races along. Success requires the mastering of speed, stunts and randomly placed obstacles; rewarding practice and persistence with score multipliers and rainbow-colored scarves, the length of which indicates skillful play. Although the scoring system is a little hard to grasp, once you get your daredevil skier accelerating through the gates and pulling off massive jumps, your score and the constant feedback of the points you rack up blur into the background. You know you’re doing well when your skier’s headphones blow off and the hard rock soundtrack gets replaced by the roar of the wind and the very satisfying bloops, dings and clicks of the game’s arcady sound effects.
Like other single mechanic games, Solipskier is a perfect fit on the iOS, seamlessly making the transition from gratifying browser-based diversion to a play-anywhere, habit-forming iPhone app. With support for the Retina Display of the iPhone 4 and the large screen of the iPad, the game looks fantastic on the iOS, and the likewise supported Open Feint dutifully records your high jumps, high scores and bragging rights. I still find playing the browser-based, mouse-driven version to be a little easier, especially when trying to beat my high scores. I imagine the iPad’s real estate would offer similar successes since I find the biggest drawback to the iPhone version to be how my finger often covers the screen prompts to lower gates and game-ending obstacles. Android-users will also be able to hit the virtual slope, as the developers are promising a version for their phones as well.
Solipskier is just the latest in a long line of “winter sports”-based video games, but in the avalanche of recent free or inexpensive entries to the genre, this one stands out in both quality and playability. Best of all, unlike its granddaddy SkiFree, Solipskier lets you concentrate just on your skiing. There’s no need to worry about snow monster attacks here.
- Andy