My New Animation Based Skateboarding Game

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#1

Hello Developer Community!

I hope this is okay to share here: After 6+ months of work (more learning than doing) I’ve finally reached a point where my game is playable, although nowhere near complete and likely the farthest thing from “optimized” that folks here have seen. I would appreciate any feedback and know I have many bugs to work through.

Some back-story:

I’m a solo, hobbyist developer who initially started playing Roblox as a way to monitor what my daughter was doing online. I stumbled across Bee Swarm Simulator in its early days and could not believe how fun and addicting it was, even for an adult. I later became interested in development after my daughter attended a coding camp and introduced me to Studio. I’ve had very little coding experience since dropping my CS major in favor of a finance degree 30 years ago, which also reveals that I’m probably not the average developer demographic here. My learning has primarily been from the Developer Hub site, this amazing community forum (huge thanks to folks like ThatTimothy and others who seem to have all the answers), and AlvinBlox videos, which have been invaluable.

Skate City Simulator pays tribute to my favorite game of all time: 1986’s Atari 720 (I have one in my garage and maintain an online community dedicated to the game). It is also heavily influenced by Bee Swarm Simulator and the Roblox simulator genre in general.

The project is largely a ‘labor of love’ and is likely not the type of game that most Roblox players would enjoy (sorry, no pets, adoptions, robberies, or obbies, and I’m going for a retro – 8 bit look). It was more of a project to see if I could figure out how some of the complex systems in Bee Swarm Simulator worked, and potentially duplicate them. Spoiler: I can’t… and that game is a masterpiece, but I did learn everything from making thumbnails and icons, to creating complex scoring and questing systems, as well as a custom sticker mechanic.

Its also worth pointing out that I made a very conscious decision to move away from the traditional Roblox skateboard platform, and go with a 100% animation based skating mechanism, which retains the normal ‘feel’ of Roblox running and jumping.

Side note (rant?) I’ve just moved the entire game from my personal account over to a group. An incredibly arduous process that involved moving animations. Rebuilding gamepasses, and other fixes. So if you intend to publish from a group, do it from the get-go!

Again, really appreciate any feedback (Yep, constructive welcome)

https://www.roblox.com/games/5221648345/Skate-City-Simulator-Beta

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#2

This is a great start to game that has a lot of potential. I definitely feel your Bee Swarm vibe. I think there could be more instruction on exactly what it is you are to do (I didn’t really understand the “collect tokens then do a Shove It” spiel), but I think you’ve done a great job so far. I can see really looking forward to doing more advanced tricks.

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#3

Adding “Simulator” in the title seems tacked on, as Skate City would be perfectly fine for the game’s name. Granted you might just be utilizing the trend of naming every game “simulator” to increase exposure, a trend that cannot die soon enough.

I’m not a fan of the requirement to grab tokens to perform tricks, as it’s arbitrarily restrictive to the player for them to unlock new tricks, only to require the correct token to pop up to actually perform it.

That, and the decision to go for a movement system that is essentially a “reskinned” walk and jump system, seem to run antithetical to what players would expect from a skateboarding game. In other words, gameplay-wise, why have skateboards at all, instead of having players run around and perform tricks without one? Could work as a parkour game and it wouldn’t play that differently.

These decisions are especially confusing having looked up and watched gameplay of Atari 720, which does feature more fluid and “traditional” skateboarding gameplay.

This turns the main quests (the ones given by the bird) into collect-a-thons where you sort of wander around waiting for the right token to show up so you can touch it, jump, and then repeat that a dozen or so times.

If you’re trying to emulate aspects of Bee Swarm Simulator, remember that that game doesn’t restrict the tools you can use, or punish you for collecting the wrong pollen, but merely slows your progress for doing so.

To relate it back to this game, I’d recommend assigning tricks to keybinds or combinations of keybinds and allowing players to perform them freely. Tricks would then require a certain amount of airtime to perform successfully without messing up or some other consideration that the player has to actively keep track of. Implement some sort of combo system that rewards performing multiple varied tricks and jumps within a short period of time. Earlier quests would have you perform a certain trick a number of times like they do now, but attaining a certain combo level would be an additional objective later on. I’d also buff overall skating speed to increase the “hook” of gameplay.

Combining the freestyle skating genre with a “numbers” game like Bee Swarm Simulator is going to be difficult to pull off well without sacrificing a large part of the identity of either.

Combat isn’t very engaging. Defeating the bodybuilders involves standing on on top of them and wiggling back and forth for 10 seconds or so while your board does damage, while fighting the rollerbladers is very tedious and stressful, and you’re not really able to tell if they’ll knock you out or not. I’d make getting hurt by them not be a one hit deal, or prevent them from doing damage to the player for a second or two after getting hit. Could also make it so that getting a high combo (if that’s implemented) increases the damage of the next hit you do to enemies.

As for bugs, the Big Wheel? Big Deal! quest cannot be completed as the Big Wheeler enemies can’t actually be damaged. Granted, maybe we shouldn’t be allowed to knock out children by whacking them upside the head with a skateboard after all.

I will say that the main area and shops are a nicely faithful reproduction of Atari 720’s graphics rendered in 3D.

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#4

The Game

I really love the concept of the game. I like on how developers like you acknowledge the skate boards, and even using them in a simulator type game. I had fun playing the game, but since it’s in beta, there were a lot of mistakes in the game. I couldn’t figure out how to play the game, since it gives little instruction on how to play to a newcomer joining the game. I also liked the NPC’s in the game, that was a nice touch, giving a player a challenge when skateboarding in specific areas of the map, nice job! :+1:

Mistakes

I don’t like on how there’s ramps outside the map with no nature nor atmosphere, I would at least try to put stuff out there to make it more amusing. I noticed on how some specific GUI’s didn’t work at all, I couldn’t make them disappear either.

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#5

Cola, Pezzo & Mason - Thanks for all of the feedback.

PezzoGuy, I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to not only play the game, but to put together such a thoughtful post. You’ve raised so many great points and have given me a lot to think about.

I really like the idea of a combo/keybind based trick system. That might make the feel similar to the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series, which does this very effectively. I embraced the token thing because the collection aspect is something I enjoy in BSS; however, “restrictive” is a good way to put this and it’s now shoehorned into this game a bit.

Your comments on the combat system are spot on. To be honest that entire aspect was a late add-on, simply because I felt like there wasn’t enough to do just learning tricks and gaining experience. I tried to follow the way combat works in the arcade game where, if you jump and hit the npc they fall and you earn points. If you are skating flat on the ground and hit them, you fall. I think the rushed aspect shows in the game-play, so I may try to re-work. The selection of the mobs is straight out of the arcade game, where you do get points for jumping and hitting kids on big-wheels. It hindsight, not the best activity, especially for a platform with so many young players. I may change this and appreciate your pointing it out.

You and ColaCoder both had the good suggestion of more instruction; something I’ll implement. When you’re neck-deep in the game for weeks or months designing and testing, everything becomes so second nature that I think you completely lose the perspective of what it’s like to start fresh. In addition to figuring out how to learn and execute tricks, the majority of players today were not able to figure out the sticker mechanic on the big board.

By the way I was thrilled to read that you checked out some original 720 gameplay! Many screenshots and gameplay videos online are emulated, but if you ran across someone actually playing the arcade machine it was likely me.

Thanks again folks - I’ll be learning from and implementing much of what you offered.

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#6

Honestly, the game isn’t that bad, but seems a bit rushed. You didn’t take your time making this. Whenever you jump off a ramp, it really just doesn’t feel like a skateboard. I guess it’s an okay game.

BUGS:
Here’s how I jump:

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image868×685 328 KB

My foot is stuck the the skateboard. I have the toy animation on, and whenever I’m idle, the skateboard just moves around
image

Whenever you stay still, your skateboard is IN THE GROUND!!?
image

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#7

This is extremely helpful StolenMustang; thank you. I really do appreciate the feedback: critical, constructive, whatever.

I could see this seeming rushed, although I feel I went very slow and spent a lot of time, but the quality is a function of skill/education level. I started ‘cold’ on Studio / LUA last October, simply as a hobby.

I think the animation issue you’re seeing is because of your custom set. My game includes replaced walk, run, jump, fall and idle animations, then triggers temporary jump and fall animations for the tricks. It looks like a custom (toy?) animation overrides that? I’ll need to look into having my animations take priority, or perhaps not allow player selected animations?

I did see that in game settings → Avatar, there is an animation setting for standard or ‘player choice.’ I adjusted this, but my custom animations only work when I select player choice.

Thank you again for taking the time to play and craft the response here.

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#8

Nice game. It was actually a lot of fun. Leveling is working great, and not too hard a learning curve. Getting new players is always the tricky part. Maybe consider play with friend bonuses. Like if a ‘ROBLOX friend’ is playing with you, you get extra XP.
But overall the game is good. Being a Bee Swarm YTer, I’d probably stay away from that aspect of the game. I can’t see the cross over honestly.
Anyway I’m thinking your game suits the ‘chill’ vibe so don’t make the grind tough like in Bee Swarm.

Now can i ask you how hard it was to code the roller skates. I can’t find anything (yt video, sample script etc.) on them or even working model I can learn from. Do you have any tips on where I can learn to code them? Or are they just animations?

PS: Great tip about the publishing a game in a group from the get go. You can always limit the group until you are ready for testers too. And yeah it’s a total pain moving animations across from another account. oof.

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#9

Thanks so much for the feedback notcrew; very much appreciated. I’m so happy to know that the learning curve was okay. After my initial post I came to understand that basic elements of the game such as learning to jump from the bird, and the large board sticker mechanic were completely unclear. I’d watch many players log in for the first time, skate around for 20 seconds realizing they couldn’t jump and leave. I’ve been working to add an on-demand tutorial alongside a pop-up “helper” window to guide players a bit better.

Regarding the Bee Swarm Simulator connection; to be honest, I’ve forced the token collection element from that game into mine, simply because I enjoy it so much in BSS. I love that game, and with zero experience set out to see if I could duplicate many of it’s mechanics: Tokens, Quests, Funny Characters. My takeaway: I can’t!

The later quests is my game are likely too much of a grind, and should be adjusted. Thank you for that suggestion.

Regarding the roller-skating skeletons (a throwback to the 80’s Karate Kid movie incidentally) as you guessed its simply handled with animations just like the rest of the skating in the game. The NPC’s have skates attached to their feet, and are simply running(with slightly adjusted speed), from place to place with the default run animation replaced with my best pass at a rolling skating animation.

#10

Hey Tricky thanks for getting back to me. Yeah i can see it’s just a replacement animation for a run cycle but are having trouble assigning it to the Player (Character) when I touch the Roller Rink I setup.
Anyway, I’ll give it another try today. Still getting my head around coding in ROBLOX. One day it’ll click and I’ll be a BOSS… one day (ho hum)

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