SkateBIRD: Because Birbs Skate Too

Reading Time: 4 minutes.

Fun fact about me: I love to skate. I mostly ride a mini-cruiser style longboard, but I did get into more technical street skating, to help improve my commute. It makes for a thrilling, fast, and eco-friendly commute. Believe it or not, it’s one of the fastest ways to get around a city. I’ve found it’s faster than cars, trains, and buses. If you’ve got the endurance for it, skating is even faster than biking. Plus, you can take a board almost anywhere, unlike a big ol’ dorky bike.

Have I sold you on skating yet? No? What about a skating video game? No sweating, I promise! Okay, what if I told you it has cute birds?

Another fun fact about me: I love birds. My favorite deck actually has birds on it, and you’ve likely seen it here before. But besides putting birds on your deck design, could there be other ways to combine cute birds and skating?

You bet!

SkateBIRD debuted at E3 this year. There’s an alpha version out now for Windows, Mac, and Linux, that you can test, but it still has quite a few bugs, and is still limited in scope. These things take time, and the birds just aren’t eating the bugs on their own. To help finish the project, Glass Bottom Games founder and (only full-time) developer Megan Fox (not that Megan Fox) has taken to Kickstarter to complete her team’s vision.

The Game

The game can be as challenging or as difficult as you want to make it. You skate around a small (literally, you’re a bird) skate park. You could just skate around endlessly for fun, or you can go to one of the other birds in the park. They’ll give you a mission, like “score 5,000 on one trick,” or “do a blunt on the mini ramp.” By completing missions, you’ll unlock new missions and make new friends. More birds will come to hang out. Eventually, your birb friends will offer you a huge skate event, and competing in it will unlock a new skate park. You’ll eventually unlock more parks, find new hats and other clothing, and even get chances to visit your human.

The game is all about skating around, but buried beneath it all is a story and a narrative about how one birb can make a difference.

Gameplay involves doing skate tricks, like kickflips, grinds, shuvits, and more. Some are tricks only a bird can do. You can play using a controller or keyboard and mouse. I tested both, and I definitely prefer doing this with a PS4 controller, but your tastes may differ.

While playing, you’ll listen to tunes the games creator refers to as “low-fi birb-hop.” Not the punk tracks skate games are normally known for, and perhaps that’s a good thing. Skating can also be very zen. But maybe you miss the punk tracks? That’s okay too. You can use your own mp3s to make in-game mix tapes, so you can still put together a killer mix for your shredding. Or maybe free form jazz is more to your liking? Whatever it is, put your tunes together and jam.

The Campaign

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/meganfox/skatebird-be-a-skateboarding-bird

Rewards!

The lowest reward that’s going to get you the game is $15. You’ll also get your name in the credits as a “Birb Friend.” For $30, you’ll also get beta access and the original soundtrack. But $50 is a steal. You’ll get in the credits as an “Honorary Birb,” a higher tier, to be sure. But, you’ll also get all previous Glass Bottom Games games. That’s Spartan Fist, Hot Tin Roof, and Jones on Fire, as well as all of their soundtracks. Those rewards alone are worth $45, but throw in the game, beta access, and a folder full of gifs, mp4s, blooper videos, and more? Easily a $50 value.

You can also get a tiny park playset for $70, a custom fingerboard of your own for $80 (your birb will thank you), and many more rewards. One is even an actual skateboard deck, created just for this game.

Wondering about stickers? They’re not offering any through the Kickstarter, but you can buy some. I’m partial to the Birdgrind one.

Why Kickstarter?

This is an indie game. There’s one full time developer, though there’s plenty of people working on it already. She needs to hire more people, spend many hours on this, and dedicate time that could go to other projects. But, as she puts it, funding through Kickstarter is fun. That’s how Glass Bottom Games got their game Hot Tin Roof funded, and now they’re back for SkateBIRD.

Release Date?

Kickstarters are always a risk. And, speaking as a software engineer myself, we often underestimate the level of effort and difficulty of a project going in. However, this isn’t Glass Bottom Games’ first game. There’s a team of people working on this. They have animators, composers, a port programmer, designers, and even a skate coach who has taught at Woodward. There’s enough people involved to accurately predict completion times. So, when they say late Q1, early Q2 of 2020 (roughly 8-10 months from now), I believe that’s at least close to true. Though I always assume an extra three months for any Kickstarter.

Why Birbs?

Okay, I’ve spelled the word “bird” as “birb” more than once in this article. The Kickstarter page does as well. You know how you refer to a dog as a puppy, or a cat as a kitty? You know how you sometimes say “pupper?” Well “birb” is to “bird” as “pupper” is to “dog.”

Also, it just sounds cuter, doesn’t it?

I grew up wanting to skate but being really terrible at it. I had a horrible board, but you can’t blame everything on the equipment. Getting back into skating later in life has been a revelation for me though. Still, I remember as a kid playing with those little Tech Deck fingerboards. Little mini skateboards that were far easier to ollie than the real things. Well, imagine you had a pet that could ride those little mini fingerboards. What pet would be perfect for the job?

If you answered “Snake,” get out*. Of course it’s birbs! Besides, they look so cute in their little hats. And, while I firmly believe in always wearing a helmet when skating (especially if you’re going >15MPH), I assume their floofies keep them safe. You, dear human, do not have floofies, so always wear a helmet.

Birbs are a great choice for a skating game. And, if you want a new skating game that doesn’t feel like the same Tony Hawk (also a birb) Pro Skater game you had for the PS2, maybe check out SkateBIRD.

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*No offense to snakes, they’re just terrible skaters. Everyone knows they’re better at water skiing.