Free Rider
ROLE
Creative Director
DESCRIPTION
Free Rider is a skating simulation game using free skates. Game play is focused on player movement and level navigation throughout the city. As creative director, I was in charge of the layout of all levels, including how different game play items are placed and how they function, as well as maintaining a cohesive creative direction for the game.
YEAR
2024
GENRE
Skating Sim / Adventure
PLATFORM
PC
DESIGN & CHOICES
The Main level in Free Rider is inspired by the real-life city of San Francisco, California. Many areas across the game take direct inspiration from different iconic places in the city, like Chinatown, Lombard Street, and the Mission District. While these areas are not directly connected as they would be in the actual city, they provide a lot of life to the environment.
Rather than having an action-based skating game, like a Tony Hawk or SKATE game, I wanted to create something more relaxing and about exploring the environment. This also led me to choose free skates as the type of skate to use rather than something more common, as they are not meant to go particularly fast. Using the more niche type of skates also adds a unique element to Free Rider, given that there are not currently any other games out there focused on using these types of skates.
The design process for Free Rider has also been very iterative. We set out initial goals and build up aesthetic mood boards for each area we were building (such as the tutorial) to give ourselves a clearer picture of what we needed to do. While these served as great starting points and allowed us to unify our vision, each idea was expanded upon and fleshed out even more to provide a better overall experience in the game.
We will have a download link up on itch.io soon!
