Extreme sports games are far and few between lately, which is kind of a shame. For a while there, we were all about chaining together combos in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, as well as enjoying the frills of Aggressive Inline and Skate 3. Alas, it seems that companies are shying away from that genre, in favor of more competitive games.
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But not RageSquid. That team has brought back extreme sports with a vengeance with the fast-paced biking game Descenders, which has become a massive hit on the Steam Early Access scene over the past month. With its high scoring system, its superb controls and its ludicrous sense of speed, players are getting into it left and right.
And more will be joining the party, as the team is working on bringing it to consoles as well, starting with the Preview program on Xbox One and continuing to PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch down the road.
We had a chance to talk to RageSquid studio director Lex Decrauw about the game’s appeal, as well as its journey to consoles and what could be coming up next in the world of Descenders. Needless to say, we’re in for a wild ride…
Hitting the Road With Descenders
First off, what got you guys interested in doing something like this? Did you just think, “Hey, maybe it’s time we did tricks on bikes again” or was it something else?
We’ve all been huge fans of extreme sports games like THPS, SSX, and Skate all our lives, and we felt like no one was making these games anymore. As fans of rogue-like games like FTL & Spelunky we thought about what it would be like to combine the rogue-like and extreme sports genres, to combine a downhill biking game with the freedom, risk, and thrill of a rogue-like. We fell in love with the result and decided to continue along that path.
The game seems to have a very competitive edge. Was this something you had in mind with it all the time, or was there another focus?
The main focus has always been staying true to the extreme sports culture. Freedom of expression and exploration are core principles we try to stick to wherever possible. Of course a competitive element is something we would love to implement properly but it feels like it should be a layer on top of the game, rather than part of the game’s foundation. A tournament mode is something we’re working on, seeing other players in action should be just as exciting as playing a session yourself.
Controls and Feedback
How did you go about making the controls so great? Did you research how other extreme sports games of this type worked so well?
Getting the physics and controls right was one of the hardest challenges early on. A game like this makes or breaks on being able to have fun while riding around. That’s why we spent several months to just get the physics right before we went on to making other aspects of the game. We tried to hit that sweet spot between making it feel real, and also making sure to keep it controllable and simple to pick up. The main inspiration for the way we handle the physics and controls must be the Skate series. To enable a greater range of player expression we made it so that the input of the player influences the character’s motions, instead of triggering preset animations.
What did you think about the response from the Steam community over the game thus far? Have you been taking notes based on their suggestions to make improvements to the game (if needed)?
The response has been absolutely great and we’ve definitely been taking notes and acting on player feedback. We launched the game in Early Access because we feel that the game can only become a better product with player feedback. We’ve been staring at this game for over a year so we’ve become blind to some of the less obvious flaws the game has. Launching in Early Access exposed all of those flaws and because of our amazing community on Discord we’re able to see what the players think and use that feedback to improve the game.
Experience and What’s Coming
What else would you like to add to Descenders prior to its final release? More tracks, maybe?
Currently all of the levels in the game are procedural. We (and the people in our community) would like to see a set of non-procedural levels set in a different visual style, that’s what we’re working on right now. An example of this is a trials-style construction site where the player is allowed to mess around and find cool paths, instead of being told where the start and finish are. Another thing we would love to add is a way of spectating and interacting with other players. A big part of extreme sports is showing off what you’ve learned, and learning from others. We would love to have a way for players to share knowledge and skills.
What extreme sports game did you guys play the most prior to Descenders? Were you big Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater fans?
We’re definitely fans of the THPS series, but we’ve also noticed that there is a general lack of good extreme sports games these days. This is why we decided to make Descenders in the first place, we just wanted something to play ourselves. Skate is also a massive influence on how we’ve designed the game, we drew lots of inspiration from the way they handle the character motion. Other extreme sports we like to play are the SSX games and the Trials series.
Console Transition and Tony Hawk
We know you guys were interested in teaming up with Tony Hawk for a potential skateboarding game. Any word on that, or can you say?
We can’t really say much, but we’re definitely in contact with Tony. If something were to happen, we want it to be a completely different and new game. We’ve given it some thought and it’s going to be a massive challenge, but we’ll have to see whether something happens or not. We’ve got to finish up Descenders’ Early Access first anyway.
We understand Descenders is making its way to consoles at some point, starting with Xbox One. What’s probably the biggest challenge in bringing this game over from Steam to consoles?
I think performance is the biggest challenge. Especially devices like the Switch are going to be difficult to port to, simply because the hardware isn’t as powerful as for example the Xbox One or PS4. In terms of game design and how we set up the controls we think it’s actually more of a console game than a PC game in the first place so we’ve not been experiencing any difficulties there. From the start of development we’ve kept consoles in mind and it’s now paying off with a smoother porting process.
What’s Next, and Promo Appearances
Finally, are there any other extreme sports type games you’d like to cover in the future? Is extreme unicycling coming our way?
We definitely want to make other extreme sports games! Our goal with Descenders was to see if people still want extreme sports games these days and it seems that they do. Before we came up with the mountain biking idea we actually prototyped several different extreme sports games. Unicycling wasn’t one of them, but we did make an extreme pogo game… it was hilarious to look at, but it was hard to make a fun game out of it. Other sports we tried were for example rock climbing, downhill longboarding, and a wingsuit game. In the end we chose downhill mountain biking as sort of a safe choice with a lot of potential. Perhaps we’ll see one of the other prototypes, or unicycling, as our next game.
On top of what Lex told us, Mike Rose, who serves as the head for No More Robots, the publisher of Descenders, noted the game’s forthcoming stops at the Game Developers Conference and PAX East, and what fans can expect. “We’re taking Descenders to a ton of events over the next few months, including a couple next month that we haven’t announced yet. PAX East is gonna be the big one for us – Descenders will be part of The Playground, and we’re planning to go all out for it in the only way we know how. Think fake grass, bikes, loud music, competitions, Descenders merch… it’s gonna be pretty special. We’ll be showing a special build of the game that should get players competing with each other.”
Descenders is available now on Steam Early Access and coming soon to consoles.
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