Skate Story: A Fresh Take on Skateboarding Gaming

It’s a personal regret that I can’t skate.

What is it? A skateboarding journey through nine surreal layers of Hell on a mission to devour the moon. Expect to pay: $20 / £18. Developer: Sam Eng. Reviewed on: Windows 11, Intel i7-14700K, RTX 4070, 32GB RAM. Multiplayer? No. Steam Deck? Verified.

The reason for my skating shortcomings is simple: I never believed I could do it without risking serious injury. Yet, I view the skateboard with a kind of mystical admiration. It offers a unique way to interact with our physical world. Skating feels almost like a secret art form, where its practitioners defy the ordinary to explore the extraordinary realms of slope, rotation, and body movement.

Skate Story takes this concept to the next level. If Dante Alighieri had known that skateboarding could serve as a tool for metaphysical defiance against Hell and reality, his Inferno would have featured a “demon made of glass and pain” who strikes a deal with the Devil to consume the moon in exchange for their soul.

This game stands out as one of the most audibly and visually striking experiences I’ve encountered recently. It feels like an avant-garde art piece and an interactive album, navigated through powerslides and axle grinds, creating a captivating tribute to the unfortunate souls inhabiting a strangely familiar underworld. It’s gritty and raw, and if the term “postmodern” makes you uneasy, you might find it hard to digest. But landing a clean heelflip? Pure bliss.

The combination of lo-fi visuals and expert post-processing is impressive. The Skater is a collection of polygons in skate shoes, yet their glass-like skin is mesmerizing as it catches and bends light while I grind through Hell’s streets. The skating mechanics are fluid, with simulated camera shake enhancing the thrill of landing tricks after soaring through the air.

These visual elements shine because the skating mechanics are finely tuned. You initiate tricks with specific button combinations before launching into the air, making scoring a matter of timing and rhythm rather than just cramming in as many tricks as possible.

It’s been over five years since Skate Story was first announced, and you can feel the dedication poured into capturing the weight and momentum of The Skater and their board. As new techniques like spins and reverts were introduced, I found that skating clean lines became a meditative exercise in managing speed, orientation, and combo building.

The skating is a rewarding ritual, but it also serves as a form of metaphysical combat. Throughout Skate Story, I faced demons, celestial entities, and the very fabric of Hell itself, converting my skate combos into damage. In these moments, the game transforms into a vibrant spectacle: Hell’s skate spots erupt into a kaleidoscope of demonic visuals. Time slows as I execute ollies to punctuate trick combos, creating bursts of dazzling light, as if reality itself bends under the power of my righteous kickflips. I often extended boss encounters just to keep enjoying the visual feast.

Initially, I struggled with Skate Story’s scoring system until I realized I wasn’t playing a traditional skate game. It took time to grasp that I wouldn’t completely lose my combo points if I took too long between tricks; they would gradually fade instead. Performing another trick would stop the drain and allow me to continue my combo.

When I worried about not dealing enough damage before boss timers ran out, I found myself frantically switching tricks in a desperate attempt to maintain my combo. Once I understood I could skate more calmly, I stopped crashing and my lines became cleaner and more satisfying.

The boss battles wouldn’t have the same impact without Skate Story’s soundtrack. Blood Cultures, the experimental band behind much of the game’s music, perfectly complements Sam Eng’s vision of Hell, alternating between driving, synthetic menace and soft, haunting melodies, culminating in manic, liberating crescendos when The Skater really gets going. During intense moments, the game’s lighting and post-processing sync with the pounding soundtrack, as if Blood Cultures were channeling their energy into the game itself.

As you might expect from the glass demons and moon-eating themes, Skate Story has a distinct vibe. It effortlessly shifts between oppressive imagery, cosmic significance, and surreal irony. There are obsidian slabs with instructions for ollies, and at one point, I entered a sentient trash bag to find a maze of skatable tunnels, as the underworld’s physical space obeys “the Devil’s Geometry.” Souls serve as currency, and I can earn more by dispelling pools of the moon’s cursed light with a few tricks.

It’s not always coherent. Playing Skate Story feels like absorbing the chaotic imagery of a Hieronymus Bosch painting, where the experience of seeing a tormented soul playing a flute with their backside is more significant than understanding the reasoning behind it.

That said, Sam Eng’s interpretation of Hell diverges significantly from the fiery pits depicted by Renaissance writers and artists. Instead of flames, Skate Story’s underworld resembles a warped, chimeric version of New York. It’s a city of dripping concrete and surreal architecture, where buildings are adorned with melting, oil-slick textures that hint at what they might have once been.

The torments of this underworld are all too familiar, albeit with a more permanent twist. Eternal damnation in Skate Story doesn’t involve pitchforks or endless flaying. Instead, Hell is about hunger, exhaustion, and the lack of a place to rest. It’s the constant inventory of regrets and wasted time, hoping for a dismissal from a terrible job.

It feels intentional that the miseries of Hell mirror many of the struggles we face in reality. Yet, life in this Hell can be surprisingly laid-back. Despite the crimson ribs jutting from the ground and the occasional metal beam labeled “CAGE OF SORROW,” Skate Story’s dreamlike landscapes—though small—provide a meditative space that I enjoyed exploring for potential skating lines. The paradox of the underworld mirrors our own: sorrow and contentment can coexist. The game’s biggest flaw is the inability to revisit earlier skate spots without starting anew—something I hope will be addressed in future updates.

I wished I could appreciate more how deeply Skate Story resonates with the essence of New York. As a native of New York state but not the city, the game speaks a familiar language with sounds I recognize, yet in a dialect I don’t fully grasp. From Languishin Square to Hellsea to Godhook, I sensed a particular nostalgia that anyone who’s felt the bittersweet melancholy of walking home in the rain can relate to.

However, it’s infused with such local specificity that I found myself envious of those who truly understand its roots. I’ve experienced depression in various places, but I haven’t felt it in New York.

The writing in Skate Story has its own unique character. The narration unfolds like a long poem chronicling The Skater’s journey, sometimes indulging in grammar-defying creativity. Words flow across the boundaries of nouns, verbs, and adjectives, as if they too are navigating the same Devil’s Geometry as the underworld’s bizarre skate paths. Moonlight growls beneath my feet. Skull demons promise to catch vibes in half with a pair of shears.

It’s a mix of nonsense that, in other contexts, might seem in need of editing. But against the backdrop of Hell’s absurdity and irony, it often works. And when it doesn’t quite land, a line like “The skateboard vibrated with a divine frequency” quickly brings me back.

Throughout the game, the skating only faltered when the linear sections leading into set pieces were overly optimistic about my ability to make sharp turns or dodge unexpected obstacles at high speeds. Wiping out just as the action ramped up could be frustrating. But these were minor hiccups in an otherwise engaging experience.

Skate Story had already captured my heart in its early chapters, but it culminates in a breathtaking finale that elevates the audiovisual and presentational ambition to new heights. In my final hour, skateboarding transforms into a cosmic force with such monumental intensity that the game I had known until then began to shift around it.

It’s experimental, it’s humorous, and yes, there’s a frog. I can’t do justice to it without using broad strokes, but I’ll be replaying the ending of Skate Story in my mind for months, even if my inability to avoid crashing at high speeds slightly dulled the experience.

Ultimately, Skate Story’s message—that we should believe in the possibility of something better, even if it risks breaking us—isn’t groundbreaking. But in a world that often feels hostile, what else can we do but reject it? We all skate down here.