A fast-paced 3rd-person 3D platformer game taking place in Mesoki: a space-cloud city populated with pods of whales and sharks. Snow clouds contain cloudDrops which power and energize the city.
Play as Finlo the skiing orca and learn new tricks to replenish city energy levels. Above the snow clouds, learn tricks from neighborhood whales and sharks to accurately time tricks and gain more steeze points. Once you master tricks, drop into the grey clouds for the real challenge: collect at least 70% of cloudDrops within a time limit of 1 minute to turn grey low-energy clouds back to white.
Steeze points from practice sessions translate to the amount of air fuel you have when skiing inside stuffy snow clouds. Apply skills from practice to make riskier maneuvers and reach double the cloudDrops, exiting the cloud and releasing cloudDrops to the city faster. Move on to the next level and work your way up to the level of Grand Orkista as you progressively face trickier and narrower skiing surfaces.
Game Pillars
juxtaposing worlds: Sharks and whales are brought out of their natural habitats into a world between clouds and outerspace.
timing surface maneuvers: Work to perfectly time skiing tricks and maneuvers while progressively increasing speed and momentum.
adventuring spirit: True to the spirit of action sports, players risk it all and push the limits in performing the greatest combination of tricks, even in daring situations to continue providing for their home.
Character Concept
Inspired by the Ducati Monster, Finlo is ready to navigate his way up levels, replenishing energy levels, and see Mesoki back in full action to match his energetic self.
Character turnaround featuring Finlo’s underbelly skis and fin spoiler.
Animated gifs of trick, rendered using sequencers in Unreal.
Inspiration
A skier soars through the air, performing a trick. For a stretched moment in time, the athlete defies gravity and floats, nearly breaching the clouds and embodying the essence of flight. Looking through a plane’s tiny window frame, the puffs of white clouds appear as islands of snow sitting on top of an oceanic body. Whales could spring up any time now.
Somewhere between these three lines, you get Cloudski, a place where three spatial tiers of our world meld together: the orca from the ocean, the snow from the earth, and the clouds from the sky above.
Player Control
Mouse for directional control
W to push/increase speed for 3 seconds
Hold on space bar to jump higher
left click to release cloudDrops + restore energy
Game Mechanics
movement around world
Player skis at a constant rate with directional control. If player crashes or falls off of clouds, player respawns at level checkpoint.
ski tricks
Above the clouds, Finlo learns ski tricks from shark and whale friends and practices timing trick combinations when jumping on and off surfaces.
Nose butter on narrow surfaces to stay light and balanced.
Front + back flip to reach high surfaces.
Tail grab to reach even higher surfaces while staying longer in air.
Spin in+out at the front and end of railings in increments of 180°.
collection of cloudDrops
Finlo enters inside low energy grey clouds and skis through cloudDrops to collect and ultimately distribute energy back to the city outside of clouds. When 70% of drops are collected, Finlo exits, releases drops and moves on to the next level to learn a new trick. If player fails to collect 70% of drops, player must restart and try again from inside the cloud.
air fuel
Points collected during training sessions fill your air fuel guage upon entering the clouds. A full guage allows for greater control and accuracy. Low levels lead to stamina loss and disorientation.
Gameplay View
Screenshots of gameplay inside cloud level (left, top right) and outside city level (bottom left).
Level Layout
Game comprises of 3 levels, each level consists of a training portion in the city and a challenge portion inside low-energy grey clouds. Upon exiting the dark cloud and completing the challenge, player releases cloud drops, levels up and gets to learn a new trick.
There are two midpoints between player start/level 1 and level 2/3, where an additional trick is introduced.
Environment Stills
Clockwise from top left: city level birdseye view, city level character POV, cloud level 3, cloud level 2.
Building model by luminou_CS (Sketchfab)
Cloud model by 2DHD (Turbosquid)
Responsible for all other aspects.
