Interview with the Developer of Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders
As someone who has absolutely no idea how to ski or snowboard and probably will never learn, I love games like Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders that let me feel like I’m on a snowcapped mountain gracefully venturing down to the bottom.
We were super excited to have Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders as part of the showcase and a huge thank you to the team for answering my questions.
Can you tell me about the team behind Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders and how you started working on the game?
Megagon Industries was founded by Jan & me (Daniel) in 2013. Although we made two premium mobile games (... and then it rained and Twisted Lines), Megagon was more of a pet project for both of us. All that changed when Jan started to work on a new prototype called Downhill. The reception to the game was so positive that we decided to quit our day jobs and go all in. 10 years later, we are now a remote team of 14 people working on Snow Riders.
Your team has also, of course, worked on Lonely Mountains: Downhill which has had a very positive reception from players. What’s a lesson that the team learned while developing Downhill that they used while developing Snow Riders?
There were a lot of things we learned from Downhill, but a lot of things we needed to “unlearn” as well. Snow Riders is based on a completely new codebase due to the real-time multiplayer, but of course, we were able to build on our experience with Downhill. We also started the project this time by building a custom in-game editor, as this was one of the most asked features in Downhill, which unfortunately we couldn’t do due to the technical limitations.
Design-wise, we aimed to replicate the core experience from Downhill for Snow Riders, but we also took a lot of time to experiment with the skiing physics and controls. One of the things we needed to unlearn was the level design from Downhill. When we started with Snow Riders we built a lot of technical sections with sharp turns and deep drops because they worked very well in Downhill. But we soon discovered that they were not fun in Snow Riders. So we kind of had to rediscover our own game, trying to find out what would be the best way to make levels in Snow Riders.
Can you explain a bit about the two new game modes that will be included in the content update for the game?
Our new update will introduce two new modes for the game. A trick mode that works similarly to our solo mode, but your goal is to make the most tricks down the slopes. This works really nicely because suddenly you have to analyze the trails in a whole new way. A path that might not have been worth it for time trials is suddenly the best way to make the most trick points.
The second mode is the freeride mode, which people who have already played Downhill will be familiar with. Similar to Downhill, there are no checkpoints, and you have to do the whole slope in one go. This is kind of the hardcore mode, but a lot of people from the Downhill community wished to play it in Snow Riders as well.
Are there more updates on the way that you can tease?
We have a full roadmap for the next year, which you can check out on our Steam page. Our first bigger DLC is coming up later this year, and at the end of the year, we want to release our in-game editor for the community so that everyone can create their own Lonely Mountains.
Between the landscapes and locations in Downhill and Snow Riders, which are your favorites to play on?
My personal favorite Lonely Mountain is still Eldfjall - our first DLC that we made for Downhill. I feel from all the mountains we've ever made it feels like the loneliest 🙂
What does “indie” mean to you?
Haha, I have no idea. I do identify personally and as a studio with the term, but I don’t think I can define it nowadays.
Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders is available on Steam now.