For example, within a mission, a bird-shaped compass will guide you to your next target. It’s a recognisable pattern that again just falls a little short. Complete a number of these missions and you open up a new area (and in this case a little more of the positive story). The missions themselves are similar in structure to what you’d find in a Tony Hawk-lite game just in miniature form Wander around a pizza box to collect the letters S, K, A, T and E, perform a bunch of combos in a breakfast bowl to hit a high score or grind across a window ledge. The mission balance just feels off and the less than ideally responsive controls make even the basic mechanic much less satisfying than it should be. And second, because of the haphazard mission arrangement – I found myself finally learning an ability (like respawning at a chosen location) that would’ve made the early stuff more bearable only after many minutes (or was it hours?!) of labouriously and awkwardly rolling around the bedroom area. This was mainly due to two reasons: First of all, the movement is, unfortunately, a little clunky and making tight turns (something you need to do a lot early on to reach different areas in the room) is a pain. And while that may seem like a good thing that encourages exploring – it instead encouraged my irritation. On top of that, the missions that are supposed to teach you each new skill are located around the room with no specific guidance as to the order you should tackle them. There is a ‘how-to’ tab, but just a simple button layout image is really needed. I was often frustrated because while learning, if I couldn’t remember what button did what, there wasn’t a very user-friendly way of checking this out in the menu. Inputs feel loose, a little spongy and delayed. And similar frustrations exist around the whole first level which sort of functions as the tutorial. So, I found myself constantly missing ramps and mid-air collectables. Great in principle, however, whenever you hit the B-button (on the Switch) the input feels a little spongy and delayed. Because you’re a bird, the gimmick is that you flap your winds to get into the air and because of this (unlike your human counterparts) you can even do a little double-jump. As soon as I started to Ollie (the simple jump you pretty much do constantly in any skating game) for example, issues arose. It’s not that the actual skating mechanics are completely broken but they do take a lot of getting used to. Unfortunately, taking those first steps in Big Friend’s room just isn’t enjoyable. You start of life in SkateBIRD as a young skater hoping to make a difference to your human’s (Big Friend) life by making things a little better for them: cleaning their room, throwing a party, saving them from their dead-end job. It’s a game I really wanted to love but ultimately made me screm just a little too much. Sadly, I worry that the many early frustrations and the persistent smaller irritations throughout will mean most people won’t stick with it long enough to enjoy those positives. Eventually, you do get used to the clunky controls and occasional delayed input, and at that point, there is definitely some fun to be had and the writing is humorous and positive. Unfortunately, while it was clearly made with love by a tiny but interested team – the final product leaves a lot to be desired. And, if you’ve seen any of the marketing material there’s undoubtedly a lot to like about SkateBIRD, particularly on the visual/cuteness scale. A chilled skating title featuring a variety of adorable birds is a pretty fantastic premise for a game.

Skatebird screm