New Ski Video Game Lets Players Slide Through Endless Mountainscapes

A rolling, endless, snowy landscape is occupied by one outerwear-clad resident. They slide downwards, bouncing over rollers and slashing turns that produce thick plumes of powder. The skier schusses for a few minutes—or seconds—before inevitably colliding with a tree or hooking their tips while attempting a backflip. Then, they're on top of the mountain again, but it's different this time. And the next time. And the next.

That's the premise of SNØ , an indie video game being developed by a pair of Norwegian designers, Christer Rebni and Alexander Jonassen, who founded their own development outfit, Studio Gauntlet, after studying together at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

SNØ Demo - 2024-09-20 3-38-51 PM (0:11)

Studio Gauntlet has released a few games so far, including Bonkies (a puzzle game about monkeys building things in space) and A Bad Game of Football (heavy metal aesthetics meets soccer meets computer gaming strategy). Neither were massive hits ( Bonkies did win numerous awards, though), and Jonassen admitted that he wasn't entirely sure how the mash-up that was A Bad Game of Football came about. "I'm not into strategy games. I don't play on PC, and I don't like football," Jonassen said with a laugh. "It just kinda happened," added Rebni.

Their upcoming game, SNØ , seems to make a bit more sense, given their backgrounds. Rebni grew up skiing with his family in Sweden. Jonassen got his downhill wintertime kicks by riding a snow racer. Plus, they're both familiar with the cold—they're from Norway, after all. "I feel like we're on home turf now," said Jonassen.

One inspiration for SNØ was Markus Eder's Ultimate Run , the now-classic video part in which Eder throws down a line for the books. Another was more technical: Perlin Noise. The term describes a procedural generation algorithm that, when translated to the 3D realm, produces undulating terrain—just like a ski hill.

With Perlin Noise in mind, the team established a system that could generate endless mountains for the player to try, sidestepping the challenge of a two-man crew having to handcraft multiple digital destinations. Game development is a massive undertaking—more so when you only have two team members and, like Studio Gauntlet, create all of your marketing content internally without outside help.

The pair employed a similar measure for tricks. While you can execute flips and spins at your discretion in SNØ , grabs and character body positions are procedurally generated. Pressing the single "trick" button can lead to any number of funky, sometimes hilarious combinations outside of the player's control: think spread eagles, daffies, and back scratchers.

SNØ Demo 2 (0:06)

Therefore, much of the game unfolds semi-randomly. Jonassen and Rebni set the ground rules—the tricks, for the most part, look like something you'd see in real life—but aren't totally in control of what happens each run. That means their own game can sometimes surprise them as it whips up the next fantastical mountain or aerial maneuver (if the game spits out a mountain you like, you can save it so it doesn't disappear into the digital ether). During our conversation, Rebni posed a guiding development question that may perfectly encapsulate SNØ: "How can two people make something that generates its own complexity?"

That approach proved beneficial during the testing process. If you've created a puzzle game like Bonkies, you know the solutions to all the game's challenges, making testing a chore. No such problem exists when the churning of code presents a new slope each run, and Rebni and Jonassen noted that without the drain of repetitive testing, they've remained more enthused by the game as the days wear on. "I'm still not tired of SNØ ," said Jonassen. The player, too, will be able to experience these endless, computer-generated snowscapes when the game releases in the not-so-distant future.

How Does It Play?

Rebni and Jonassen kindly offered me a code to give a demo of SNØ a try — by the time you're reading this, that same demo should be available on Steam—so I had an opportunity to explore what they'd created, albeit briefly. The demo only gives you about 15 seconds per run, but each 15 seconds was loads of fun. A standout feature, in my opinion, was the ability to lean into a turn by squeezing the left or right trigger, which led to me seeking out rollers, where I executed Eric Pollard-style slashes.

While the demo of SNØ didn't indicate that the game is freestyle-focused—you'd have to be a real wizard to get the skier to do a double cork 1080—the skiing itself feels as it should: it's simultaneously relaxing and exciting, mirroring the on-mountain experience in real-life. The full feature set will include night skiing (with the Northern Lights, of course), grindable objects, multiple outfits (skiing's a fashion show—let's admit it), and the mountain-saving function. 

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