Skatebird Launches Alpha Demo Alongside New Gameplay Trailer | E3 2019

Skatebird is an upcoming game that casts you as a bird on a skatebird, as you might have guessed from the title. Along with a new gameplay trailer, an alpha demo for the game will be available for the next month.

The Kinda Funny Showcase puts the spotlight mostly on small, quirky games that the other conferences tend to overlook, but that doesn’t mean that there are no stars at the show — at least by indie standards. One of the most anticipated indie games to be shown off during the presentation was Skatebird. We got a look at a new gameplay trailer during the presentation, as well as the news that there’s an alpha demo for the game available now.

Developed by Glass Bottom Games, Skatebird is, well, exactly what it sounds like. You play as a bird on a skateboard. That’s all there is to it, but what else do you really need?

The alpha demo for Skatebird is currently available on itch.io. The demo will be available for download for the remainder of Skatebird’s recently launched Kickstarter campaign, which you can back for 28 more days at the time of writing if you want to help it get across the finish line.

Being a bird, you’re not quite equipped to take on normal skate parks, so the levels in Skatebird will be made up of taped-together cardboard half pipes and rails made of straws and pencils. The look is reminiscent of the early levels of Katamari Damacy, except you’re rolling on wheels instead of with a giant ball of trash.

According to the game’s Steam page, your goal is to become as popular as you can on Tweeter, the social network for birds, in order to make new feathered friends who will come skate with you and even set up competitions. It also points out that you perform tricks with button presses, like in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, rather than with joystick movements, like in Skate. It makes sense that a skating bird would take cues from Tony Hawk.

Skatebird still doesn’t have a solid release date, but the trailer did say that it’s planned for a 2020 release, which is at least a little more specific than the release date currently listed on Steam: “soon-ish.”