Indiecade 2019 has ended. The Independent Games Convention had a treasure trove of games in the making, from Bloodroots, a game about getting revenge, to Neocab a game in which the player is the last human driver in the city of Los Ojos. Indiecade previewed a lot of gems. One gem that caught my attention in particular was Skate & Date.
Skate & Date is a Rhythm game currently being developed by one woman, Geneva (Gensuta) Heyward and focuses on the lead jammer of her roller derby team Maggie as she attemtps to skate her way into the heart of a girl on the rival team Patricia. When I asked about her inspiration for creating this game, Geneva stated that her reason for creating this game was because of her love of rhythm games and rollerskating, and the demo that was the product of two years of hard work shows her love for both. The Indiecade description page states that another inspiration for the game comes from the 70’s.
In my playthrough of the demo, I had to use the spacebar in order to match the beat of the song and skate through a number of competitors. Match the beat for a long enough time and players will be able to get a solo in which they can create their own beat for a short time. The game has three seperate stats that go into impressing Patricia, Agile, Charismatic, and Bold. Each of these statistics can be increased through producing a set speed of beats during the solo. The game did glitch out just a little at the end of my playthrough but all in all, it was incredibly enjoyable with an engaging story and beautiful animations. The game is currently in Demo and will eventually be released for Mac and Windows on Steam, as well as Itch.io.