In a year filled with big-budget AAA hits like Assassin's Creed Shadows and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, a humble little indie game about chilling out and doing nothing is rapidly climbing Steam’s charts– and it’s already well on its way to being one of the best reviewed games on the storefront this year.
Over the past decade, I can’t help but feel like video games as a medium have lost their way.
Call me an old far or a hippie if you like, but there was a beautiful period in the sixth generation where developers weren’t hindered by over-inflated budgets and or the desire to chase the next big genre. Games were weirder, less made-by-committee.
Now I know what you’re gonna say. You’re going to tell me that if I want to play weird, low-budget games, I should play more indie games– and that’s true.
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Or at least, it used to be true. The Steam storefront is a bit of a mess these days. AI-generated garbage is growing more and more prevalent, and too many indie developers seem obsessed with chasing trends. Like, yeah, I enjoy roguelikes and soulslikes, but someone has to tell these folks that other genres exist.
That’s why I’m glad there are devs out there still making stuff like Sledding Game, a beautifully pointless game about doing nothing.
Sledding Game is developed and published by The Sledding Corporation, a first-time dev that consists of one dude called Max. The aim of the game is simple: do some sledding. Or, hey, don’t do any sledding. Instead, you can just throw some darts or have a sit down with your mates (or some strangers) and have a natter.
It’s simple. It’s easy-breezy. It’s wonderfully aimless. I’m in love with it already.
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And, it turns out, so is everyone else on Steam. Towards the end of last month, Max released a demo for Sledding Game. As of writing, it currently has an “Overwhelmingly Positive” score on Steam, with over 99% of the whopping 2,700+ reviews being positive.
There’s no exact release date in sight for the full release at the moment, but Max has promised that “even more” sledding fun is on the way on October 13, during the upcoming Steam NextFest.
I hope Max takes his time and doesn’t feel rushed to get the game out the door, following his overnight success, because I think he’s onto something truly wonderful here. I’ll be watching your career with great interest from this point onwards.