Today we will take a look on how the control-scheme of this game works and why we decided for a mouse-steering as main control.

Physical controls or 'We prefer the mouse'

Last week we already talked about the representation of the snowboard as a physical object which is thrown into an entire physical mountain-world.

Steering left right
Imagine steering left right with a torque force applied to the snowboarder. Now think about Newton's Third Law:

Action = Reaction

Here it means each small torque applied to the rider results in an appropriate reaction in the game world. Until now most skill-based sports games on the PC relied on keyboard controls which is fine for an oldschool style gameplay. But for next-gen physically-based games an analogue control-style is much more practical. Since this is a PC game we decided for the mouse.
Note: analogue joystick/joypads controls are possible too, especially we had a good time with the XBOX360's pad.

Keyboard controls?
From time to time we recieve complaints from people asking for keyboard-controls. Well, its possible to switch the control-scheme to cursor keys anyway.

Dynamic ragdoll & wipe-outs

For sure you have already seen a playermodel after got shot-dead, falling down some stairs, animated using a ragdoll for "realistic" motion. Many Game-developers used to switch to the ragdoll when the falling animation has started.

In this game we don't use this technique anymore, now we have the character in ragdoll mode during the whole game. Applying this to a snowboard game means: even if you bail or wipeout its possible to recover the rider and seamlessly continue riding. Sounds cool?
If you are in bail-mode use the mouse X-axis to bring the rider on it's feet again. Or press both buttons & move mouse X-axis to turn the board into the steepest terrain-direction before trying to bring him on its feet again. This needs some practice but enables some really smooth rides.

What about air & trick controls?

To keep the size of this diary reasonable take a look at the video attached to this article for detailed freestyle-controls.

Now head to page 2 for an interesting feature which only gets possible due the physically approach. Learn how to 'wheelie' or 'lean' the rider.