‘Shredmill’ Skirts Dangers While Constantly Skateboarding

Shredmill hurls you down an endless track filled with spikes and monsters with knives, seeing how long you can skate without getting hurt.

While you’ll be guiding a futuristic technopunk across these lethal tracks in the far-off year 30XX, I’m sure you folks living in 20XX will have just as good a time watching this dangerous sport play out. Think of this like a skateboarding treadmill; you have a continual track being laid out in front of you. Unlike the treadmill, there are lots of hazards and pits that make the track difficult to navigate. Things move fairly quickly, too, so you’ll have to weave and jump around to keep you skater from getting clobbered.

Things get challenging pretty fast (I gave up my dreams of leaderboard fame fast), but you can pick up some coins along the track that you can spend on small upgrades between loops. You can give yourself a few lives back, fix some holes, get a double jump – stuff like that. All of it is helpful, but unless you’re good at slipping between hazards, you may not be able to afford a bonus every loop. Thankfully there’s a few pickup items you can get that will protect you from one enemy, knock out some of those spiky crystals, or fill in a few of those bottomless pits you keep almost tumbling down. There are handy tools to keep you alive. Surviving long enough to collect and use them is another thing.

Shredmill is exhilarating even in its simplicity. Dodging around the track requires you complete focus (the game provides you with an indicator telling you how much of the loop is left; I never looked at it once as I was always a millisecond from hitting something or falling in a hole). It’s also easy to hop right back in again, creating that fun, compelling intensity that keeps bringing you back.

Shredmill is available now on itch.io.

About The Author

Joel Couture

Joel has been covering indie games for various sites including IndieGames.com, Siliconera, Gamasutra, Warp Door, CG Magazine, and more over the past seven years, and has written book-length studies on Undertale and P.T.. Joel is constantly on the lookout for digital experiences that push the boundaries of what games can be, and seeks to delve into the creative process, meanings, and emotion labor that goes into the work of artists worldwide.