About a week ago we dropped our new game mode Peak of the Week (POTW), and I felt like sharing with you how it works and why we added it.
What is it?
Peak of the week is a mode that presents everyone with the same challenge on a weekly basis. The challenge is generated from a seed that renews every week, and it consist of the following three, randomized elements: Mountain seed, game mode (Infinite Run or Score Attack) and rider. Every challenge also comes with its own new leaderboard!
🌄 The weekly challenge renews itself every Monday at 7.00 (UTC) 🌄
Why is it?
Honestly I picked up the idea from deep within our forums where SmogBruh suggested a daily seed and leaderboard. I immediately liked the idea and we soon got the same suggestion from other game developers in Trondheim. It just seemed like a good idea - and one that shouldn't be too hard to implement (big plus).
We had already felt how special some mountains could become if they only got a little bit of history. I mean, after visiting some of the top scoring mountains from the leaderboard, I could almost feel the presence of the riders who've been there before, although there is no actual trace of them. Sending everyone to the same (randomly selected) mountain should be able to evoke a similar feeling.
We also liked the idea of combining this with a leaderboard that resets regularly, as it would allow more players to experience the thrill of achieving a top score on a global leaderboard.
At the same time we were a bit skeptical to the whole thing. We didn't want to risk losing the simple, minimalist, no-nonsense core of SNØ. To put it bluntly: I despise modern retention mechanics, and "daily seed" felt like playing dangerously close to stuff like "daily rewards" and other dark design patterns, stuff that we have deliberately avoided through the development of SNØ - and our lifetime as game developers really.
So we decided to make the seed renew on a weekly basis instead of daily. We think it makes the mode feel less urgent, less "pushy" and honestly I think it makes it more meaningful, allowing mountain specific strategies and discussions to form in our community. There is also nothing special to gain from participating in POTW regularly, so there's is no need to worry if you "forget" to play. The only value you get from POTW is (hopefully) a feeling of being part of a shared experience, and maybe get pushed out of your comfort zone by having to adapt to a mountain that might not fit your favorite playstyle. Who knows, maybe you'll discover some new tricks or survival strategies on one of the weekly seeds?
Final thoughts
In the end I think we struck a good balance with a fun mode that mixes SNØs core features up in a new way to give an accessible, shared competetive experience, without demanding too much attention.
Also I'm very glad we didn't settle for the mode's working title: "Weekly Run". I always wanted to call it "Mountain of the week", but it was simply too long for our UI layouts (the most ruthless design constraint of them all). But then Christer suggested "Peak of the Week" instead, only a day before making the mode public - I mean, it was love at first sight, and just in time ❤️
Thank you for reading!
If you have feedback about Peak of the Week, don't hesitate to leave a comment right here or on our Discord
Hope you like it! 🏔️✨
Best
Alex
SG
PS: This week's challenge is Score Attack with the paraskier on mountain #867932563
(featured in the header image ☝️)