• Price: $5.99 USD
• Developer: Paul Schnepf
• Publisher: Coatsink
• Release Date: March 17, 2022

A review code was kindly provided by The Game Marketer on behalf of Paul Schnepf and Coatsink. We thank them for being able to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

I unfortunately lack the coordination to skateboard in real life. Thankfully, there are games like The Ramp that allow me to perform some cool stunts virtually – with no possibility of me visiting an emergency room in real life. 😉

You can choose to play as a male or female character, and you can choose your character’s skin color from a limited palette. I started the tutorial, and the skate park’s appearance is quite simple but it works. You need to press and release A to build up speed. Then you have to hold the left joystick to rotate, and the right joystick allows you to perform some tricks like “Indy” or “Melon” grabs. Unfortunately, when I managed to get enough air to successfully perform a trick, I’d often end up falling off of the ramp completely – almost off of the screen. It felt way too easy to lose control of the board.

The next stage has you skating in a drained pool. It wasn’t possible to fall out of it, but hitting the ladder makes you fall, and messing up a trick obviously causes you to go down as well. I wish we could rotate the camera to see our character better when skating at a different/more obscured angle, but the camera stays where it is.

The fourth and final stage was the most interesting one. It has you jump from a steep ramp, which then curves up and has you jump across to another ramp. I managed to perform an “air 540” there. But overall, the gameplay felt too similar in every stage.

There are no missions or objectives. It did not feel like there were many tricks to perform. There is a “hardcore” mode for those who want more of a challenge; it’s described as a mode where “the tolerance for sloppy landings is reduced…[and] the skater no longer aligns to the ramp automatically when airborne.” I actually managed to complete the “air 720” trick several times in hardcore mode, interestingly enough.

While there is something to be said for simplicity, I felt that the game needed to…ramp things up a bit. It might have been interesting to have full courses designed with mission objectives for skills used, etc. I’ve seen skateboarding performed on handrails before, which could have been neat. However, the game’s eShop description does state upfront that The Ramp is intended to be a minimalist experience, with no missions, scores, or anything for you to unlock. The music is appropriately relaxed for the setting, and it can be turned off if you need to. Loading times were basically nonexistent across the start menu and stages.

If you are interested in skateboarding and want a low-stress experience where you can experiment with a few different tricks, you may want to check this out. You don’t lose any progress in the game because it’s not the kind of game where you make measurable progress besides improving your own ability to perform tricks. The Ramp is the kind of game you can play whenever you have some downtime; pick it up and play for a bit, and come back to it when you need to chill out. Personally, it was a little too minimalist for my tastes, as I would have liked more stages and tricks. But I think it does provide the exact kind of experience it says it will – it’s honest and relaxed. 6/10