Schuss! with Clotilde
Clotilde waits at the top of the runs, her board in her hand. Every run is a race: four riders start together, and you ride with Clotilde. While you are on the slope, the map is paused, and your balloon waits where you left it.
Where to find Clotilde
On the map, Clotilde stands by each place, her board in her hand. You can see her from afar, above the ridges, and the compass can lead you to her. Land near her and choose « Ride down », or click on her from your balloon. The pilot’s licence, the « Games » rubric, opens the game too, from the start: you choose the place there.
The modes
Before you choose your run, you choose a mode. Solo is the race as it has always been: you and Clotilde against Ueli, Mattia and Ladina, with your records and your medals. Race is more watched than ridden: two to eight marmots ride down together, all driven by the algorithm, and you bet on yours. You choose how many there are, change their beanie and their fur if you feel like it, and Clotilde commentates the run; at the end a table gives the podium, the times and the gap, and tells you whether your bet held. The marmots throw snowballs at each other too. These races count towards neither the records nor the feats. Team, a race among friends, each at home, is coming soon.
Every marmot in the race has her own way of racing: one leaves like a rocket, another catches up in the last metres, a third jumps first and thinks later. None is better than another, and each one’s way is drawn at the start: the suspense comes from the draw, never from a finish written in advance. Their first names are Swiss, drawn according to the way they race: you can draw another, never write one.
Choosing a run
Each place has three runs: the blue, the red and the black, from the easiest to the hardest. All are open from the start. Before the start, a screen shows them, with the best medal you have won on each; the run of your last ride is already picked. Choose one, then « Go! ». In the pause and on the finish card, « Change run » brings you back to it.
The controls
On the keyboard, ← and → (or A and D) steer the board. Hold Space and Clotilde crouches: she catches less wind and goes faster. Let go and she jumps, the higher the longer she crouched. In the air, ← and → spin her, ↓ (or S) takes a grab and ↑ (or W) lets it go; otherwise she holds it until she lands. On the ground, ↑ throws a snowball at the nearest marmot ahead; she carries three, remade one at a time every three seconds: hit, a marmot slows down for a moment. Esc pauses the race.
On a touch screen, the left and right halves of the screen steer, and the button crouches, jumps, then takes a grab in the air. The ❄ button throws a snowball on the snow; in the air, it lets go of the grab.
A spin lands along the slope. Landed crooked, Clotilde crumples into a snowball and rolls for a while before she gets up: she loses speed and her run of tricks.
On the slope
The bends push you outward, the harder the faster you go: lean in to hold the line. On the outside of the bends, the edge of the slope rises here and there: ride up it at a slant with speed, and it throws you into the air for a trick. Gates, a red pole and a blue one, mark the slope: going between them scores points, and more still when you string gates together. Kickers send you flying, and obstacles, firs, rocks or blocks of ice, wait to be dodged.
The objects
- Blueberries score a little and fill the boost gauge. Full, the gauge gives three seconds of boost, faster than top speed; tricks fill it too.
- The meringue makes Clotilde lighter for a few seconds: she flies further without losing speed.
- The caquelon gives a boost at once.
- The bell trips up the rivals just ahead of you.
The points
Glide points make the run’s score. Tricks in a row without a fall multiply their points; a grab only counts on top of a spin. Your place at the finish is added to the total.
| What you do | Glide points |
|---|---|
| A 180° spin | 100 |
| A 360° spin | 250 |
| A 540° spin | 500 |
| A 720° spin | 800 |
| A grab held, per 0.5 s, on top of a spin | +50 |
| Tricks in a row without a fall: the multiplier | ×2 – ×4 |
| A gate cleared | 50 |
| Each further gate in a row, up to 8 in a row | +25 |
| A blueberry | 25 |
| A meringue, a caquelon or a bell | 50 |
| Jumping over the ibex | 300 |
| Jumping over the train | 500 |
| Place 1 at the finish | 1,000 |
| Place 2 at the finish | 600 |
| Place 3 at the finish | 300 |
| Place 4 at the finish | 0 |
The medals
Each run has its bronze, silver and gold thresholds, given on its place’s page. Bronze is won on score, in any place. Winning the race is worth silver at least; gold also asks for first place.
The rivals and the ghost
Ueli, Mattia and Ladina ride down with Clotilde. They pick up objects too, boost, dodge the obstacles and never let the head of the race get too far away: to win, you have to crouch and hold your line. On each run, your best ride leaves a grey ghost, which rides it again in the shadow of yours: you can show or hide it in the pause.
The records
The pilot’s licence keeps, run by run, your best score and its medal, and the number of your rides at each place. Glide points do not count towards XP: only the runs’ feats earn some, like any feat. There are no lives to lose and no defeat: a run always ends at the bottom.