SkiFree

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The title screen and game start.

SkiFree is a skiing video game developed by Chris Pirih and published by Microsoft for Windows 3 in 1991 as part of the Microsoft Entertainment Pack 3, and re-published in the Best of Microsoft Entertainment Pack in 1994. On 2005-04-04, Pirih found his original source code, and recompiled the game to work on 32-bit Windows machines, and released it as freeware.

Personal

I first played this game shortly after it was released because a friend of mine had the third Entertainment Pack. I didn't become much of a fan of the game because there is so little to do, but I did appreciate the various quirks added by the designer.

Status

I didn't own Entertainment Pack 3, but I have played this game many times. A 32-bit version was made freely available by the creator. The game cannot be beaten.

Review

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2 3 4 1 2

Best Version: Windows 3

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

  • The game is quirky. Examples include, the yeti eats the player when they get too far, hitting the dog several times causes it to pee, trees will sometimes be seen walking along the mountain, dead trees burst into flames when you collide with them, hitting a stump will turn it into a mushroom, etc.
  • Getting caught and eaten by the yeti when you get too far down the mountain is hilarious, and trying to avoid him is always a fun challenge.

Bad

  • Because the game's view port scales to the size of your screen, players with higher resolutions will have an easier time playing the game.
  • The yeti doesn't fairly catch you, but instead teleports to your position if you get too far ahead.

Ugly

  • The game has very little to do. There are two slalom races and a freestyle race, each lasts about one to two minutes, and none are very impressive. This means you can see everything the game has to offer in about 5 minutes, excluding Easter eggs.
  • The game doesn't come with any documentation or even a help file, and there are a lot of undocumented commands.

Media

Graphics

Screenshots

Videos

Review - Nostalgia Nerd.
Dorkly comic.
Real life SkiFree.
Evading the yeti.

Download

SkiFree was released as freeware by the game's creator. The download below includes the original 16-bit version and a re-compile for 32-bit Windows.

Links

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