Sledding Game is a chill “hangout game” like Webfishing, but with penguins that ragdoll downhill

The relaxing fish catchin’ and scratchcard gamblin’ of Webfishing proved itself deeply attractive to anyone looking for an easygoing escape. So it makes sense at least one other developer is looking to apply the same lo-fi principles to their own “hangout game”. The simply titled Sledding Game looks like a chill afternoon of standing around on mountains with your mates and going for a big slide downhill every now and again. It’s still early in development, as you can tell from the trailer below. But you’ll be able to embody penguins, frogs, and polar bears as they drink hot cocoa in log cabins and ragdoll into one another willy-nilly. Other cute animals are to be confirmed, but I am putting my money on an dopey-faced ermine.

You’ll earn points while sledding down the mountain (at one point we see the sledder grind a rail) and then use these points to buy cosmetics like “hats, jackets, scarves, goggles” as well as stickers for your sled. You’ll be able to make snowmen, get into snowball fights, and ride a ski lift back up the mountain when you inevitably wipe out on an unexpected slope. “Whether you’re racing to the bottom or taking it slow, the hill is all about fun, friends, and freedom,” says the game’s Steam page.

The game’s creator, a solo developer professionally branded as “The Sledding Company”, has been posting devlog videos on TikTok since December. They demonstrate how players will get off the ski lift and pay sorrowful tribute to an endless field of frog corpses. “My main inspiration is mainly from Webfishing, which I guess is inspired by Animal Crossing,” said the dev in the video announcing the game, before asking for suggestions from viewers. “I don’t really know where to go with this project, I just think it’s a fun little game-slash-playground-thing.”

The creator also has plans to add 100-player lobbies with proximity voice chat and text chat, which seems a tad ambitious for a small-scale messabout like this. Not to mention a surefire way to emperil the “cozy” and low-key vibe the game seems to be aiming at. Webfishing has 12-player lobbies, for example, and already has to contend with the spectrum of online (mis)behaviour that comes with chat rooms. Even Faaast Penguin, a more chaotic party game about going downhill in the snow, taps out at 40 players (and it limits player chitchat to emotes). Although the Sledding Company does add that the 100-player plan is not set in stone, saying: “until further testing, this will just be a guess”.

However it turns out, I like when devs show their work like this. I know it can simply be a good marketing strategy for smaller studios and lone developers (people like to watch funny videos on apps that annoy the United States government, it turns out) but ragdolls are always appreciated. And watching developers run headfirst into bugs is doubtless reassuring for fellow struggling game designers otherwise doomscrolling into the abyss.

Sledding Game doesn’t have a release date yet, but we’ll keep an eye on these penguins for you. It looks like they require supervision anyway.