This game is heavily inspired by a certain well-known
and highly successful video game franchise about going fast.
For legal reasons, I'd like to avoid crediting it explicitly,
but if you know video games, it should be blatantly obvious
which one I'm talking about.

That franchise was formative for me. When I was very young, maybe four to six,
it was the franchise that got me into game development in the first place,
though of course, at that age, my prowess in the trade was limited
to conceptual prototyping with printer paper and colored markers,
and model-building with construction paper, tape, and pipe cleaners.

Also, ever since around age seven -- when I first got my hands
on a free trial of a Clickteam game creation tool
and started aimlessly playing with it like a toy --
I've always thought implementing slope-runner mechanics for myself
would be an interesting intellectual challenge,
and wondered how "that" franchise had managed it.

I owe my creative voice additionally to several other influences:
three other big game franchises -- one about jumping, one about high fantasy,
and one about taming magical creatures, and, with their enthusiastic consent,
coaching them in a fictional combat sport --
that have all been with me for almost as long as "that" franchise,
and come from its publishers' archrival company;
as well as countless other influences I've adopted in more recent years,
primarily indie games and sci-fi psychological thriller visual novels.
These all may present more subtly in this work
than the influences of "that" franchise, but maybe you can spot them.

Hey, what's a humble-brag called
when you're barely even bothering to pretend to be humble?
Not that it's that big a deal; I forgot where I heard it,
but I've once heard a metaphor that somewhat resonated with me
(albeit also touched a nerve), and it went something like this:
Bragging about having been a gifted child
is like bragging that you were in first place in a contest for awhile.
No one cares. Starting in first doesn't count for anything
if you finish in last. So I have nothing to brag about, really:
I've been in last for six years now.

But hey, if I've got the energy to work on something like this,
things are finally looking up again!