We all know, most of the time building a game is long hours, stress, and iterations. And testing is one of those routine tasks. Sometimes it’s worth stepping out of that loop and remembering why you’re doing this at all – for fun. And I have a good story.

We're an indie team working on a VR downhill skateboarding game – Bomb the Hill. I’m an amateur rider, so the prototype was built around my input and tested with VR players. But I always wanted more authoritative and broader feedback. And once I randomly learned that a stage of the World Downhill Skateboarding Championship was happening a few hundred kilometers away from me, in Turkey. So I grabbed the headset, jumped in the car and drove there without thinking.

It wasn’t a planned part of the event, but I was welcomed incredibly warmly by the organizers and the riders, and they immediately came up with how to really integrate the playtesting into the weekend – to get the most value and fun out of it for everyone. World champions and spectators tried our prototype, around 50 people total. It honestly became a bit of a hit during the event.

What surprised everybody – after spectators tried the game they started watching the real races more engaged, understanding what riders are doing. That's why I love VR. The riders themselves had a lot of fun with the prototype too. We got tons of useful feedback that we carried forward.

In the end, one decision that felt a bit like messing around or escaping work gave us way more than any standard testing we could’ve set up.

Now the game is getting close to release on Meta Quest. If you’re interested – here’s the link to our Meta Store page where you can wishlist the game. We’d genuinely appreciate it! 

[https://www.meta.com/en-gb/experiences/bomb-the-hill-downhill-skate-racing/26974030992211215/](https://www.meta.com/en-gb/experiences/bomb-the-hill-downhill-skate-racing/26974030992211215/)

And if you liked this dev story, feel free to join our Discord – the link is in my profile

This year I’ll try to come back to WDSC with a finished version of Bomb the Hill.

Not your usual playtest – we took our prototype to the World Downhill Championship