SkiFree – Yes You Can Still Play It

SkiFree is a positively ancient (as in 1991 ancient) game for Windows. It has no sound, the graphics are no better than, say, an 8-bit gaming console, but it’s addicting as hell and is one of the most-known Microsoft games in history.

The most memorable part of the game is the Yeti (or Abominable Snow Monster), seen in the animated GIF to the right. When the Yeti comes, it’s difficult to outrun him. Sometimes you may even encounter two of them at once. If the Yeti catches you, OM NOM NOM NOM.. he eats you up and the game is over.

One of the few ways to outrun the Yeti is to use an undocumented feature of the game, “Fast Mode”, done by pressing F. Fast Mode will stay on until you press F again.

The game is available for download here. I tried it on XP and sure enough it works great. Haven’t tried it on Windows 7 yet although I’m sure it would work fine there as well.

How come software companies don’t make cool fun stuff like this anymore?

“Fun” seems to be something that is a foreign word to any large software company these days. Anything that was fun back then has been traded for cold corporate productivity now. Sure, what we have runs far better these days, but any programmer putting any personality into his or her code is strictly forbidden.

Microsoft had SkiFree as seen above with a few other fun odds and ends along the way (with the biggest, literally, being an auto racing game in Excel 2000).

Apple also used to have personality, too. Who could forget the DogCow?

Commodore back in the Amiga days input this strange-yet-cool crash message, Guru Meditation.

I’m pretty sure Linux is the only OS left that has any programmer personality to it. See No Super Cow Powers for an example of that.

BONUS FOR YOU FOR READING THIS FAR: Microsoft’s Hover! game is also still available. Remember that one? Get it from here! (See? It pays to read our articles!)

Like what you read?

If so, please join over 28,000 people who receive our exclusive weekly newsletter and computer tips, and get FREE COPIES of 5 eBooks we created, as our gift to you for subscribing. Just enter your name and email below:

David
I remember that game, plus being able to do jumps. It’d be considered lame these days, but that used to be cool. Ah, good times.
You also remind me of the flight simulator easter egg. Could you imagine them putting something like that in now? They’d be fired on the spot.
http://SageCrispin.com SageCrispin
Yes, a true sense of humor seems to be in short supply these days. Everybody seems to be running scarred of everybody else.
That said-I’m pissed-I never knew about Hover. Win 95 was my first PC system, having left the Apple world then-forever.
And in the no new ideas department-is it safe to say that Skifree was a precursor to the Shaun White Snowboarding on the Wii?
Anonymous
MAN I miss that game! So much memories.