For the most part riding atop a rocket or hot sauce bottle will just be unlocked over time as completing stages and their objectives gradually dole out new characters, rides, and costumes, but you can collect coins in a stage as well that can then be spent on variations of these rides and a special costume for your celebrities. Surfing atop a giant coin isn’t too bonkers nor is swapping out your inflatable flamingo for a big banana instead, but later on you can ride a shark or even climb into a mech, although the moment the mech appears in the level its arms will clip into its body as they move, making what should be a cool unlock into an ugly design that clearly wasn’t a solid fit for the action. The actual action in Slide Stars has you moving towards a level’s end goal by riding atop what begins as a reasonable inflatable pool toy but can become some truly unusual mounts as you start to unlock things. Later in the game it does start to expect you to have done a lot more optional objectives to unlock celebrities down the line if you want to efficiently clear a stage since some level goals aren’t even possible without the right symbol, but since it is already likely you will need to replay these levels simply because stage knowledge is important, it’s not absurd to request you come back later with a better character as well. There is no real reason to pick an inferior celebrity for a stage since the differentiation between them is purely this shallow three symbol system, but at least at first it does hew close to the unlock system, meaning your single default character is a good fit for the first stage and the characters you unlock after can usually have all the symbols needed for an upcoming level.
It doesn’t actually matter if their focus is in something like gaming, health, or travel though, the symbol instead essentially working like a key inside levels to open up extra areas or making jump platforms appear so you can grab a collectable or get more air. While everyone plays the same in regards to how they control during the side-scrolling water ride stages, characters also have three symbols that are meant to represent their typical form of content online. There is a direct incentive to play as certain characters as well. Casting this somewhat wide net of disconnected social media stars can also make it hard for someone who does recognize a few of the faces to even get to their preferred character, the game having a slow unlock process where you need to work your way up to celebrities by playing through stages as people you might not recognize. What’s more, none of them are voice acted, and while their victory screens after a level can show off a bit of personality, the presence of these celebrities does feel a little hollow. All of the featured stars are young and attractive, many of them already either in swimwear or having a swimsuit unlockable, but at the same time their in-game versions don’t always look like the best match for their real appearance. Freek Vonk who is a globetrotting biologist and Doctor Mike whose online presence involves providing health and medical information in his videos. A fair few models, some gaming personalities, and some truly unique choices like Prof.
Amusement Force’s Greg and Kes are both part of a water slide review channel on Youtube, but the other celebrities featured are a grab bag of personalities from different parts of the online social media sphere. Slide Stars is a game about these social media stars riding out across water slide-inspired obstacle courses, and of the twenty influencers featured in this game, this makes sense for at least two of them. While these online celebrities vary in how much their focus is on recommending products or simply sharing parts of their life so they themselves are the brand, the rise of such stars would inevitably lead to situations like Slide Stars, a game entirely populated by these celebrities in an effort to draw in their fans. With the rise of social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, so too came the new breed of celebrity known as influencers.
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