Preview – Shoe It All

Straight up; it’s totally worth downloading the demo for Shoe It All. It’s a pretty lengthy chunk of game that doesn’t leave you unsatisfied. It almost feels like a complete experience, which makes me wonder if maybe too much is given away. It’s apparently 17 out of 50+ levels, which is a big bite.

Back in maybe Grade 2, I was on the swings at school, doing my thing. Probably trying to swing over the bar. A friend of mine strolled out in front. I tried stopping myself, but it was too late. One of those things that happened too fast. Broke his collarbone. True story. We stayed friends through high school. I saw him at a wedding recently. I said to him, “When the fuck did we get so old?”

Anyway, Shoe It All is sort of like that, but with potentially fewer broken clavicles. Maybe.

GUARD YOUR CLAVICLE

It’s a pretty basic concept. You’re a kid on a swing, and you need to kick your shoe off to inflict damage to whatever is in your path.

Did you ever do that? We’d have contests to see who could kick their shoe the furthest. I don’t remember any target practice, but the shoe kicking was definitely a thing. I’m not sure if kids do that these days. Maybe if it’s in Roblox.

Your targets range from stop signs to grocery prices to a particularly hapless dude on a Segway. Not much explanation is given for any of them. Hitting your target (or targets) completes the level, but you get bonus points if you do it in fewer shoes. If you run out of shoes, a giant shoe squishes you. It’s a shoe-eat-shoe world out there.

You swing back and forth manually, then choose when to kick your shoe. The shoe’s trajectory is, of course, dictated by the speed at which you were moving and the angle from which you released it. It’s pretty easy to get your shoe flying in the right direction, but getting it on target can be a bit more difficult. I never had much issue throughout the demo, but there were moments where I needed multiple attempts to get a shoe through a window or whatever.

MINI MICROGAME

You might wonder how far this concept can really take you. To be honest, so do I. It got me to the end of the demo, but I’m not sure how far beyond that it can go. Truly, it has the depth of a WarioWare microgame. It gets creative with some targets, but at the end of the day, you’re the same kid on the same swing and the shoe flies the same way.

It does get some credit for its art style. It has a pencil-crayon aesthetic, placing your swinger in a featureless environment. The moment you land a clodhopper on your final objective, it explodes into colour and says a sort of half-phrase, like “You smelly!” And it flashes a whole bunch, but I think you can turn the flashing down in the settings.

You can also go over the top of the bar if you swing correctly. This is important.

GRAMMA’S HOUSE

It’s a bit tempting to say, “That’s it?” There isn’t much to Shoe It All. However, I think that’s sort of the point. In my childhood, when my parents would kick me off the TV or it was recess at school or I was visiting gramma’s house, this is what I’d do. And life was better before I had to worry if I have enough to pay next month’s rent.

So, in that sense, if you’re interested in a game about kicking your shoe for distance and accuracy, then Shoe It All embodies that perfectly. It has a swing set, shoes, and targets. What more could you want? Find out by playing the demo, available now. If the answer turns out to be 33+ more levels, then the full version is out later in 2025, maybe.

This preview was conducted using a public demo available on Steam.