I have never set foot on a real snowy mountain. Yet one free afternoon I opened Bonvo Ski (also called Bonvo Ride) to give it a try, and I ended up playing for almost two hours without noticing. It’s an online game, so you just open the website and play. There’s nothing to download.

What Surprised Me About Bonvo Ski

According to Unofficial Networks, the game features more than 6,000 ski resorts across 69 countries. It requires no account and has no ads. The terrain is built from real elevation data. Trails, lifts and difficulty colors come from OpenStreetMap. That means I could pick a resort I had heard of and see that it matched the real map.

My First Run

I picked a resort, chose a slope and shot down it. I kept crashing into trees because I went way too fast. After a few runs I realized I had to learn to brake at the right moment before speeding up. Taking turns smoothly gave me much better momentum.

The controls I used most:

W or Up Arrow to accelerate, S or Down Arrow to brake
A and D to steer left and right
Spacebar or Shift: hold and release to jump and grab in the air
E to boost, C to switch camera view, N to open the map

Game Modes

Mode	What I Like About It
Free Ride	No timer, perfect for cruising around a resort
Public Lobbies	Race strangers. According to Unofficial Networks, each lobby holds up to 10 riders and a new race starts every minute
Private Rooms	Race your friends, with groups of up to 16 people
Arcade	Complete missions, chain combos, unlock items and save progress
Weekly Cup	A weekly event to test yourself on the leaderboards

My favorite feature is sharing a finished run to challenge friends to beat your time on the same slope. Within minutes the whole group is arguing about who is fastest.

Three Tips To Improve Your Times

Do a Free Ride lap first to learn the route before jumping into a race.
Don’t spam the boost. Save E for long, straight downhill sections.
Practice jumping off natural bumps. Releasing the spacebar at the right moment makes for a smoother landing.