A father who spent 35 years in the games industry created the original Ski Resort Tycoon series early in his career, then retired. A son who just finished a game design degree and built his father a custom snowboard controller as a Christmas gift. That gift became the seed for Powder Park, The Cat’s Eye Studio’s debut project combining resort-building simulation with actual snowboard action — building a mountain and then riding down it yourself.
Carving the Mountain Yourself
Players shape slopes directly — carving bowls and ridges into the terrain — while placing lodging along the mountainside. Lifts, jumps, and rails go wherever the terrain and the player’s own design sense dictate, with the studio specifically emphasizing free-form construction rather than following a fixed blueprint or a single correct layout.
Players choose which mountain range to build on: the US Pacific Northwest, the Rockies, the Alps, Japan, or Scandinavia. Once buildings are complete, guests arrive to fill the lodging and use the slopes. Completing quests from guests and staff and leveling up the resort unlocks new buildings and builds reputation — the standard tycoon progression loop, applied to a specifically snow-sport context.
Then You Ride What You Built
Construction isn’t where the game ends — riding the mountain yourself is the other core pillar. After building, players switch to a third-person view and drop into their own slopes on a snowboard. The studio describes turning, tricks, and falling as all governed by player input and physics rather than scripted animation sequences.
Players can ride solo or visit a friend’s resort to snowboard together in real time — the Steam page lists online co-op specifically, and browsing a friend’s resort design for construction inspiration is presented as part of that social loop.
A Cozy Tycoon, Deliberately Low-Pressure
The Cat’s Eye Studio frames Powder Park explicitly as a pressure-free, healing-style tycoon game — reducing the budget-management stress typical of the genre and designing staff to run resort operations largely on their own. Steam tags include Cozy, Relaxing, Family Friendly, Cute, Cartoon, and Colorful. The team modeled and animated buildings, the snowboard, and even the falling animations themselves.
System Requirements
Minimum specs: 64-bit Windows 10, AMD Ryzen 5 3400G or Intel Core i5-8400, 16GB RAM, AMD RDNA 2 or GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, DirectX 12 — modest requirements appropriate for a cozy simulation title.
The Studio Origin
The Cat’s Eye Studio centers on founder Patrick Wilkinson and his son Maverick. Per the studio, Patrick spent 35 years in the industry, created the original ski and snowboard tycoon series early in that career, and has since retired. The new project’s origin traces directly to Maverick’s handmade snowboard controller gift — built around Maverick’s own ideas fresh out of a game design degree, the team grew to include students preparing to enter the industry and developers who’d lost jobs during industry downturns. The studio states it has 12 total team members, including Patrick and Maverick.
Who This Is For
Strong fit for: cozy tycoon fans who want genuinely low-pressure resort management without heavy budget-juggling stress; players who want both building and physically playing the thing they built in the same game; Ski Resort Tycoon nostalgics curious what its creator does with a modern take on the concept; co-op players who want to visit friends’ resorts and ride together in real time; snowboard sports fans who want the sport itself playable, not just managed from above.
Cautious fit for: Korean-language players who need localization confirmed (not currently listed); anyone who wants a firmer release date than “Winter 2026 target.”
Less ideal for: players who dislike tycoon/management mechanics regardless of the action layer on top; anyone seeking a challenging, budget-pressure-heavy simulation experience; players who want the snowboarding to be the entire game rather than paired with construction.
The Takeaway
Powder Park is a father-son studio’s specific answer to what happens when a retired tycoon-genre creator’s son builds him a snowboard controller for Christmas: a cozy resort-building game where carving your own slopes and then actually riding them down, solo or with friends, are two halves of the same loop. Twelve people, five real-world mountain range settings, and a stated commitment to pressure-free management design are heading toward a Winter 2026 target.
The lifts are placed. The lodging is full. And once the blueprint stage ends, there’s nothing left to do but strap in and find out whether the mountain you built is actually fun to ride.
Winter 2026 target on Steam. $19.99.
Information regarding ‘Powder Park’
| item | detail |
|---|---|
| Developer | The Cat’s Eye Studio |
| Publisher | Cat’s Eye Studio (In-house Publishing) |
| Genre | Resort construction simulation, snowboard action, casual |
| platform | PC (Steam) |
| Release date | Target for Winter 2026 (listed as ‘Upcoming Release’ on Steam page) |
| language | English (based on Steam, Korean not supported) |
| Gameplay | Single player, online co-op (visit friends’ resorts) |
| price | $19.99 |
| Steam Page | Shortcut |
