
So it is no surprise that Microsoft bought the copyrights and sold it as part of Entertainment Pack for Windows compilation. First released as public domain by Chris Pirih, the game quickly spread like wildfire throughout BBS's and by word of mouth. Ski Free deserves to be ranked alongside Minesweeper as one of the best "coffee break" games for Windows ever made. Overall, this is a classic Windows game that you should really try out. The game has no sounds, but in my opinion, that just enhances the mood. The graphics mostly consist of small animated characters, like dogs and skiers, and LOTS of snow but believe me, it has a very nice mood, perfect for that snowy/rainy Sunday. It also features lots of easter eggs, such as the walking trees. SkiFree is also well known for the infamous snow monster, which appears at 2000m and eats the player. The player can do quite a few things whilst skiing: jumping, performing stunts, knocking other skiers down or just crashing into random obstacles.

In Tree Slalom, you do basically the same, but the course is much tighter and has added obstacles such as trees.

During Slalom you have to ski past flags in the quickest time possible. The goal of Free-Style is too perform as much stunts as possible. The game has 3 gameplay-modes: Free-Style, Slalom and Tree Slalom. The game eventually attracted the attention of a manager for the Microsoft Entertainment Pack when he noticed Pirih playing it at work, leading to the inclusion of the game in the next Entertainment Pack release. It was programmed by Chris Pirih, who at the time was a programmer at Microsoft. SkiFree is a little Windows game of which there is not much to say, apart from: It's a Classic. There are various obstacles, such as trees, snowboarders, rocks and more. After the finish, the skier can move on until he is caught by the abominable snow monster. It is also possible to jump, but the biggest ones are achieved with the help of rocks, bumps and rainbow-coloured pads. The skier can be steered using the keyboard or the mouse. The final one is Freestyle were points are scored by performing jumps and doing tricks in the air, followed by a safe landing. Tree Slalom is identical, but has a lot of trees on the course.

In Slalom, the skier needs to pass flags on the right side and makes his way down to the finish. From the start, three types of courses can be selected, but these can also be ignored. Players control a skier on a downhill slope on a mountain. It was then re-compiled for 32-bit Windows systems when the author found back the source code and released it for free through his website. SkiFree is the standalone version of the game originally included as a part of the Microsoft Entertainment Pack 3 (1991) for Windows 3.x, and later made available separately for Windows 3.x.
