Face Plant

The game's premise entailed taking the gameplay of Electronic Arts's Road Rash video games, and applying it to snowboarding. In it, the player maneuvers a snowboarder down a 3D hill. Similar to Road Rash, the gameplay required the player to balance aspects of racing and fighting others, while also throwing performing tricks into the mix. Gameplay featured realistic physics, and would require the player to factor in gravity, speed, turn rates, and the shifting of body weight into performing tricks. As in real snowboarding, points for tricks are rewarded on many factors, including speed, height, style, and complexity of the trick.

Gameplay followed a similar structure to some of the Road Rash entries as well; the player starts as a novice snowboarder participating in local snowboarding competitions, restricted to their home area until they win enough prize money to travel to other regions. The game was to contain 5 courses and 8 resorts. Multiple gameplay modes were planned, including downhill racing, slalom, and trick-focused mode, as was a "free mode" where players could simply freely snowboard and explore levels without purpose.

The game started its development as a game called Face Plant for the Sega Genesis. Development began in 1993, with a planned release date of March 1994. Development was headed by producers Randy Breen and Steve Murray, previously of Road Rash 2. By mid-1995, the Genesis version had been cancelled, but development was shifted to bring the game to the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, Sega Saturn, and PlayStation 1 instead under the name Shredfest.

The core development team at Electronic Arts consisted of roughly 17 employees, including Margaret Foley as art director, Mike Lopez as course designer, Matt Sarconi as lead animator, and Lisa Ching and Thom Phillabaum as software engineers. Emphasis was placed on creating a sense of realism in the game, with the team taking trips to real life snowboard hills to take notes and observe. Five real-life snowboard manufacturing brands were used - Burton, Morrow, Nitro, Palmer, and Sims. Michael Chantry, a supervisory judge from the International Snowboarding Federation was brought on as a consultant, from as early on as the Face Plant timeframe.