![]() ![]() Some of the sketch work that's behind OlliOlli's levels. There's thought in their design, essentially, and it comes via a surprisingly hands-on approach to design. It's what lends the game its balance, as well as its difficulty spikes (Base Five can basically go and do one), and without that foundation it's hard to imagine the basic skating mechanics working so well. The switch to handcrafted levels works wonders for OlliOlli. So then we thought maybe we should just build levels you can get good at." "We called it Joytown - and he was like, 'I've been rinsing Joytown'. "Tom spent something like seven hours on the plane to E3 and just playing that one level and getting it perfect," says Ribbins. Making a game almost impossible generator#As the team were preparing to head over to E3 for OlliOlli's first public showing, it realised its random level generator wasn't quite working so set about creating a one-off level just to have something to show. It's a shift that came, as some of the best design ideas do, through happy circumstance. It started off as a randomly generated infinite runner - and a loose resemblance to Canabalt still lingers in its aesthetic - before evolving into a more rigidly designed score attack game. Over the course of those 18 months, OlliOlli had changed a fair amount. Not that you can't enjoy it anymore, but in playing it and building it you've done so many three million point combos that the thrill of going 'Oh My God, A Million!' has gone." By the time we finished the only thing we could see in OlliOlli were all the mistakes. "We'd been working for 18 months on the prototype, and were so involved in it. "We had no idea how it was going to be received," says Ribbins. ![]() "Someone told us at Develop last year that we're undoing ten years of Tony Hawks muscle memory, and that's when I started to really worry." "For me, the big fear was that people wouldn't get the controls," says Hegarty. OlliOlli started life on mobile - needless to say it's found a more fitting home on the Vita.Īs does the success and response to its first console game. ![]() Just over two days after OlliOlli was released, someone had seen through the entire game from start to torturous finish. It turns out they needn't have worried, anyway. OlliOlli was beatable - just - only after Ribbins put in two 16-hour days exclusively attempting the hardcore levels. So, I said I won't be seeing anyone for a bit." "Someone asked if anyone's beaten all the levels in rad mode. "We had a moment where we'd put in rad mode and it worked," remembers OlliOlli designer John Ribbins. We were really worried that we'd submitted a game, and ticked that little box." "And I think the first time we submitted we hadn't actually completed rad mode. "There's a box you have to tick when you submit the game, and it says have you played the game 100 per cent all the way to the end," roll7's director Tom Hegarty tells us in their New Cross studio. They're so ferocious, in fact, that there was a time when developer roll7 feared they couldn't be beaten. Making a game almost impossible pro#It's something in the gentle balance of learning as you glide through the opening amateur levels, and in the steely challenge of perfecting the pro levels to unlock the ferocious high-tier 'rad' challenges. ![]() A deliciously tactile 2D skater that winds score attack around a set of polished trick mechanics and neat level design, it's the kind of game that can consume entire lazy winter weekends. Dubbing the PlayStation Vita's OlliOlli one of the games of the year might not be saying much when we're only a couple of months in, but I'm fairly certain it'll retain that accolade for me when 2014 is out. ![]()
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