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That’s skateboarding and it’s also how the OlliOlli series came together.
He’d already spent years tinkering with ideas for 2D skaters.
Co-studio head Simon Bennett remembers the demo well.
Rather than spinning their wheels, the team urged Ribbins to show the demo around.
Ribbins says of attending Develop Brighton.
Ahmad sat in the corner playing it while the conversation continued.
“We were like, ‘absolutely,'” says Ribbins.
With that, development of OlliOlli began in earnest, the mobile demo giving way to PS Vita.
“It was horrendous,” laughs Ribbins about coding for the new hardware.
At the time, PS Vita didn’t support Unity.
Three months in (“A nine-month project, as well!”
says Bennett), the team had only just begun being able to draw images to the screen.
And it was it was proper trial by fire."
“It was a year-long argument,” says Ribbins.
“Yeah, it was a year-long argument slash-nervous breakdown on my behalf.
The whole thing was an absolute nightmare.
And then it came out, and everything was amazing from that point onwards,” chuckles Bennett.
says Bennett), but the principles remain.
Ribbins credits both Skate and Thrasher: Skate And Destroy as primary inspirations.
The latter game featured an Expert mode that required you to stick landings properly with a button press.
At the heart of OlliOlli is a desire to get across the feelings fundamental to skateboarding.
“The hard thing is getting your feet back on the thing and rolling away.”
Flipping off
Getting across the idea of holding the left stick and flicking to jump was tough.
The team found some people were too used to the Tony Hawk method.
“That was a real struggle, man.
“That’s just not… that’s not how it works.
You don’t jump and then do the trick the trick is part of the setup.
You crouch, you get your feet in the position, and then you commit to that trick.”
“There’s something incredibly visceral about that.
It’s simple, but it’s effective.
It does go against the norm,” says Bennett.
Testers warned the team against it.
This series is one that fundamentally needs to feel good simply to play.
It’s just like… that just feels nice to do sometimes,” says Ribbins.
