2019-04-01_Retro_Gamer

talked to those guys quite a bit about the types

of tricks that they were able to do, and that sort of

thing.” This is where the idea to implement tricks

into the game came about, enabling a fun third

layer of gameplay on top of the racing and combat

that had been brought over from the Road Rash

engine. Dave explains that this led to the inclusion

of secrets behind billboards or at the top of jumps.

But these rollerbladers even provided assistance

when it came to capturing the right ‘look’ of the

animation, an aspect of the game that it would

later go on to be highly-praised for.

“When it came to looking at what the

animations would look like and what the tricks

were, we actually brought some of those guys into

a warehouse, had a little Fiero that they could hold

onto the back of and had ramps and stuff with

mats, and we actually did the tricks and recorded

them and rotoscoped it so that it looked real for

the animations.”

An equal amount of effort and detail was put

into the locales, too, with an intention to create a

unique identity to each stage. “We tried to take

cities that we thought were interesting, cities

that had a specific feel to them,” explains Dave.

“Vancouver had a very specific style of house

that was along some of the roads that we

were able to incorporate. New York has a

bigger city feel to it, so we were able to find

cities that were different enough from each

other that gave it a different feel as you

were moving from city to city.” The team

also considered the likes of The Great

American Road Race or Cannonball Run,

we’re told, to help them think about the

cities that it needed to include. But when

it came to actually mapping out each

stage, the team at EA Canada found

doing so by hand helped it get a sense of

the right progress. “We had to draw it out

on paper first just to kind of look at what were the

art elements that we would need to add in to dress

it up to look more like wherever it might be. We

tried to map out a rough trail of the types of things

that we would want the player doing through the

map on paper and then put it into this engine and

then created it much like you would if you were

creating a Hot Wheels racetrack, piece-by-piece as

you move your way through.”

his allowed Skitchin’ to create a ‘cool’

attitude that was very in-keeping with the

Nineties, leveraging the Seattle grunge

music that was popular at the time and the

use of graffiti helped to create a very particular

identity to the game, though EA didn’t necessarily

think it was quite distinct enough at first. “Being

part of EA, it’s not just a case of going ahead

and making whatever we want,” reveals Dave.

“There are approval processes that you have

to go through. And in the initial versions of the

game a lot of the comments we got – especially

because we were working with the Road Rash

team – was that it felt a little too similar to Road

Rash, and what could we do to differentiate it?”

This was where the emphasis for the slingshotting

mechanic was nailed down, but it also lead to the

implementation of the RPG-like mechanics where

» [Mega Drive] The cit y levels were overcast and more muted in

their palet te, an intentional means of recreating a cer tain vibe.

Avoid these Skitchin’ endings

LOST THE RACE

QIf you aren’t able to at

least make it into the top

six of the leaderboard, then

you’ll not be able to progress

onto the next stage. If you

don’t have the necessar y

funds to pay for another entr y fee – which is hard to do –

then it’s game over for you.

ENERGY

RUNNING OUT

QThis is likely to happen

especially on the later

stages, but if you run out of

health – whether you are

hit by a car or smacked by

a baseball bat – then the race is over. You’ll need to keep

enough money for the medical fees to continue on.

CAUGHT BY

POLICE

QThe police will appear

periodically throughout the

game, and they can be tricky

to avoid. Skitching can lead

you to getting busted, so you

need to make sure you’re slingshotting as soon as you

can, other wise you’ll need the bailout money.

CAN’T REPLACE

SKATES

QNot paying enough

attention to the state of your

skates can cause them to

blow out. In the later stages,

the professional wheels and

the skates themselves can be quite costly – so it’s good to

stay on top of any potential damage.

» [Mega Drive] New elements were introduced

into each level as you progressed, giving the player

something new to adapt to.

AidtheseSkitchin’ endings

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