.: October 10, 2003.: October 13, 2003Mode(s),Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, released as Tony Hawk's Skateboarding in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Europe, is a -simulation developed by and published. It was released for the on September 29, 1999 and was later to the, and.Tony Hawk's Pro Skater takes place in a 3-D environment permeated by an ambience of rock and hip-hop music.
The player takes control of a variety of famous skateboarders and must complete missions by performing and collecting objects. The game offers several modes of gameplay, including a career mode in which the player must complete objectives and evolve their character's attributes, a free-play mode in which the player may skate without any given objective, and a multi-player mode that features a number of competitive games.Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was met with critical acclaim for all versions but the version, which had a more mixed reception. The game resulted in a successful franchise, receiving eight annualized sequels developed by Neversoft from 2000's to 2007's. Contents.Gameplay Tony Hawk's Pro Skater puts the player in control of a famous skateboarder and takes place in a third-person view with a fixed camera. The goal of the game is to perform tricks and combinations thereof in an effort to increase the player's score. Movement can be altered using the, and, and are each assigned to individual buttons.
Each skateboarder has eight grabs, eight slides and eight flips. The number of points earned from a successful trick sequence is dependent on the amount of time spent in the air, the degree of rotation, and the number and variety of tricks performed; the more a single trick is performed in a sequence, the fewer points it will earn.
When the player succeeds in performing tricks, a special gauge increases. When this gauge is full and flashing, the player is capable of performing a special trick that is worth many more points than ordinary tricks.
If the player botches a landing and falls off their skateboard, any potential points that may have been earned from the immediately-preceding tricks are negated, and the special gauge is emptied. The player, as Tony Hawk, has gathered all the letters of the word 'SKATE'. The screenshot is taken from the Dreamcast version.In the game's 'Career Mode', the player must complete five objectives (represented by videotapes) in each level within a period of two minutes. The player is not obligated to complete all the objectives within a single run; any completed objective is committed to the game's memory, which allows other objectives to be completed within multiple playthroughs of a level. Two common objectives in each level are achieved by accumulating two defined scores, while one other common objective is to collect letters of the word 'SKATE', and another common objective is to destroy five of a certain object within each level. The fifth objective is more varied, but is often oriented around a specific element found in each level. Completing objectives unlocks additional levels and equipment for use.
Three of the mode's levels take place in a competition in which the player perform for judges and accumulate the highest score within three one-minute rounds. The player receives a bronze, silver or gold medal depending on the final score they are given. Other single-player modes include the 'Single Session', in which the player can freely accumulate a high score within two minutes using any previously-obtained levels and characters, and the 'Free Skate', in which there is no time limit imposed.The multiplayer mode is played by two players in a view and offers three games: 'Graffiti', 'Trick Attack', and 'HORSE'. In 'Graffiti', players must accumulate the highest score by changing level elements into their own color via the use of tricks. If a player performs a higher-scoring trick on an element that has already been marked, the element will change to that player's color. 'Trick Attack' is a mode in which players must accumulate the highest score by chaining tricks together. 'HORSE' is a game that is, who must compete in rounds lasting either eight seconds or until a trick has been made.
The player with the lower score on any given turn receives a letter in the word 'HORSE' or whatever word the players had generated prior to the game's start. The first player to accumulate the entire word loses. Development Following the releases of 's and ', identified skateboarding-simulation games as a growing market in the gaming industry and concluded that such a title would resonate with a young audience. Preceding Neversoft's involvement in the project, the task of developing a skateboarding title for Activision was given to another studio.
This studio's attempt did not impress Activision and didn't move past the concept stage. The publisher then decided to entrust the project to Neversoft, which had recently completed the third-person shooter game within nine months. Although Neversoft had never developed a sports video game before, the development team was confident in its ability to accomplish the task before its given deadline of the 1999 Christmas season.During development, the Neversoft team would spend its lunch breaks at a bowling alley near the studio, where they would play and study from Sega's Top Skater in the arcade. The game's design served as a strong basic influence, along with observances of real skaters performing in the. Although the team decided that Top Skater 's linearity lacked the sense of fun they aimed for, the 'racetrack' element was retained in two of the game's levels. Contrariwise to subsequent titles in the series, Neversoft did not use existing locations as reference for the game's level design, but simply envisioned potential skating areas such as a school or a city and incorporated elements such as ramps and rails to benefit the gameplay. The team consciously prioritized fun over realism in the approach to the game's level design and physics.
Tony Hawk, the game's namesake, in 2006The game's engine is a modified version of that of Neversoft's previous title Apocalypse, and the game's prototype used 's character from that game as the player character. Once the prototype reached a functional and demonstrable state, the Neversoft team realized that they would require a professional skateboarder to aid in the remainder of production. At the time, had been a popular figure within skateboarding. In September 1998, Activision established contact with Hawk and arranged a meeting between him and Neversoft. Hawk was impressed by the design team members' devotion to skateboarding and the controls and engine of their game's early build and thus agreed to lend his name and involvement to the production. Subsequently, Hawk would turn down Activision's offer of a one-time buyout for the permanent use of his name and likeness on the game in favor of a royalty deal in which Hawk would earn a percentage for every copy sold. As a result of the series' eventual success, Hawk would earn ten times Activision's initial offer within two years.
On January 14, 1999, Activision publicly announced their agreement with Hawk to include him in the game. Activision senior vice president Mitch Lasky, in an interview with, stated that the character was meant 'to reflect Tony's signature style – an intense mix of acrobatics and hard-core technical skating'. Hawk remarked that 'he had always wanted to help create a video game that represented the reality and excitement of professional skateboarding'.Hawk would spend the development time periodically playing through the game's builds and providing feedback. He would also select a group of other professional skaters to include as playable characters based on their skills, personalities and diversity; each skater received a cut of the royalties and got to select their own attire and special trick for the game. In animating the skaters, the design team largely depended on using video footage as reference. The incorporation of was attempted to aid in the realism of the animation, but due to the technology's infancy, the result was ultimately determined to have not translated as well as what had already been animated. The featured in the game was itself drawn from footage of Hawk's famed performance of the feat in the X Games that summer, and was a relatively late addition as a result.The collection of videotapes was directly inspired by the collection of stars in.
In designing the objectives, the team would gather at a table, draw a level and then ask what could be done within the said level, upon which the team members would provide ideas. Rejected concepts arising from these sessions include levels taking place on a and a, and a scenario in which the player would lose a wheel and have to skate on three wheels. Were intended to be implemented into the game, but were omitted due to time constraints; manuals would subsequently be included in. Promotion and release On August 26, 1999, 's inclusion in the game, along with the game's final release date of September 29, was announced. A playable demonstration with only two available skaters was integrated into the Jampack Summer '99 compilation CD released. The game was made available for pre-order for the two weeks prior to the game's release; those who pre-ordered the game at or respectively received a miniature replica of Tony Hawk's Birdhouse skateboard and a sticker sheet featuring the game's ten professional skaters and a game tip on the back of each sticker.
A second playable demonstration was included on a promotional compilation disc released by on November 14, 1999.Because Neversoft would begin development of shortly before the release of the first game, Activision would entrust the game's Nintendo 64 port to Edge of Reality, which had recently ported to the same system. The Nintendo 64 port was announced on August 18, 1999 with an expected release date of March 2000 announced on February. The Nintendo 64 version, as well as the Game Boy Color version, received an intense multi-million dollar advertising campaign on several major youth-targeted channels in the United States for the first two weeks of April 2000. Customers who purchased the Game Boy Color version at or Funcoland received a special-edition miniature skateboard.As a result of the disappointing sales of, Activision was discouraged from publishing further titles for the Dreamcast and relinquished the distribution of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater on the console to Crave Entertainment. Following online speculation and teasing comments from company insiders, a port for the Dreamcast developed by Treyarch was officially announced on December 14, 1999 for a release in the second quarter of 2000. The N-Gage version was slated for an October 2003 release on May 16, 2003.
Tony Hawk Pro Skater
The game came bundled with the released in 2004. Ports The Nintendo 64 port of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was developed by Edge of Reality and released on March 15, 2000.
While the port is largely faithful to the original version and retains all game modes, characters and levels, the soundtrack had been truncated and the voices were removed to accommodate the lessened space in the cartridge format. The blood effects had also been removed. The Dreamcast version was developed by Treyarch, published by Crave Entertainment and released on May 24, 2000.
The graphics and animations in the Dreamcast version are improved from those in the PlayStation version. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater on Game Boy ColorThe Game Boy Color version was developed by Natsume and released on March 30, 2000. The Game Boy Color version is an adaptation rather than a true port of the PlayStation version due to the limited capacity of the platform. The game offers two different gameplay styles: an overhead view with vertical scrolling, and a side-scrolling view in which there is a ramp on each side.
There are four gameplay modes in which the player can only perform a few tricks. In 'Half Pipe Mode', the player must attempt to achieve the highest score possible. 'Tournament Mode' is a five-level vertical-scrolling game in which the player must race against three computer-controlled skaters and achieve the highest rank.
Jumps are made automatically when the player maneuvers onto ramps, and tricks are displayed as a brief static image. 'Versus Mode' and 'Rival Mode' are identical to 'Tournament Mode', except the player plays in a single level against a single opponent; the opponent in 'Rival Mode' is computer-controlled, while the opponent in 'Versus Mode' is human, which necessitates the use of a.The N-Gage version was developed by Ideaworks3D and released on October 13, 2003, a week following the launch of the N-Gage. The game is a faithful port of the PlayStation version and retains most of the characters, levels, control scheme and original music while adding levels from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 and two multiplayer games. The game's multiplayer functions via the N-Gage's feature. Reception ReceptionAggregate scoresAggregatorScore(SDC) 94%(PS) 94%(N64) 92%(N-G) 77%(GBC) 63%(PS) 92/100Review scoresPublicationScore(SDC, N64, PS)(PS) 8.38/10(PS) A(N64) 5/5(PS) 5/5(SDC) 9.5/10(PS) 9.3/10(N64) 9.1/10(GBC) 7.1/10(N-G) 6.8/10(SDC) 9.8/10(PS) 9.4/10(N64) 9.1/10(N-G) 8.8/10(GBC) 5/10Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was met with critical acclaim.
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Doug Perry of praised the game's 'imaginative, deep, and amazingly addictive' gameplay, 'steady and consistent' learning curve, 'intuitive and natural' controls, large and complex levels, 'jaw-dropping' physics and 'perfect' soundtrack. Perry concluded that the game had 'captured the pure grit and radical feel of skateboarding, delivering it in near perfect form onto the PlayStation with a mastery and sense of programming finesse beyond anyone's imagination', and described the game as 'that rare gem of a game that defies what other developers say can't be done.' Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot commended the game's graphics, framerate, camera and sound effects, and declared the game to be 'a worthy addition to anyone's PlayStation collection', though he was not personally fond of the soundtrack and wished that there was more variety in the game's tricks. He additionally noted that the Dreamcast version used the console's hardware to its advantage by displaying clearer textures and a smoother framerate 'that may very well cause longtime fans of the game to weep'.
Chris Carle of IGN also praised the Dreamcast version's improved textures.Matt Casamassina of IGN praised the Nintendo 64 version's visuals as 'very impressive' in spite of the reduced quality of the textures and the omitted full-motion video effects, and the audio as 'surprisingly clear', albeit compressed and 'dumbed down' to accommodate the cartridge format. Martin Taylor of cited the game's graphics as 'crisp, smooth and very, very hard to fault', but noted that the game's soundtrack suffered from the compression process and that the looping music 'quickly becomes incredibly annoying'; the latter sentiment was mirrored by Dr. Moo of Game Revolution.In reviewing the Game Boy Color version, Craig Harris of IGN decided that while the half-pipe portion of the game 'isn't half-bad', the overhead portion is 'absolutely stupid'; he criticized the representation of tricks as static images as 'completely destroying the flow of the game', and noted that the issue is exacerbated in the 'Versus' mode by having both parties' game pause when either one performs a trick. Frank Provo of GameSpot cited the game's lack of level variety and 'borderline mediocre' audio, but felt that it was the best skateboarding title to be made for a portable console. Both Chadd Chambers of IGN and Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot considered the N-Gage version to be the best game available on the system and were relatively impressed by the game's graphics, but noted the less comfortable control scheme and reduced sound quality.Blake Fischer reviewed the PlayStation version of the game for, rating it five stars out of five, and stated that 'Whether you're a hardcore skater or just a wannabe, this will satisfy. A must-have for anyone with a PlayStation.' Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was ranked #36 in 's 'Top 100 Games of All Time' in its 100th issue on August 2001.
The game was nominated for 'Console Game of the Year' and 'Console Sports Game of the Year' in the 2000, but lost to and 2000 respectively. The soundtrack has been noted as an influence on. Sales Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was the third highest-selling PlayStation title of November 1999 in the United States. From its release date to late-December 1999, the game shipped in excess of 350,000 units and was available in over 10,000 retailers nationwide.
The PlayStation version of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater received a 'Platinum' sales award from the (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 300,000 copies in the United Kingdom. The PlayStation versions of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and its successor were respectively the third and second highest-selling console games of 2000. The Nintendo 64 version was the sixth highest-selling Nintendo 64 title in the United States during the week of November 19–26, 2000. September 10, 2019. Retrieved September 19, 2019. Daniel Pardi. Retrieved April 18, 2018.
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^ 'The Making of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater'. Pp. 85–87. ^ Douglass C.
Perry (August 8, 2000). Retrieved April 5, 2018. Matt Helgeson (July 11, 2014). Game Informer. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
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^ Tony Hawk (2010). Pp. 36–38.
Mullen, Michael (January 14, 1999). Retrieved April 17, 2010. Fielder, Lauren (August 26, 1999). Retrieved April 17, 2010.
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Moo (April 1, 2000). Game Revolution. Retrieved April 20, 2018. ^ Frank Provo (March 30, 2000). Retrieved April 20, 2018.
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The skateboarding industry, much like the video game industry, is a massive web of marketing, of community, and of money – all with a deep well of young men and women’s aspirations fueling it along. They’re both massively popular industries now – the International Olympics Committee has finally acknowledged skateboarding’s cultural relevance – but it’s funny to think that, less than a decade apart, both experienced massive turmoil. The great video game crash of 1983, and the early ’90s crackdown on street skating threatened their lifeblood.But together, both worlds came together to make something incredible. It helped turn Tony Hawk, a once-down-on-his-luck pro skater, into a living legend and it turned Neversoft, a humble game studio full of rowdy, young developers, into a household name among gamers. 20 years ago this August. “My Life Seemed like it Had Some Potential Again”Through competitive skating, Hawk himself had become a sort of teenaged wunderkind in the late ’80s.
By the time he was 17 years old, Hawk’s annual salary surpassed that of his high school teachers, and he purchased his own condo before graduating. $20,000 royalty checks weren’t unheard of for Hawk by 1987, and the competition championships were plentiful, spurring more and more sponsorship deals. “Skateboarding wasn't something that I thought I could make a career out of, initially,” Hawk says. But, in the early ’90s, things came to a screeching halt. “The industry as a whole just struggled to maintain a certain level of interest. Vert skating, the format Hawk had made his name with, was mocked as basic or outright dead. With official skate parks still being difficult to come by for most, skateboarders flocked to public plazas and parks, spurring city officials and law enforcement to crack down on those they regarded as vandals.
As veteran skateboarder Steve Rodriguez told, the early ’90s were “when every security guy in Midtown New York had a pitbull and mace.” On a structural level, city planners also began to build public areas with anti-skating measures, which coincidentally enough doubled as anti-homeless measures. “The early nineties were really hard to make a living in skating”, Hawk says, “but I kept doing it, even though it was minimal pay, just because I still loved doing it.” To make ends meet, he took every opportunity he could. He’d consult on commercials, but none ever seemed to want to feature him actually skating. In time, Hawk’s company – originally known as Birdhouse Projects – gathered dedicated and high profile skaters to sell enough merch and gain enough notoriety for various sponsor deals.
The X-Games had debuted in 1995, turning the public eye to extreme sports with more backing than arguably ever before. In 1996, for the first time in a long time, Hawk was feeling like things were actually going to turn out okay. “My life seemed like it had some potential again, in terms of my career,” Hawk says. Even still, as the skateboarding community began to grow again, there were very few video games centered on the sport in the market, much less ones that could compete in the big-budget console market. Between 1997 and 1998, an independent PC coder approached Hawk with a rudimentary engine for a skateboarding game. He was excited by the prospect and decided to shop it around but the pair were met with stark refusals from company decision-makers.
Skating simply wasn’t big enough to warrant the budget investment, they were told. A considerably younger Take-Two Interactive presented Hawk with a more fleshed-out skateboarding game demo, but he felt it was too inaccessible for non-skaters. All the while, Hawk was “still just getting by.” Enter Activision, and the “frat house” boys at Neversoft. The Crazy Old DaysNeversoft co-founder and president Joel Jewett wants you to know that game development back in the ’90s was a completely different world. When you ask a former Neversoft employee what day-to-day life in the studio was like, including the former president, you almost always get an amused, slightly exasperated sigh, and then a few comments about the “crazy old days.” The studio’s legacy has long been infamous, but it took more than a frat house to build Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.
The way Joel Jewett tells it, half of the industry practices we take for granted these days were formed in or around Neversoft and the turn of the century. “You would do your work, and then you would eject a little floppy disk and go over to the other room and merge your work with one of the other team member's work on their PC, so there was no network,” Jewett says. “There was barely a fledgling internet out there that we'd heard about.”.
Jewett, now retired, mentions a recent Neversoft reunion party. Even five years after the studio finally shut down by burning their infamous, there’s still a deep sense of family and camaraderie running through its former workers. Jewett’s stewardship, along with the freewheeling but intense culture of the studio, most certainly saw to that. Neversoft was born out of the ashes of Malibu Interactive, formerly Acme Interactive. By the time Malibu Comics had acquired Acme, things were “disintegrating,” and multiple employees were beginning to form their own individual studios.
Jewett saw an opportunity and asked Malibu level artist Chris Ward and Malibu programmer Mick West to help him start a new company. The pair agreed, and Neversoft was formally born. Jewett kicked things off by buying a single, old Compaq PC for West, who would initially serve as the company’s programmer. On top of it all, Jewett’s first child was born within a month of the company’s founding.
In hindsight, he says that at least it helps him keep track of how long he’s been doing this kind of work. Neversoft’s first real contract ended up being for Playmates. No, not those ones. The ones that made Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys, which are still fun, but you get the idea. As a budding studio, Neversoft was just happy to have the work, and were soon working on a Sega Genesis adaptation of the Skeleton Warriors franchise. Things grew difficult for the team, which was gradually expanding in size as the next couple years went on. While Skeleton Warriors shipped and Neversoft found work developing a Ghost Rider game, it was canceled.
The crew then turned to their own new IP, “Big Guns,” which then became a victim of continual requests for revisions from Sony Computer Interactive Entertainment. A port for the first-person shooter MDK took longer than expected. “We weren't very well-organized and we had a bunch of talented people,” West says. “We were all kind of bouncing around and didn't have a strong schedule.” Again and again, Neversoft found itself up against a wall, and eventually had to reduce its staff.
“You've been in the games industry for a while you get used to things like that though, and you just pick up and move on and you see what's the next project and let's do that,” West adds. “But things turned around in 1997. Months of shopping around its technology and services eventually turned into an offer from Activision. The publisher’s work on the Bruce Willis action adventure “Apocalypse” wasn’t panning out, and Neversoft looked like a studio ripe for bringing it to fruition. “We nearly failed as a company just before Apocalypse,” West admits. “We nearly had to let everybody go because we were running out of money. We were going paycheck to paycheck in the company and we'd get monthly payments from the publisher.
When we found Apocalypse and got that going, we recognized Activision was good at giving us money, and so, yeah, it was something that kept the stability within Neversoft for the foreseeable future.”. Even if Neversoft effectively had to rebuild all of Apocalypse, at least it meant the team were getting work. At the same time, skateboarding was back on the rise thanks to young upstarts like Hawk and Birdhouse. Activision saw an opportunity and gave Neversoft the chance to bring to life a new skateboarding game.
Even better, it would largely have the freedom to make the game according to its own vision. “Back in those days, it was really hard to keep a company going and make a name for yourself, because to be frank, the publishers very often got in the way,” Jewett says. “The decision making progress process on the publishing side could kill the development, because they would change their mind all the time.” As the story goes, Neversoft repurposed Activision’s assets from Apocalypse for the new skateboarding game, including the 3D model of Bruce Willis, and built a downhill course for the model to skate down. This was to be its first demo to show if it really had what it took. Scott Pease, who at the time was working for Activision but acting as a sort of liaison to the Neversoft team, was incredibly excited for such an opportunity.
Tony Hawk Pro Skater N64
Pease was an avid skater throughout his youth and was almost definitely one of the first people between Activision and Neversoft to see this new game’s potential, having played earlier skateboarding games like 720 and the California Games series. Both Neversoft and Activision worked together to scout the skateboarding world for the face of their game, and it didn’t take long to figure out who that would be.
Activision set a meeting up. Tony Hawk was coming into the publisher’s offices for a demo. Pease and others at Activision had heard a rumor that Hawk was being pitched by Take-Two Interactive, so they had to be first. “So Tony rolls in, wearing like a t-shirt and cargo pants and it's like a boardroom full of suits,” Pease says. “And they start hitting him with the powerpoint. You know like ‘skateboarding is on the rise and da, da, da, video games.’ I was watching Hawk the whole time and I could just see him kind of sinking lower into his seat. Just like all these boring slides over and over and over again.
And then at the very end of the meeting, we get to roll in on a TV cart a TV with a PlayStation hooked up to it running Neversoft's demo.” Sensing his opportunity, Pease put a controller in Hawk’s hands and said, “Hey, give this a shot. This is what we're working on.' “Within moments, both Hawk and Pease knew they had something special. The engine literally had Bruce Willis as the character, on a skateboard, the gun strapped to his back, doing kickflips through the desert, Hawk says. “But I knew something was there.
I felt that it was intuitive. I felt that the gameplay was there, and it was fun to play, even if you didn't know how to skate.
That was the key for me.” By this point in development, Pease had written up an entire list of tricks Neversoft wanted to put into the game and showed it to Hawk. Pease’s list of tricks seemed to excite Hawk. “So, it was basically that day that I decided,” Hawk says.
“I'm going this direction. I would much rather go this direction than what Take-Two has to offer because this seems like it's much more appealing to a better, bigger audience, and more fun in the sense that you can do impossible tricks.' And so Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater was born.
The size of the payment Activision was offering “wasn’t huge,” as Hawk puts it, but it was one of the best deals he had been able to make since he crawled out of financial strife. So what if he had to teach most of the Neversoft guys about skateboarding? Work Hard, Play HarderFor Jewett, making something like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater was never once considered an obligation imposed upon Neversoft. “Even when we started making it, we considered it to be the opportunity of a lifetime, because it's basically making original content on a certain level, you know?” Jewett says. According to Jewett, one of the primary reasons Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater managed to succeed as quickly as it did was because every employee was encouraged to embed themselves in skating culture. Jewett himself had been riding skateboards since the early days of longboards in the ’70s, and Pease had grown up on it a number of years later.
As for the rest of Neversoft? “Do you skate?” was a question quickly added to the hiring process.
Things didn’t stop there. Jewett threw $3,000 of Neversoft’s budget (still a huge investment for the modest studio) towards building a skateboarding ramp outside the studio. Company outings were regular trips to Skate Street in Ventura, or just at Jewett’s own house. “As we interviewed people, they would have to be awesome at their job to get hired, if they couldn't skate,” Jewett says. “And we really tried to get them to be awesome at their job and skate.” The wild party mindset of Neversoft extended to antics that the games industry might look upon questioningly these days. West remembers betting a coworker a few hundred dollars that he could learn to kickflip before him. “It was your life when you were a young, male, computer programmer back in the day,” West says.
“You'd work long hours and you'd hang around in the office afterwards and do stupid stuff, like you'd build forts out of boxes and throw things at each other.”. Then there were the strip club visits.
In Neversoft’s earlier days, before employees were beginning to become parents, these weren’t that uncommon, West says. But through all the activities that might seem archaic now, Neversoft was also pioneering new practices. When you speak with Jewett about the heyday of Neversoft, he’s just as eager to talk about how he implemented a free lunch delivery program as he is to discuss skateboarding. There were also efforts to get team members to scout out real skateparks that could serve as inspiration for level designers.