More money and a bigger team aren’t always the recipe for success. We’ve seen plenty of indie-developed games that can easily compete with the big studios… within their limits. When a studio – like Roll7 – gets the chance to remove these limits awesome things could be happening. OlliOlli World is the vision the Roll7 team had when they made OlliOlli in 2014.
Welcome to the world of OlliOlli
Despite having to compromise due to lack of resources in 2014, OlliOlli turned out as a great game all about skating epic lines. The stripped-down aesthetics of the original game made the gameplay stand out even more. Back in 2014 and later on with the second OlliOlli, the gameplay had a great sense of flow making it an indie hit for both skate fans and platforming fans. For those uninitiated in the world of OlliOlli, the concept of the game is quite simply the same as any platformer. You have a 2d world you need to traverse. In OlliOlli you are traversing on a skateboard. This means the “platforms” are all made up of skateable objects. Jumping is replaced by ollie-ing. Getting from start to finish is the base goal but doing it in style is what it’s all about.
Performing grinds, manuals, flip tricks, and grab tricks will earn you points. Connecting all these tricks in a combo adds to your multiplier to skyrocket your score on the online leaderboards. Besides these leaderboards, each level features some specific challenges you can try to complete. Once you start a level you’re more or less on a rollercoaster. Timing your jumps just right and sticking the landing or hitting that rail at the right time is essential to get through the level. In a game where every mistake is an instant fail, good controls are crucial. OlliOlli uses twin-stick controls to do pretty much everything making it easy to control but hard to master. The simplicity of the controls helps add to the flow of the game.
Enter OlliOlli World
With 2 successful iterations of OlliOlli under their sleeves, Roll7 only wanted to make a third game in the series if they could make their original intended game without compromising. Luckily Roll7 is now part of “Private Division” which meant more funds and more people could be used to make the vision for what would become OlliOlli World become a reality. The changes made to the original concept are huge while still retaining the core of what made the original two games so addictive. Gone is the minimalistic pixel art featured in the original games. The vibrant “adventure-time-like” style introduced immediately sets apart OlliOlli World from its predecessors. Instead of calling this entry OlliOlli 3 they went with OlliOlli World indicating this is more or less a “soft reboot” of the series instead.
Reaching Gnarvana
OlliOlli World is the first game in the series to have a real story. You enter the skate utopia of Radlandia because you might just be the next skate wizard Radlandia needs. With the help of a small crew, you’ll go through the 5 biomes featured in Radlandia. Each biome is featured around a specific theme and is the home of one of the skate godz (yes with a Z because… Rad and stuff…). If you conquer every skate location in a biome you’ll get one step closer to reaching Gnarvana through the help of the skate godz you impressed. Getting all 5 of them is the ultimate goal but it’ll take you a lot of tries and some serious nerves.
Accessible for everyone
The developers aimed to make OlliOlli World much more accessible for new players while still maintaining enough challenges for veterans of the games. The way they did this was by introducing branching paths. These different paths can be taken by “switching lanes” at the appropriate time and feature “gnarly” routes that are much harder than the main route. Since these are optional you can decide to opt-out and just finish the level the normal way. I’m one of those veterans of the first games. I took the more sketchy routes in order to test out the OlliOlli skills I amassed over the years. The sense of fulfillment you get when you stick one of those routes still fills my heart. OlliOlli World is more forgiving for new players if they stick to the standard route but can still be as challenging – and even more challenging – than ever before if you go for the “gnarly” routes.
Introducing half pipes and customizable characters
Making OlliOlli world a 2.5D game already opened up the way for branching paths but more new elements were added for extra variety. With wall rides, crystal jumps, intricate grindable objects, and many staircases, the game is already filled with awesome skateable options. All these “spots” open up a world of tricks to be pulled off. More than 100 tricks are added to the game to make combos unique with each run you attempt. Another thing added to this game is halfpipes. These act as transitions to break the traditional left to right routes letting you skate the background/foreground giving the levels much more “space” than ever before. With each run, you can earn more items to customize your character to show off in online play.
Online play
Completing the game – something I managed in about 10-12 hours – doesn’t mean the game is done. Completionists among us can go for each challenge indicated with a gold star on the map. More competitive players can start going for that high score on the online leaderboard. The game even entices you by giving you a rival to beat. Reaching Gnarvana opens up a whole new set of extra hard challenges adding to the list of things to do in the game. Mind you, these are not for the faint of heart. Gnarvana opens up randomly generated levels to try essentially making the game endless. You can also try to “battle” online with other players on of the “godly” inspired levels earning you all sorts of extra to customize your character (and to brag with).
Conclusion
OlliOlli World is by far the best version in the OlliOlli franchise. The game looks finger-licking good without ruining the original flow that made the first games so great. New players will easily pick up the controls and have a great time. Seasoned players will surely have enough challenges through the gnarly routes and by completing the different challenges. A must-have for any skate and/or 2D-platforming fan.
