NOCLIP Pocket E45 - God of Gamers - OlliOlli

NOCLIP

Frontside Varial Podcast Welcome back to the show this week! Today, we’re going to be talking about OlliOlli. This is a skateboarding game from 2014 that approaches the genre in a different way than it’s usually handled. While still definitely showing an arcade style high score type of design, your run will end as soon as you bail, enforcing an almost Meat Boy or Hotline Miami style of iterative gameplay, where you repeat a level over and over until you get that “perfect” run. This means that even the early levels can be an intense experience, and when compounded with the controls, which have you performing tricks by inputting a sequence of directions on the analog stick (not unlike fighting game special moves), the game definitely presents a system that is difficult to master, but satisfying once achieved. Given that, the biggest hurdle for this game to clear is whether or not it contains the breadth of content necessary for most people to want to actually make it to that level. We’re going to be talking about the value the difficulty brings to the game, how music can help motivate players, and lament the fact we were never forced to pull out the claw grip. Thank you for joining us for this episode on a game that is a staggering seven years old at this point. My opinion on this game kinda flipped since first playing it nearer its release, and it feels a lot more interesting these days. How do you feel about this game? Did you make it to the level of mastery we could only speculate on? Do you also think high level play of a pretty simplistic overall game is a cool thing? Does the sequel fix the issues we perceive as being present in this one? Let us know over on our discord or in the comments. Next time, we’re going to be talking about Oxenfree, a narrative adventure game with a focus on puzzles and dialogue, making it about as unrelated to this game as it can be. We hope you’ll join us for that.