Easter Eggs
Easter Eggs are little things that anyone working on the game sneaks in out of boredom or to be funny. Since these things are usually unnecessary, they have a tendency to get pulled. It pains me to say that my favorite Easter Egg did not make it into the game. In our snowboarding levels, we have some snowmen that are ready to be toppled and destroyed. One of my favorite people in the world, Sean Lantis, thought it would be funny if the snowmen frowned when you hit them. So after you crashed into a snowman and sent his head flying down the level ahead of you, you would see his head on the ground with a frowny face. But in the end, it came down to either the snowman makes a big poof when you hit him, or he frowns. No one likes a sad snowman. But a big huge burst of snow when you crush him, that is something everyone can enjoy.
- Stay tuned for weekly updates.
How did snowboarding come to be?
Snowboarding was something we were talking about when making TH: Ride. We made sure that our board controller was built to be able to handle any type of board sport. Once we decided to put snowboarding into the sequel, we all did a ton of research. We watched hours upon hours of snowboarding dvd's and youtube videos. A bunch of people here snowboard as well so we all had a rough idea of how we wanted it to play. The thing we knew that we had to get right was the big air. So that is the first thing we focused on. We wanted to be sure that it was fun to Flip, Barrel Roll, Spin, and Grab. Then make sure it was fun to do those in combinations. I am proud to say that we nailed it. Everyone starts out doing one backflip. Then they go for the double backflip. Then try to do a double backflip nose grab. Then adding spins and different types of grabs. The combinations are endless.
- Stay tuned for weekly updates.
What new game modes are in TH:Shred?
We added 3 new game modes including: Point Rush, Scoring Spots, and Survival. Point Rush is similar to Speed Session from last year but based on earning points. We upped the top speed and the player also gets a huge speed boost when the player performs their signature moment. Scoring Spots is composed of 5 little Trick Sessions. I love playing a small part of our levels over and over again, so this game mode was a no brainer to add. Survival is something from the old school arcade days. We give you 7 lives and your goal is to reach the end. Everytime you bail you lose a life. This gets pretty intense when you are down to your last life.
- Stay tuned for weekly updates.
What is new in Challenge Mode?
We made a pretty big overhaul to Challenge Mode this year. Last year, there were only 5 challenges in each level. This year we have 5 Easy, 5 Medium, 5 Hard, and 3 Insane Challenge for a total of 18 per level. We added a few new types of challenges as well. We have checklist challenges which allows the player to perform their tasks in any order that they want. Just complete the checklist. We also added an "Impress the Videographer" challenge to each level. There are a bunch of cameraman located around each level that you need to do a trick in front of in order to impress them. Impress a certain amount in one run and you complete the challenge.
- Stay tuned for weekly updates.
How do you pick the environments
There is quite a lot that goes into selecting an environment. In the beginning, level designers and artists come up with a list of all the possibilities for levels. They focus on levels that are interesting, fit our style of gameplay, and visually look cool. We then have meetings where people pitch their level ideas to everyone. The best part of this process is ideas feed into each other. For example, someone pitched the idea for New Orleans while another person pitched an idea for a Parade. Both of these ideas are great so we took what we liked about the Parade and put it into New Orleans. Doing tricks off of the giant alligator float is one of the coolest parts of that level.
- Stay tuned for weekly updates.
