Skate City Version 1.9 just rolled into town!
The latest update offers over 30 new items to unlock in this first addition to our Skate Shop so you can hit the streets with a style that suits your mood. We love working with artists both local and abroad and we’ve got a stellar line up of creators that we’ll be introducing you to over the coming week. The visual artists behind these new designs are Gina Kiel, Eloise Dörr, Lauren Mowat, Patrick Sison, James D. Try, Shae Humphries, John Soleas, and Owais Akhtar.
Two of these artists, Owais Akhtar and John Soleas, are part of the Snowman team. Owais was following the development of Skate City for years before joining Snowman, only to end up as a Junior Producer at the studio! Being able to contribute art to this update is very near to his heart as he explains, “These deck designs are inspired by melding my childhood of skateboarding, my student life as a fan of Snowman, and my adult life as a Producer. I hope our fans love these decks as much as I enjoyed making them.”
John Soleas adds, “Skate City does a beautiful job of converting the stark beauty of urban sprawl into a skateboarding playground. As an illustrator, I am constantly exploring the intersection between the viscerally human and the cold compartmentalization of machinery. What better way to show this than with some broken bones and the raw mechanical workings of an engine.”
For some artists like Eloise Dörr, they have plenty of experience making art about skateboarding and even on physical skate decks, but creating designs for a video game posed a fun, new challenge! Eloise mentions, “this was a really interesting project to apply my prior knowledge to a completely different and unique outcome. I’m really looking forward to seeing the designs in the game!”.
After hearing how many of you fell in love with the original Skate City soundtrack, we couldn’t wait to bring you more lo-fi beats to vibe out to. Each run will feel renewed as you get in the groove of 28 new tracks by Norwegian artist and producer, Type.raw.
With musical influences deriving from genres like Boom bap and Soul, the production of Tomas Wuttudal, AKA Type.raw, is a perfect fit to expand on the sonic atmosphere of Skate City. He was introduced to us through the producer, Intact Beats, and adds that becoming involved with Skate City was made even more meaningful by the fact that it was created by developers in his own country of Norway.
As a 90’s skater kid, Tomas recalls his memories of how he fell in love with skate games noting, “I remember going to my local game shop and asking for THPS 2 every day until it came out, and bought it on release day.” Since Tony Hawk Pro Skater was an inspiration behind Skate City, it’s exciting to work with artists and musicians who share similar feelings of nostalgia for the very era that the game pays homage to.
You’ll also be happy to know that we’ve made improvements to the lighting system so you’ll never miss a detail of your environment — even after the sun goes down! For many players, the lack of visibility was an added layer of difficulty, but we’re happy to announce that sunny days will now feel warmer, and cool night rides will feel crisper with enhanced vision.
As part of our Skate City summer series, we’ve got even more in store for you over the coming months. You can keep up with the news on our social media channels at @skatecitygame as we get closer to rolling out much more content this summer.
Play Skate City, only on Apple Arcade: https://apple.co/-SkateCity
