Electronic Arts recently announced that it was returning to the beloved Skate franchise with “pre-pre-pre-alpha” gameplay footage and an open call out for closed beta-testers. This is exciting for a few reasons, not least of which is that the last Skate entry, Skate 3, came out over a decade ago. While there’s no set release date on Skate., that doesn’t mean fans of the series who can’t get into the closed beta have to go without.
The fact is, we’re living in the skate game renaissance right now. From games like the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 remake to OlliOlli World, skaters who love games and gamers who like skateboarding have lots of options to choose from indeed. Playing on PC or console yields results like Skater XL, SkateBird, and Session. One indie game in particular, Skate Story by Sam Eng, promises a skate experience like none other as it puts you in the fragile body of “a demon made of glass and pain,” who has to “skate through the underworld” and “swallow the Moon” to earn your freedom — but you have to wait until 2023 for that.
But what if you just want to play a skate game, right now, with little to no strings attached? What if all you have is your iPhone or Android cellular device? You’re tired of waiting for Skate. No more waiting! Well, don’t fret anymore: here are three rad skate games you can play right now on your phone.
Skate City
If you are an iPhone-haver with an Apple Arcade subscription or access to an Apple Arcade free trial, you can play Skate City right this second. And you should! Developed by Norse studio Agens and published by Snowman, Skate City is a chill sidescrolling street skate game which takes you through several major cities around the world, including Los Angeles, Oslo, Tokyo and Barcelona.
Skate City is by far the most complex game to play on the list, as it features a trick system similar to OlliOlli World, Skate and Session. But with full controller support even on mobile, customizable tricks and gear, multiple modes to play in each city (including a full-featured photo mode), and an extremely chill soundtrack, learning to play Skate City never feels too frustrating or technical.
One major note about Skate City, though: the full game is only on Apple Arcade. This means that PC and console players can only access LA, Barcelona and Oslo right now, and it’s not clear when the other cities (Miami and Tokyo) will be released.
The Ramp
Okay, so let’s say you’re looking for something a little bit more approaching the Platonic ideal of skateboarding. Let’s say you’re in the market for something minimalist, short, pick-up-and-put-down-able. Let’s say you’ve got a few bucks to spend, and oh – you’re NOT looking for another street skate game. This is a fairly specific request but the good news is, we can fulfill it!
The Ramp is a game – or maybe more accurately a digital toy – by German developer Paul Schnepf, aka Hyperparadise, and it is out on Android, iOS, Steam and the Nintendo Switch eShop. On mobile, the game is free to download, but if you want to unlock all the courses, including Danny Way’s Mega Ramp with the serial numbers sanded off, you’ll be paying a very, very reasonable $2.99.
This was a labor of love for Schnepf, who has been skating all his life. “[Skating] has been a source of inspiration and happiness ever since I pestered my parents to get me a skateboard for Christmas when I was 8 y/o and just played the demo for Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4,” Schnepf told No Escape. “After I got into making games it just felt natural to connect those two parts – games and skateboarding – that I both love very much.”
The Ramp’s existence as a minimalist digital toy as opposed to a more “complex” game, with a more diverse range of trick options, tracks, story, etc., was intentional as well. Schnepf told us, “There is something I love about reducing things to their pure essence. It kind of throws you back into childhood where you made up your own games and got fully immersed in the experience. Modern games often feel too cluttered and messy to me, so I’m trying to cut everything that isn’t strictly necessary.”
Part of this desire for a more pared-down experience also comes from the Grizzly Games (Islanders developer) co-founder’s sense of tension playing – or rather, not being able to keep up the time commitment for – 50+ hour AAA games. “I often found myself looking for experiences that I could complete in an evening, or at least jump in and out whenever I want, so I decided to create them myself,” he said.
Okay, but why is The Ramp a vert-focused skate game? Why no street elements? Turns out, this is on purpose as well! “I’ve been vert skating a lot in the early years of my skateboarding and back then always was sad about the fact that all skate games out there always focussed on street skateboarding,” Schnepf said. “I’ve always wished for a game that would properly capture the true sensation of skateboarding in a bowl or halfpipe.” And honestly, we think he’s succeeded in this goal.
However, as Schnepf himself says in the Steam storefront page for the game (where it is $5.99), “The Ramp captures the unparalleled feeling of real life vert skateboarding and that’s pretty much it. There is a lot this game doesn’t feature. What it offers you are the 15 minutes of flow that make a boring day great, at the price of a medium sized cinnamon pistachio latte to go.” In other words, what you see is what you get. Set your expectations accordingly, and have an incredible time!
Night Skate
In many ways, Night Skate is the synthesis of the chill street skate vibes in Skate City and the minimalist simplicity of The Ramp. For a small one-time fee, you can one-button your way to lo-fi, pixelated skateboarding bliss in this Game Boy-style sidescrolling endless skater.
Developed by brothers Clay and Luke Williams as Odd Animal Games, Night Skate got its start as a jam game called 4AM FOREVER, scoring 7th in GBJam 8, which ran on itch.io through the first week of September ‘20.
“I had just watched this lovely meandering movie called Skate Kitchen that made me super nostalgic about teenage summer evenings with friends on skateboards,” Luke said.
While Night Skate is technically a skate game, it found greater influence elsewhere, according to Clay. “We wanted our first game to be something pretty simple, so an endless runner seemed like a good place to start,” he said. “It was supposed to just be a way for us to practice making a game together, but we kinda fell in love with it as we went along.”
In addition to endless runners and sidescrolling platformers, Night Skate was also inspired by Game Boy games like Wario Land and Paperboy, as well as more modern titles like Celeste and Downwell. Since both Williams are musicians and producers in addition to being brand new game designers (Luke did music for the Reply All podcast and Clay is prolific on SoundCloud), their musical influences spread similarly far and wide.
“We have tons of game music inspirations, [like] Earthbound, Disasterpeace [and] Lena Raine, but I think we’re both pulling a lot from outside of games too,” Luke said. “I was listening to a lot of Beverly Glenn Copeland’s Keyboard Fantasies at the time.”
Night Skate is on both the Google Play store and Apple’s iOS App Store for $3. There are three levels (two of which are unlockable), no microtransactions, and tons of music and neat shaders to unlock (a la the different effects in Downwell). It’s extremely worth your time, and an eminently relaxing experience – easy to learn, but surprisingly complex to master.
So why are skate games so popular?
There are a lot of video games out there. A great many of them are very demanding on your time and energy. It’s become a whole genre: the “live service” game. If they’re not trying to take your time, they’re trying to take as much of your money as they can feasibly get from you through microtransactions. That isn’t what skate games are really about, though. (At least not yet. Fuck off with “Skate. is gonna be ‘free-to-play,’” EA.)
Skate games are some of the few games that are unabashedly themselves, games that allow themselves to be goofy and fun and unserious when everything is uniquely not fun, very serious, and… well, shit’s still goofy but in a decidedly more negative sense. Growing up playing games like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3, you had the ability to just kind of fuck around, with about zero risk of finding out. Skate City, The Ramp, and Night Skate are three games in a very similar vein.
As Luke Williams puts it, “I’m not very good at chilling, but I think it’s important to do, and games are good at helping me get there. 2022 is a nightmare! Skateboarding is a poetry of bodies and infrastructure, which is inherently political and full of radical potential.”
His brother Clay doesn’t mince words either. “I think we all need a good cruise from time to time, be it on an actual board or in a game.”