Skate Boardin’: A Radical Adventure

How to play Skate Boardin’ online

• Walk: arrow keys
• Get on the board: hold left or right arrow and press Space
• Jump: press Space while riding
• Crouch: hold Space; tap up or down while crouching to fine-tune your line
• Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
• Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it

Gameplay

The route to school is laid out like a maze, and the thirty obstacles are spread along it. A ramp counts when you ride it from bottom to top, standing or crouched; a “bing” tells you it worked. A tube only counts if you go through it crouched and lined up with the opening, and you hear a “bong” when you make it. Hit a wall, a rail or a hurdle and you fall off the board. Riding on grass slows you down.

To cover ground faster, you can “skitch”: grab the back of a passing truck and let it pull you along. The manual points to a truck that passes a stop sign near the top of the street. Move the joystick to let go. When the five minutes are up, or when you reach the front steps of the school, the game rates you by how many obstacles you left undone:

Tips

• Learn the map first. Five minutes is short. Use your first games just to find where the ramps and tubes are, then plan a route.
• Crouch early for tubes. Line up with the opening before you reach it and keep the button held all the way through.
• Stay off the grass. It slows you down; stick to paved surfaces whenever you can.
• Use the truck. Skitching is the fastest way to cross a long stretch of the map.

History

Skate Boardin’ arrived late in the 2600’s life, when skateboarding games were brand new: Atari Games’ arcade machine 720° appeared in 1986. Absolute Entertainment was founded by former Activision programmer Garry Kitchen, and David Crane, the designer of Pitfall!, later became its senior designer. A sequel, Super Skateboardin’, came out for the Atari 7800 in 1988, and the 2600 game was included in the Activision Anthology collection in 2002.