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September 07, 2006

Meeting Announcement : Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Speaker: Leo Zuniga - Designer, Vicarious Visions
Topic: Tiny Tony: Delivering Console-Quality Gameplay on a Handheld Platform
Location: Brown's Brewing Company, 417 River Street, Troy, NY
Date: Wednesday, September 20th, 6-9 PM (Presentation 6:30-7:30)

Ever wonder how Vicarious Visions manages to cram all that delicious Tony Hawk gameplay into a convenient travel size package? Designer Leo Zuniga has the answers. Join us as he explains the process behind adapting a sucessful console design to a handheld platform.

If you want to enjoy a tasty meal or frosty beverage at the meeting, we've got the hook-up. Make sure you bring cash, though, and pay one of the coordinators before you go. Otherwise, we will be sad (and broke!) pandas. Don't forget to include 24% for tax and tip.

Read below for further details on Leo's talk and his bio:

How did Vicarious Visions manage to bring the fun and challenge of the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater franchise to Nintendo’s GBA - and then do it all over again with the Nintendo DS? VV’s time with Tony Hawk has been a positive experience resulting in many great titles. Having played a key role in developing the franchise at VV, I’d like to share some of that adventure with you.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, the franchise debut on the GBA, was met with great reviews and awards for technical achievement. Tony 2 was a big game to fit on the GBA. It took a lot of tricks coming from all three disciplines in order to keep true to the Neversoft formula.

Last fall, Tony Hawk’s American Sk8land DS met with similar praise and recognition. The DS is a different monster. It is more powerful, but the Tony Hawk series (now on its 8th iteration!) has done nothing but balloon over the years. As a result, there was still a lot of cramming and careful feature evaluation on our part. We spent a lot of time deciding which features would fit best in a “pick up and play” handheld game as well as considering which features were most important to new and old Tony fans. On top of that, we found ways to incorporate the touch screen and pioneer online play on the DS.

Bio:

Leo Zuniga, Game Designer, Vicarious Visions.
I started as a lowly tester for Activision QA for a little known title called Tony Hawk Pro Skater (1999). I was able to help VV during the
development of Tony Hawk 2 GBA and joined the company later in 2002. My latest project is Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam for the Nintendo DS.

Tester - Tony Hawk 1, 2 PSX
Production Tester - Tony Hawk 2, 3 GBA
Level Designer - Tony Hawk 4 GBA/PSX
Designer - THUG GBA, THUG 2 GBA, THAS DS, THDJ DS

Posted by IanStead at September 7, 2006 04:10 PM

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