Biodroid looks to make a massive impact, bringing BMX and skate-based MegaRamp licence to mobile

It’s often easy to dismiss mobile games as the poorer cousin of the 'big boys' on consoles and PC - the low prices, low(er) costs, and smaller development teams giving credence to such an opinion.

But that opinion does a disservice to the amount of work that goes into mobile development, as I found out when I visited Portugal-based studio Biodroid in Switzerland for the Freestyle.ch event.

The team wasn't there for a sunny holiday by the Alps, though.

For one thing, we were nowhere near the Alps. Instead, we were on on a research mission to nail down the details of how Biodroid's upcoming iOS, Android, PlayBook / BBX, and Windows Phone game based on the skating / BMX sensation MegaRamp should look, feel, and sound.

Given Biodroid offered to give surfing lessons to the programmer of its previous title Billabong Surf Trip to ensure he properly got the feel of riding the waves, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the company is deadly serious when it came to recreating what goes into the sport.

As an officially licensed product of the event Danny Way created (he’s the skater who jumped the Wall of China, if you didn’t already know), MegaRamp is unusual for a sporting title in that it revolves around multiple disciplines performed on the same gigantic structure.

Literally, a mega ramp...

Standing at the top of the smaller 'Mini-MegaRamp' was scary enough for me, and it's this terror the team is hoping to replicate with a first-person replay system, complete with the unmistakable sound that both the skateboards and BMX bikes makes as they thunder down the slope.

"We want it to be more Skate than Tony Hawk's," Biodroid producer Ricardo Flores told me, as we watched the first of the heats get underway.

But, the development team wasn't just standing back and watching from the sidelines.

Instead, the Biodroid chaps were chatting with the guys behind MegaRamp in the VIP area over lunch and noting down ideas from the pro skaters and BMX riders between runs.

After the heats had finished - which saw some incredible tricks and grabs thanks to the elevation that MegaRamp gives its skaters and riders - Pierre-Luc-Gagnon, who went on to win the event, told me he was excited and "looking forward to working on the game", a sentiment shared by everyone I met at the event.

A number of the big-name athletes from both disciplines are already signed up to the game, with each set to perform motion capture sessions for the team at a later date.

Interestingly, Flores revealed that he not only wanted the game to recreate the tricks and unique moves of the riders, but also to capture the reactions after bailing - the disappointment of a trick gone wrong as well as the elation of nailing a move.

This extra attention is being paid not just to the athletes, but also to the locations, which span the various places in the world where MegaRamp competitions have taken place.

So, the two wind socks of the ramp will be faithfully recreated, while the air pressure and humidity of China, one of the key locations the team want to put into the game for obvious reasons, will also play a factor as to the height and distance your competitor can reach.

"It's got to be authentic," Flores told me.

And if the attention to detail the team has put into the pre-production stages of the game is anything to go by, I wouldn’t bet against MegaRamp pulling off an impressive move on mobiles when it's released sometime next year.

In the meantime, you can find out more about the MegaRamp events via its website, or check out a video about the game (English sub-titles) below.

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