Skate Story (2025)

Article: Skate Story - Shooting For The Moon by Charles Harte

“I have always liked [Orpheus’ story of] going down through Hell,” Eng says, referencing the tragic Greek myth. In it, Orpheus travels to the underworld to lead his love Eurydice back to the surface world, but right before they make it home, he turns back and looks at her, breaking a deal he made with Hades to trust that she was behind him. It’s been adapted into fiction many times; Eng likes the song “Awful Sound (Oh, Eurydice)” by Arcade Fire, for example. He also says, “I think I was really inspired by Terry Cavanaugh’s game, Don’t Look Back, which is like a really short Flash game. I remember playing that when I was first starting developing games 10, 12 years ago, and then being like, ‘Wow, this is super awesome.’”

Structurally, Skate Story is based on the layers of Hell depicted in The Divine Comedy, Dante’s narrative poem from the 1300s. The Skater must make their way through several layers of Hell to reach the Devil and (hopefully) get their soul back. Eng actually went as far as reading an English version of the poem (translation done by Michael Palma in 2024) that retains some of the poetic meter and rhyme to make sure he understood his reference material. It influenced more than just the worldbuilding. Eng says he wrote an outline to map out his story but then decided to match Dante’s Inferno, putting it in poem form, with one poem following each chapter.

Article: Skate Story Review - Poetry In Motion by Marcus Stewart

Score Report: 8 / 10

As Skate Story’s credits rolled, I wasn’t totally sure what to make of it. Despite its imperfections, I knew I liked it, but I struggled to articulate why. I won’t pretend that every metaphor or symbol resonated with me or even made sense. It’s a deeply poetic journey, and the way to enjoy any good poem is to focus more on how it made me feel rather than any literal interpretation. In that sense, I’ll fondly remember the awe I felt admiring this imaginatively conceived underworld, the adrenaline rush of barreling through courses as a shining beacon of defiance and perseverance, and the thrill of hitting stunts so sick that entire celestial bodies shatter at my awesomeness.