Sandbox
The classic mode. Every tool in the game, all the time in the world, no way to fail.
The Premise
You draw, he rides.
Or doesn't.
Three ways to ride.
Challenge
Learn to ride in real time with 50-some challenges, each harder than the last.
YOLO
What's the best line you can draw?
No canned tricks, no keycombos. Want a backflip? Make it happen.
p.s. it's insanely hard
Features
A bespoke physics engine with continuity enforcement keeps your timeline intact.
Sync any song to the timeline and drop on the drop.
Not a fan of the void? Draw in your room instead.
For us synth nerds: possibly the most over-engineered audio settings out there. Even the cables have knobs.
The Toolbox
Pencil
Draw track. Extrude a shaped profile along whatever path you move, freehand or in measured segments. Snap new lines onto old ones, lay down smooth curves, colour with patterns, and bake in the forces that push the rider along. Comes with its own eraser for snipping, splitting and trimming what you've made.
Paintbrush
Paint your track with more than just colour. The same brush lays down forces that shove the rider along or hold him at a set speed, magnetism that pulls him in, and musical notes that play the moment they're touched. Work up close with a sphere or reach across the scene with a beam. Trace a stretch by hand, or flood an entire line with a single press.
Chisel
Sculpt solid shapes out of thin air. Scatter points with the brush and a tight skin wraps around them, rebuilding live as you go. Add to a shape to grow it, sweep over it to carve it back down.
Stamp
Turn anything you've built into a reusable piece and place copies of it anywhere. Snap to a grid, stand it upright, or let it find the face that sits flush against the surface you're aiming at. Save your stamps, or place built-in shapes and special game objects.
Tweak
Reshape what's already there. Nudge individual points with a soft falloff so changes blend into the surrounding track, move whole sections as units, or pull faces outwards to extrude. Grab things directly or bring up a gizmo when you need precision. Mirror a selection across a plane to get the other half of a jump for free, or duplicate it outright and drop the copy somewhere else.
Camera
Film your track. Fly the camera through the scene and record the move, or place keyframes one at a time and let it glide between them. Set zoom, choose whether shots cut or flow, follow the rider, smooth out the shake, re-record just the part you got wrong, and export the finished shot to video.
World
Set the scene. Spray-paint the sky by hand or load a texture, then dial in fog, ground colour and sun position. Change gravity and air density to alter how the whole track rides, and add a soundtrack.
Library
Save your tracks, load them back, and keep them organised. Autosave runs in the background, preview images make everything easy to find, and demo tracks are there to pull apart and learn from.
Twenty years to a sequel
Five years ago, there was an exhibition for the 15-year anniversary of the release of Line Rider. The curator thought it would be fun if we made something new to show, besides all the things that had to do with the history of the game. First, I wanted to make an analog version of Line Rider with magnets, a rubber hose, two panes of glass and a plastic figurine. At that time I had just finished a VR art installation I was working on, and I thought to myself: what if I made a VR version of Line Rider instead? I really like VR, and I was really curious what a VR version of Line Rider would look like. It took me three months to make a prototype, which was then displayed at the exhibition, and because of the prototype and a series of events that followed, I got back the distribution rights for Line Rider, which meant I could work on and release the game. I couldn't start right away because I had some other obligations that I'd agreed to before this all happened, so after about a year I started working on this full-time. It took me four years to get to where the game is right now. It should be ready for release in a couple of months. It's not perfect, but there is always room for improvement — there just isn't enough time to make things perfect. And honestly, I think this is as far as I can take it by myself. I really need players to tell me what they want, so that I don't spend time developing features nobody will end up using. This is where you come in.
Unlike the original, I didn't make this one completely by myself. There were many people who helped me along the way. More specifically: Marcela Okretič, Janez Janša and Polona Torkar helped me get the funding at different stages, because I suck at bureaucracy. My friend Jaka Batič did the audio design, and Andrej Kobal did the music.
It took a lot of time and effort to get to this stage, but now I know what the VR version of Line Rider looks like. I hope you like it, and I plan on working on it as long as there are people playing it.
Have fun.
Get in before the doors open.
The game is coming soon, but if you want to be part of its development (beta
testing) you can say so in the Discord. You can also just come and hang out, ask any
questions you might have, or get support once the game is out.
See you there…
