The Newest Time Waster: Line Rider

The Newest Time Waster: Line Rider

It all started as an assignment for an illustration class. User ~fsk created a simple flash game where "...users "draw" their own ramps, hills and slopes with a pencil tool and then send a virtual sledder along the route until he swoops, swerves and crashes." According to deviantART.com, who hosts the game, more than four million people have viewed the game so far and over 325,000 have downloaded it. Interestingly enough, user ~fsk says Line Rider is not a game because there are no goals to achieve and there is no score. Yet, millions of people are creating unique paths that are showing up on YouTube and various video blogs. Paths range anywhere from 45 degree angles to a detailed roller coaster ride with obstacles, bridges, and tunnels.

After I read this TIME article, I decided to try it out myself. I basically view this as a constructivist approach to physics. You eventually learn how to create lines and curves that will make the virtual sledder keep sledding instead of falling over. If a line is too steep, your virtual sledder will topple over and its back to the drawing board with your newfound knowledge. It is all about predicting where the sledder will land after going down the line that you drew or after a loop you created. It's fascinating just watching the sledder and seeing what he'll make of the path you created. I can see how you can get lost in something like this!

I went on to You Tube and searched for Line Rider and there were 2,174 Hits. It's pretty amazing what people are doing with this simple interactive Flash game. Here are some examples that I thought were pretty cool: Line Rider and Half Pipe