Many games allow players to get creative using inbuilt tools. Maps. Characters. Even whole games, built within other games. But how many of us don't bother? No matter how easy the tools are to use, we know other people have more time, energy, skill, and desire to put us to shame. There is, perhaps, no better demonstration of this than Line Rider.
Funstrations
Line Rider is incredibly simple to get your head around. You draw lines which a guy on a sled follows until he crashes. Slopes, jumps, walls, whatever you threw at him, he'd try and tackle, his momentum carrying him as far as the underlying physics would allow.
But it was also a Flash game, and in 2020, you've got to hunt them down. I was able to play the Beta for Line Rider salvaged from the Internet and preserved as part of Flashpoint, an effort to keep old Flash games and animations alive, well after the death of Flash itself.
To give you an idea of how far Flash has fallen, and how much we've all forgotten about it, I'm using Flashpoint 6.1 when the latest version is already Flashpoint 8.0. I need Flash so little in my life that even the efforts to preserve it are being forgotten.
And yet Line Rider stands firm in our memories.
Why is that? All we ever did on it was draw a few lines, hit play, watch the rider fall over and call it a day. I was bored after just a few minutes here, but I was bored for one reason above all others: I knew I'd never had the time, patience, or even need to put in the insane amount of effort required to make Line Rider sing.
Search YouTube for Line Rider and you'll find videos stretching back years of increasingly elaborate, gargantuan runs. Often accompanied by music that coincides with the action on screen, each jump and landing occurring on the beat, when a line (or a few thousand of them) is drawn by the hand of a skilled, devoted artist, Line Rider is like nothing else.
I got bored of Line Rider because a very dedicated few are not, and it's hard not to compare your pathetic efforts to their insane creations.
Final Word
If you can find a version of Line Rider that doesn't exist on a Nintendo console, play around with it before searching YouTube. I know that's quite hard when I've embedded an hours-worth of Line Rider just a few paragraphs above, but do try - because playing Line Rider afterwards is a whole lot different.
I remember my experiences with mid-noughties Flash games. I know the classics. I admire the oddities. And I know that even then, I didn't spend any great length of time with Line Rider.
You get back what you put it, I guess. I never put much in, and seeing what I've seen of Line Rider since, I know I never will.
Fun Facts
The creator prefers to describe Line Rider as a 'toy', rather than a 'game'. Clearly, the editors of the 1001 list beg to differ.
Line Rider, developed by Boštjan Čadež, first released in 2006.
Version played: Line Rider Beta 2, Flash, 2006, via Flashpoint.