July 30, 2008

From School Project to Nintendo Wii and DS; Chris Keenan Talks Line Rider 2: Unbound
By Louis Bedigian

“We like to think of the online game as the demo for the retail versions.”

Line Rider began as a school project by a Slovenian University student named Bostjan Cadez. But after going online, first at deviantart.com, the game achieved something much bigger. “Once [Bostjan Cadez] put it up on deviantart.com, it started to generate a huge grassroots following,” said Chris Keenan, Producer and Lead Designer of Line Rider 2: Unbound. “Since it’s such a unique and addictive game, it quickly grabbed attention from media and other fans. I saw my roommates playing it one night and got hooked immediately. The next day the entire office was playing it.

Wii Version

"Our CEO, Brian Fargo, saw this and wondered ‘what is this game that’s taken down the productivity of the entire office?’ He immediately saw that it would translate perfectly to systems like the Wii and DS and spoke with Bostjan the same day about putting it on the consoles. After a week, he came back and told us to start writing design documents on it.”

Why all the attention? Why is everyone so excited about one school project? Keenan explains: “The idea behind Line Rider is very simple. You use the tools available to draw lines that the rider will follow based on physics. The first mode is edit where you craft your track or story. Then you press play and based on physics, the rider will take off down your creation. Since there are virtually no rules, there are minimal limits to the types of play that you can have with it. A few talented fans began to create actual stories out of these tracks and put them on YouTube set to music. After that, Line Rider blew up and thousands upon thousands of tracks were shared.”

Wii Version

The game runs heavily off the player's ability to draw lines, but physics were added to make the experience more realistic and more challenging. How are you taking those ideas and bringing them to the Wii and DS? What elements are being expanded upon?

Chris Keenan: We started with the core of Line Rider and continued to build upon that. At its base level of functionality, you need to be able to use tools to create a line, and then press play to watch your rider go down the track. This really opened up the doors for us to be extremely creative in our design. Since Line Rider is so unique, we had the opportunity to basically start from a blank slate. We dissected what it is about the freestyle mode that people love and focused our development on bringing those features to the next level. We also knew that it was a great style of play to create a game out of which is where story mode and puzzle mode originated.

Once we saw how much people enjoyed sharing their creations, we knew immediately that we needed to freely allow this to happen with Line Rider 2. Previously, fans would create a track in the flash version (available on www.linerider.com), find some type of video recording software, add in a music track, record it and then put it on YouTube. This process was fairly convoluted and was only possible by the most technically knowledgeable Line Rider players.

In Line Rider 2: Unbound, we offer players the opportunity to share tracks in a very simple manner. From within the Wii, DS or PC, players will be able to sync their system up to www.linerider.com  where they will have a free personal page. They can then upload and download tracks, puzzles, clip-art and fonts (fonts are PC only) that they create and share them with other Line Rider players. This will create massive amounts of user generated content that extends the play time to the communities involvement. One benefit of this is that players who aren’t extremely artistic can make amazing looking tracks by downloading user created clip-art and add it to their track.

On the PC you use a mouse – now gamers will be using their Wii remotes or DS styluses to draw their lines. How does this change Line Rider? Have you found that each control type needs to be implemented differently to create an equal experience on all platforms?

CK: One major focus of ours was making sure that each input felt great to use. The mouse is a given since this was how the original was played. The DS stylus is an extremely natural way to play since it’s basically pen on paper. The Wii was our biggest challenge and I wanted to make sure we had this down first before moving on to features. When designing it, I knew that the test was being able to write my full name in cursive on screen. I’ve played too many Wii games where the washy controls make the game frustrating, at best. I’m extremely happy with how it turned out.

To make it easier, we created features that would support these types of inputs. One example of this is the curve editor. You can draw a line, grab control points on the line and modify it in ways to create a smooth curve. I’ve found in our focus testing that most people, once they start using the curve pencil, tend to stick with it since it generates a smooth surface for Bosh (that’s the riders name) to ride on.

DS Version

Speaking of changes, what are some of the major differences between playing the game now online and playing the sequel on Wii, PC or DS later this year?

CK: We like to think of the online game as the demo for the retail versions. Once you get the idea behind the current online version, you understand the basics of Line Rider 2. This is the starting line for what you can expect from the Wii, DS and PC versions. The freestyle mode was the easy part in our eyes. The amount of design ideas that we had for this was unbelievable. I still have a 14 page bullet-pointed design document of ideas that didn’t make it into this version for various reasons. Development on this title was different from anything I’ve done before since we essentially created a set of tools for the player to generate their own content.

One example is the idea of layers. The beta version online worked on a 2D plane and had a 2D feel. We added a series of layers that you can use in your creations that have a parallax effect to them. The layers in the background s croll slower then the ones in the foreground. This creates a 3D feel that the players can control. Now the rider can go behind objects or through tunnels. Another feature that we added to spice it up was the personality driven finish lines. Most flash tracks had the rider crashing at the end of simply coming to a stop. This was very anticlimactic. Now, you can draw a finish line and set any number of animations for the rider to use. The finish line will slow the rider and he will perform that animation at the end. If you have a sad theme to your track, you can have the rider get off and mope around, with his head held low. If it’s a lighthearted track, the rider will leap off the sled and play the air guitar.

Will the Wii remote be used solely as a drawing device? Or are its other motion capabilities (shaking, waving, etc.) being considered?

CK: The Wii remote is your drawing20device and is also used to navigate the menus. This isn’t done through pointing, but rather by waving the remote. We learned early in development that this was the quickest way to allow users to quickly access their tools for track editing.

What about the touch screen controls on the DS version? Talk about those.

CK: The biggest issue with the DS touch screen was the size. We had to make collapsible menu’s to try to minimize the amount screen space that was used up by UI. Once we developed our prototype on the DS, the team was a bit giddy. The DS is such a natural fit for a game like Line Rider.

Line Rider 2 will incorporate colors this time around. How will these play a role in what you can – and perhaps can't – draw?

CK: The colors in Line Rider have a dual purpose. Each line type has a graphical image and a color associated with it. When in edit mode, you can see what types of lines you’ve placed based on the color and the on screen representation of that line. When in playback mode, they serve an aesthetic purpose. Players can add color to their tracks to help them come alive on screen. Users can set markers throughout their track to work on specific sections and choose to add colors or stay with the traditional black lines if they want. We’ve also included a few different backgrounds that can set the scene really well. One of my favorites is the outer space background. We’ve made some pretty unreal tracks with the Line Rider hitting light speed and bouncing around stars.

Are any new physics being added?

CK: We wanted to make sure that we followed the same physics as the flash version. Bostjan really did a great job and we didn’t want to mess with something that worked so well. What is intriguing is that players started to learn new tricks based on the way that the sled interacted with certain lines. If you’ve seen any of the YouTube videos where it looks like the rider is bouncing around the track, not on a line, this was an exploit that was not intended in the system. Clever users found this through experimentation and it provided some compelling results. Someone gave it a name and the Gravity Well was born. Our team is excited to see what the users find through interacting with the system we’ve created. I have no doubt that there will be discoveries like the Gravity Well that we didn’t originally intend on when playing through the game.

Tell us about the new types of lines you'll be able to create.

CK: One of my favorite lines is the breakable line. This line doesn’t have collision on it so the rider will go straight through it when he hits the line. At the point of impact, the line will explode into little pieces that fly around the screen. The breakable line works great when making scenery that is destroyed when Bosh sleds past it or even to add colored effects to your creation. The trapdoor line tends to be a favorite of those that have played the game. After the rider goes over a section of this line, it will disappear behind him. Fans can create trap doors that will open up and reveal new areas of the track by using this line. It also has a very cool particle effect that tends to spice up the tracks.

DS Version

A puzzle mode was included with the mobile version of Line Rider. What game modes do you plan to offer with Line Rider 2?

CK: We have three modes in Line Rider 2 and a content sharing section. Freestyle mode is similar to the flash ‘toy’ mode. There are limited rules and users can create whatever types of environments and stories they would like. Story mode is the game mode. We designed a puzzle game where we create tracks and the user must get from the starting point to the finish by filling in green region areas with different types of lines. It’s all about line selection, placement and angle.

All of the story mode tracks were created by the revolutionary Line Rider player TechDawg. If you aren’t familiar with his work, check him out on YouTube. He still constantly amazes us with his innovation. The puzzle mode gives the players a chance to create their own puzzles that they can challenge other fans with. There is a kicker before they can be uploaded to LineRider.com though; they must be solved by the creator first.

I had a designer challenge me to finish a puzzle he made. I stayed after work until 3am trying to finish it but couldn’t quite get it. The next day I asked him, “how the *#@! do you solve this?” He looked at me blankly and said, “I haven’t.”

Will Line Rider 2 get a disc release on all platforms (Wii, PC and DS), or have you thought about using the WiiWare service?

CK: Line Rider 2 will get a disk release for all platforms. For the future we aren’t closing off any of our options at this point, but there isn’t anything in the works for the immediate future.

Finally, Line Rider had a promo going with McDonald's. Are there any others in the works for Line Rider 2?

CK: The McDonald's promo was pretty exciting for us. It certainly puts the social impact that the game has had into perspective. The creative director at McDonalds advertising agency was a huge fan of Line Rider. Personally, I’m not sure if there is anything else in the future with Line Rider promotion. I don’t tend to focus on that part of the game business. I’m just happy that I get to make games.

Thank you for your time.

CK: Thank you!

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