Line Rider Walkthrough

Line Rider is an entertaining and unique BMX game that allows you to make and play on a track you design yourself. This is far from the typical BMX game in that you don't actually control your character as it rides along the track you constructed. Instead, you will be controlling your character using the track itself. Draw lines in any formation you like and then click play to see how the track works. You can stop the run any time you like to make any adjustments you want to make and then try again. This is the ideal game for any BMX game fans who are looking to do something a little different and a little more creative than what they would be asked to do in most of the other BMX games online.

There are other design your own track bike games online, but few offer the detail and the playback options you get with Line Rider. Designing a track is also a bit more complex with this game than in many of the other BMX games that follow the same basic premise. The advantage this game offers is that everything you need is laid out in a very basic, simple way so finding the tool you need when you need it isn't really difficult. There isn't a wealth of information scattered all over the screen because all of the tools you need to create your track are shown at the top of the game screen. Using the tools can be a bit more difficult, but once you've experimented a bit, you should be able to get the hang of using them.

The first tool you have at the top of the screen is the 'pencil' tool. The pencil tool is one of the most important tools in Line Rider. It allows you to draw free hand lines and curves. With that said, there are a few things to keep in mind when you're getting ready to draw. If you draw a line from left to right, the line will be a 'floor'. If you draw a line from right to left, the line will be a ceiling. The difference here is important. You will be able to ride over a floor, but you will not be able to ride over a ceiling. To help clarify, the creators of this game have color coded the line. Each line will actually be two lines on top of one another - one line colored and one line black. Your rider will be able to move over the colored line but not over the black line. Keep this in mind when you're designing. Holding down the 'shift' key while you're drawing will reverse the floor/ceiling order to make designing a bit easier. The line tool is basically the same as the pencil tool except it draws a perfectly straight line and will not make curves.

The erase tool in Line Rider is pretty self explanatory, but its probably a tool you'll be using a lot in the beginning. If you aren't happy with the way a line looks or what it does, you can just click on the erase tool and get rid of the line. To the right of 'erase' is 'zoom'. Zoom can be quite helpful if you're working on a large or detailed track. The hand tool is also quite beneficial as it allows you to click anywhere on the game screen and drag the screen so you can see it better. Next up, we have play and stop. Click play to begin the playback and stop to stop playback. Pretty simple. To the right of 'stop' is the flag icon. 'Flag' allows you to save the position of your player and the speed at which they're traveling at any time during playback. You can use this feature to make changes to your track or just to chart your progress as it will allow your rider to start from that point the next time through instead of forcing them to start from the beginning. This is an excellent addition to the game and is something you won't find in most of the other design your own track BMX games online. Finally, we have 'save' and 'trash'. These ones are pretty easy - save allows you to save your track and trash allows you to clear your entire track and start over.

There are several keyboard shortcuts in Line Rider that will help you design a little more efficiently. Instead of having to click on each new tool, you can use the keyboard shortcut instead. Pressing 'q' will select the pencil tool, 'w' will select the line tool, 'e' will select the eraser tool, 'r' will select the zoom tool, 't' will select the hand tool, 'y' will begin playback, 'u' will stop playback, 'i' will place a flag, 'o' will save the track, and 'p' will trash the track. I would recommend waiting until you're more comfortable with the game to start using the keyboard shortcuts. They do make things move a little more quickly and make desiging easier, but only if you can really pay attention to what you're doing. You don't want to trash your track instead of saving it, for example - especially if you've spent a long time working on it.

Overall, the biggest benefit Line Rider offers is that it really allows you to let your creativity flow. While there are other BMX games out there that allow you to design your own track, the options you have with this one and the control you have over those options is fairly impressive. In addition to the track building tools we've covered, you also have 'swatches' (the three colored blocks below your tools) that can be used to change the way your lines perform. The best way to get the hang of using the swatches to the best of your benefit is to just play around with them - see what they do and how they can be used. This game is fairly complicated and a lot of work goes into building a really good track, but nothing beats experience. Try out a few different ideas and take your favorite elements from each experiment to make one really enjoyable track. You'll have a blast with this one. Line Rider if definitely a game any fan of BMX games needs to play at least once.