One of my “hero” Flash games is LineRider. Here’s something put together by a student for his design class that becomes a viral hit, gets bought up by a development company to port to Nintendo DS and Wii.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure I like the direction it’s going. Check out this video:
http://www.official-linerider.com/en/movie/td%2526%2523039%3Bs-adventure
It seems they are suffering from a bit of next-release-must-add-lots-of-new-features-itis. And must-add-slick-graphics-and-sound-effects-and-character-development-to-make-it-a-professional-game-itis. I don’t think that the new graphics or the line riding dude’s stunts and woohooing constantly really add anything to the game.
Part of the allure of LineRider, from my viewpoint, was the immediacy of it. You drew a line, and the guy was riding on the line you just drew. It was direct interaction. According to one of the comments on the above link, from “Tech Dawg”, who made the video, “The lines are still there, believe me everyone, before you are SO quick to judge, when you are able to play it, you will understand.”
Maybe so, but first impression is that it’s just over the top. I would have bought a direct port of the original Flash LineRider to DS. I think many would have, and would have loved it. I guess I’ll probably still buy it when it comes out. But I think they should heed some of the comments on the above link, as many seem to be expressing the same opinion.
wow, that looks horrible.
i’ve never been a massive linerider fan, but its (limited) attraction to me was its unique simplicity – the fun to complexity ratio was outstanding – draw a line, do stuff. the tricks and sound effects are just irritating, you know?
maybe they’re appealing to a whole new market. something along the lines of ‘who in their right mind would pay for something they can have for free already on the internet?’. marketing has a lot to answer for.
I’d pretty much agree it looks like they’re overdoing it. But, I also think they probably know their market and could have easily determined no one would pay (what? 20-$30?) for a game that was a straight port from the web version…especially if they planned on selling it for some premium price. Perhaps they’ll include the “original” in the title.
But, I don think it’s an interesting point that stuff that starts out simple is attractive and then it eventually gets so bogged down that in order for it to survive it has to make a monumental shift. Take Flash. It was great in version 2 and 3. And because of it’s simplicity it was possible for people like me to become expert in every last detail. Try doing that with, say, Photoshop CS3. As Flash reaches–not so much it’s life expectancy–but simply the “10-version-blues” they had to come up with something else. Flex isn’t a great example because it’s arguably less simple… and is mainly to attract a different user base, but take Thermo. It seems like kind of the same thing. I guess there’s a lifecycle for any product.
In the case of linerider, I do think the audiences expect more and more. It seems silly but the arms-race (in games) isn’t just for kicks… it’s to satisfy the customers.