Introducing: Line Rider Review's Monthly Roundup
Who I am, how this came about, and an overview of what to expect
Hi, I’m Bevibel Harvey, AKA Rabid Squirrel, longtime Line Rider artist and critic. I’ve been reviewing Line Rider tracks in various forms for over 14 years now, ranging from lengthy forum posts on I Ride the Lines, to off-the-cuff livestream “Quick Reviews” about track releases with fellow Line Rider artists and critic OTDE, to scripted video essays for the Line Rider Review YouTube channel (that last endeavor is still ongoing). This past August, fellow Line Rider creator Twig, AKA Branches, started writing monthly “Line Rider Roundups” reviewing Line Rider releases, which I enjoyed so much that I wound up collaborating with them on the roundups for December and January. Recently, they have expressed a waning interest in continuing doing them, but I’ve enjoyed them so much that I’ve decided (with their blessing) to go public and start publishing these monthly write-ups on the web. I stopped writing up reviews of Line Rider tracks back in 2015, and it turns out I really miss it, and the feedback I’ve been getting so far has been really positive, so I’m gonna start doing it again!
Before I get started, I do want to say a word about my motives behind writing and publishing these reviews. In the past, my reviews were primarily directed at the creator of the track I was reviewing, for a variety of different reasons I won’t get into right now. This newsletter is instead intended primarily for curatorial purposes for a general audience - a way for people to easily keep up on what’s going on in the world of Line Rider releases and see what I think of it all. As someone who has studied and dabbled in many forms of digital art, and who has almost certainly watched more Line Rider videos than anyone else in existence, I believe my perspective is highly valuable, but it is also highly subjective. It is not intended to start debate amongst the Line Rider community, which is why if you are a Line Rider creator and you know that we don’t often see eye-to-eye, I don’t recommend subscribing! Of course, I won’t stop you - just be aware you are doing so at your own risk. However, if you like watching Line Rider videos, and/or you like my Line Rider work, and/or you like OTDE’s and my work on Line Rider Review, and/or you want to check out some cool Line Rider releases every month from the comfort of your email inbox, this newsletter is absolutely for you!
Generally, Here’s how the format is going to look like, at least for now. I will pick about a dozen (or however many I want) Line Rider works that I want to talk about them, write about 200 words (or however much I want) about each of them, give each a score of either 👎 (not recommended), 🤷 (neutral), 👍 (recommended), or 🙌 (highly recommended), and finally provide links to all works discussed. I don’t intend to make this exclusively my opinions, and I may have guest reviewers (especially if I released a track that month), but that will depend on interest.
Subscribe now to get the Line Rider Review Monthly Roundup delivered to your email inbox every month!
The first one will be for works released in February 2021, and it will probably be out in a few days, whenever I finish writing it. In the meantime, feel free to spread this to anyone who might be interested!