February 2023 Line Rider Roundup
No, I’m not dead! I just unexpectedly moved twice in one month and took a last minute work gig on top of that, so this is super late. The next one should be posted closer to the start of the month. Lots of great tracks in February though! And also two new guest reviewers. The first is Malizma, who you may know as the creator of Gamification, and who would like to introduce himself:
Hey, I’m Malizma.
I love all things based on math and logic.
I’m a programmer, quirk enthusiast, and human person.
A healthy dose of rhythm, puzzle, and sandbox games got me into Line Rider.
Currently, I like breaking Line Rider to make tracks that slap.
This month, I’ll be guest reviewing Slope Dude.
Thrilled to review tracks!
The second is ∞, who you may remember as creator of wendy carlos and co-creator of Designated Male at Birth. They would also like to introduce themself:
hiiiii. i'm ∞឵!!!! i've been making line rider tracks since december, been helping utd with his tracks since june, and been a headmate of utd since 2017!!! i might type a little weird, but i hope you enjoy what i have to say nonetheless!! :))))
Click here for a playlist of all videos in this roundup (in order). Titles also link to videos individually.
Voice in Headphones - September Hofmann
Like many Line Rider tracks released in recent months, Voice in Headphones is hard for me to talk about, because while I’m not the primary target audience, I do have insider knowledge that is not mine to share about the context in which it was created. This makes it tricky to talk about in a public setting like this blog. These are people who I know well making art for each other about their relationships with each other, so it would be weird to talk about it like I don’t know exactly why this was made and what they were going through - but it would also be weird to share private details of the context in which pieces like this were created. However, I think Voice in Headphones is genuinely a really beautiful piece even if you don’t get everything that’s going on “under the hood”, so I’ll try to talk about it in broad strokes.
Essentially, Voice in Headphones is about how it feels to heal from childhood trauma with found family in online communities of other queer people. On the internet, with all of its toxic communities on platforms built around maximizing screen time for profit, it’s so easy to become incredibly cynical about human interaction, especially if you’ve been here for as long as I have (something like 17 years). It’s easy to forget that other people are actually flesh and blood too, and not just words on your screen or voices in your headphones. There’s so much disbelief that something like that might even be possible that it often involves a long process of building trust that these people you’ve never even met in person somehow do actually, genuinely care about your well-being and want to continue being in your life. It’s often a slow, tentative, anxiety-riddled descent of gradually letting down your guard and allowing yourself to be vulnerable. And sometimes there are even missteps and mistakes, because nobody actually knows what they’re doing, and building community online is really hard! But it’s worth doing. It’s always worth doing. Always.
Gaia - Malizma
Malizma has long been interested in the technical side of Line Rider, but has only recently become interested in more stylistic and narrative-heavy work. I’m thrilled to say that Gaia combines edgy scribblings of DROOL and the flawless execution of Gamification with the most gripping thematic material yet. Namely, that the Earth is huge, terrifying, everywhere, and it can and will fuck you up. Top-notch use of time remapping and camera zooms do a great job building hype and instilling a sense of awe for nature in the opening half of Gaia, before the second half cranks up the fear and dread until all hell breaks loose. The final section - undoubtedly the highlight - is essentially a chase scene between the sledder and the environment itself, made possible by extensive layer automation. I’ve never felt so much visceral tension while watching a Line Rider track before, my lizard brain screaming for the little figure to go faster so the lava doesn’t catch them. The darkly ambiguous ending then leaves us to ponder our own precarious relationship with nature.
If you’ll forgive me a mild indulgence, Gaia reminds me of the Conversation International video from the “Nature is Speaking” series, “Julia Roberts is Mother Nature”:
Some call me “Nature.”
Others call me “Mother Nature.”
I’ve been here for over four and a half billion years: 22,500 times longer than you.
I don’t really need people, but people need me.
Yes, your future depends on me.
When I thrive, you thrive.
When I falter, you falter… or worse.
But I’ve been here for eons.
I have fed species greater than you, and I have starved species greater than you.
My oceans.
My soil.
My flowing streams.
My forests.
They all can take you or leave you.
How you choose to live each day, whether you regard or disregard me, doesn’t really matter to me.
One way or the other, your actions will determine your fate, not mine.
I am Nature.
I will go on.
I am prepared to evolve.
Are you?
dance for borderline miscanthus - ∞
Unlike ∞’s debut solo track, wendy carlos, dance for borderline miscanthus is very much not a shitpost. It has the same abstract visuals, thematic weight, and chaotic energy of Designated Male at Birth, but this time it’s tightly focused into a structure that slowly but masterfully ratchets up the tension until the riveting finale. I’m honestly at a loss for what else to say about it, so I’ll just say, “This track goes hard!!!” and leave it at that. Highly recommended!
Line Rider Crossword Puzzle - Toivo
Guest review by pocke:
Toivo’s Line Rider Crossword Puzzle is, more than anything, just incredibly wholesome. Inside the YouTube video description is a link to download the track file, and from there you can complete the puzzle. As an active Line Rider community member with a bunch of random knowledge my brain decides will be stored in its depths for eternity, I had an absolute blast completing the puzzle. The clues are genius and hilarious, and from many I’m left wondering “how the fuck did I get that????”
The puzzle is more than that, though – many of the clues are filled with detailed drawings of community members, tracks, that are all condensed into these little tiny squares. This, along with the way it bridges the gap between older and newer periods of Line Rider history, makes the puzzle feel like it’s made out of nothing but complete appreciation for Line Rider – it’s honestly just such a kind thing to make, and my inclusion in the track makes me think about how cool this community is, and how fucking funny its history is. I’m so glad to be here with y’all, watching your tracks and making tracks for you. Thanks Toivo for making this!!!!
Everything Goes On - pocke
In a radical departure from pocke’s often cryptic, abstract, and/or introspective recent work, Everything Goes On is nothing less than a celebration of artistic community. Some of the visual quotes, like September’s My Boy and Branches’ Hold Yourself Tight, are cryptic enough that they are likely meant for those creators to appreciate directly, but the dynamic movement, cute cursive lyrics, and evocative visuals make for a work that anyone can enjoy. One particularly creative touch is the use of white lines on top of black lines to create a sketchy, thinner-line look. Bursting with love and hope and joy, Everything Goes On is an absolute delight.
Monody - JoseWolf
Despite its ubiquity as a no-copyright song, there’s always been a lot of potential for a track set to TheFatRat’s “Monody”. There’s a sense of joy-filled adventure through the natural world that permeates the entire song, which was tragically underutilized in every prior Line Rider track set to it. The thumbnail of the original DoodleChaos piece promised “ADVENTURE” and yet the track itself was a simple music sync and lyric video that failed to evoke any actual sense of adventure. It’s pretty wild to see a newcomer to the Line Rider scene unexpectedly deliver on the promise of that thumbnail, nearly five years later! JoseWolf released their first Line Rider video in December 2022, and I’ve been surprised by the quality of the art and multi-rider movement in all of their releases thus far, including Monody. More important than that, however, is how well JoseWolf creates a sense of traversal through a natural world that feels genuinely alive. We explore a number of different biomes in Monody - from rocky caves, to snowy forests, to tropical beaches - and each feels full of a wide variety of flora and fauna, as well as human activity.
There’s a deep reverence for nature and our place in it as humans that is captured remarkably well in Monody. The part with lyrics (written in both English and Spanish) is paired with drawings that tell a story of reconnection with nature after alienation due to technology. I was surprised how naturally this extends from the music itself, especially after a long parade of Line Rider tracks set to it that ignored any of the meaning contained within. There’s one part of Monody that sticks out for me in particular: as we sled through a snowy forest landscape on a mountain, stick figures are playing in the snow - making snowmen and throwing snowballs at each other and generally having a fun time. One, however, stands looking off a cliff, staring at snowfall framing an enormous furry beast that stands on a hilltop, and mutters “Wow” to themself. I don’t know how to explain why this moment makes me emotional, but it does!
SLITHER - pocke
[cw: themes of abuse]
In pocke’s first release using Line Rider Advanced: Community Edition, they’ve chosen to extensively abuse the 10-point cannon generator and color trigger features to create a chaotic, nightmarish atmosphere. Bosh is constantly being forcibly remounted and teleported around with generated 10-point cannons and then immediately knocked back off the sled in a wildly disorienting sea of dots, track lines, crossed-out writing, and the occasional scrawled drawing. This is all set to the Black Dresses song “SLITHER”, which heavily features a surrealist narrative about escaping from abuse. Pocke chooses to emphasize lines such as “Please leave me alone” and “I don't want to say I love you on the phone anymore” with zoom-ins on masses of scribbles. During the extensive repetition of the line, “There is a memory of when I was young and I admired you so much” the sled is broken and Bosh is caught in a cycle, ragdolling around and around in a circle against a backdrop of the same lyric written out again and again, overlapping until it’s barely legible. At the conclusion of the narrative, we zoom out to see a large drawing of dead Bosh lying flat on their back, mirroring Bosh’s actual position. This seems at first like the end of the piece, but then Bosh is suddenly teleported away for the outro, in which footage of pocke’s hands writing the lyrics are superimposed on the video footage:
Everything always changes but it's always the same
Everything always changes, it flickers like flames
Everything always changes, dice roll to a different face
Everything always changes, new skin, new face
Everything always changes but it's different sides of one thing
Everything always changes, in a circle, in a ring
There’s a lot going on here, and most of it is obscured by layers of abstraction, but the themes of escaping from an abusive environment are crystal-clear. I’m really impressed by pocke’s heavy utilization of LRA:CE-specific tools to create effects that would be impossible in other builds, all of which undergird the themes remarkably well. Pocke has a unique ability to create Line Rider work that’s incredibly messy and chaotic without ever feeling dull or half-assed, and SLITHER is a perfect example.
Slope Dude - Tesseract
Guest review by Malizma:
Tesseract’s debut track Slope Dude is a fun, imaginative piece that places Bosh in the role of “slope dude,” a sledder that demonstrates the slopes of different graphs. Synced to this mathematics lesson about a skier riding different types of slopes, the track explores the inherent humor in presenting math concepts with physical examples. This can be seen in the bits of world-building sprinkled throughout the track, like having some of the background dialogue about slopes being written out as literal warning signs for Bosh. On top of that, the lighthearted sled-in-the-snow nature of Line Rider fits perfectly with the underlying narrative, making the track a joyful watch for anyone that wants to have a laugh.
Another aspect I want to touch on is the math-y part of the track. Because of Line Rider’s minimalist design, it is incredibly approachable to the casual viewer, especially in its clean visuals. When coupled with more advanced features explored in recent years like color, multiriders, and camerawork, Line Rider has the potential to be a unique but powerful choice as a video essay tool. This concept for Line Rider is nothing new, having already been explored in the context of school projects, such as in Banky’s The Physics of Line Rider and in Justin and Jade’s The Cost of Yeast. However, it would be interesting to see this concept carried out without the restraints of the education system, as mentioned in this review of the latter track.
I specifically mentioned math because of Line Rider’s intensely involved relationship with math that isn’t immediately visible on first interacting with it. The physics simulation, for instance, has many different “quirk”s that have a rigorous but fascinating mathematical explanation for why they occur. The canvas of Line Rider is just an abstract graph of a bunch of different line segments, each with their own coordinates. Even the camera system has its own set of formulas that dictate how it can operate. It would be cool to see concepts like these, or any math-based concept in general, presented through the tools that Line Rider offers. I’m interested to see how this idea could be explored more in the future.
detail - Goose
Guest review by ∞:
you ever watch a bunch of separate things and piece them all together in your mind, even though they have nothing to do with each other??? I want to guide you through my journey of doing that with three tracks!!!! the first track is detail by goose. what i really like about this one is how the track itself gets lost in the scribbles, instead of the track being the scribbles or there not being a track at all. the title of this track helps to give this artistic choice meaninggggg. if you’re not someone who would be conventionally considered as “good at art”, yet still wanted to do something ambitious or grandiose, you might’ve experienced the gut-wrenching feeling of having your vision not translate across to your audience. I find that this mostly happens to children who tend to have no predispositions when it comes to sharing the art they make. In their eyes, what they make is a magnum opus. but to those who don’t know what’s going on in their mind, their art can often come across as… a bunch of scribbles.
with this context in mind, what i appreciate about this track is that it feels like an exploration into that sensation from the perspective of those same children; now grown up and looking back at their old art. “wow, i remember when i thought this was the most detailed drawing i’ve ever seen! now that i’m grown up, i see it for what it really is.” but what is it really? you might’ve changed a lot as a person since then, but as shown in this track, you can still make out what you were going for. do you really see what you’ve made for what it is? or have you just been brainwashed by societal expectations that told you this is what you should think about your art. through the song this track uses, with lyrics of anxiety towards detail fading away and slipping through your fingers, we are able to see this track for what it is; what all art really is in our modern day – a form of self-expression under an oppressive labor system that teaches you to view your feelings as “a mess”.
and with that, even amidst the scribbles, we can find a little bit of clarity.
The description of detail reads:
this track, similar to chasing, is about my struggle to work on, finish, and be proud of or happy with tracks I have released.
To me, detail reads like one artist’s struggle with perfectionism. In it, Goose purposely eschews polish by smothering a hastily-drawn track in grey scribbles. However, this doesn’t read to me as an attempt to devalue the piece or the meaning within - the dismount at the instrumental break and then the remount later give the piece structure in a way that feels highly intentional. The also-hastily-scrawled lyrics along themes of anxiety and self doubt (often obscured by the rest of the scribbles) create a sense of struggling to communicate something that’s important but difficult to articulate. detail is messy and abstract but laser-focused on conveying a particular state of mind, and in my opinion this makes it more compelling than it might seem at first glance.
I think you’re really beautiful - MoonXplorer
Guest review by ∞:
watching goose’s detail is helpful in understanding what could lead to a track like this one. I think you’re really beautiful is a track that emulates a few other tracks – Palaces by Ray, Just Far Enough by John – to speak upon the feelings one would have when making art during your childhood. in that sense, this track serves as a self-aware antithesis to detail. if i were to make a timeline of these tracks (activating mega autism mode >:333), this track would take place a little after detail was made. and this track is a lot to take in. on surface level, it’s actually really easy to dismiss this track. a super cynical person would hate this track, even. >:((((
for starters, the fact that this track takes heavy inspiration from other tracks could mean there is a desire to want to reach a level of “goodness” that most people would acknowledge. and with moments such as claiming to “not give a s–t” about what people think is bad, this track can come across as hollow, or trying too hard to be edgy/cool by imitating what they see elsewhere.
Everyone has a style
So f–k expectations“fuck expectations” is just a line from sunflowers and corn fields by pocke. So if everyone has a style, why can’t you develop your own? You say to “make what you want to make” but if you haven’t been satisfied with your art and what you want to make is stuff other people have already made, then are you really making what you want to make????
I bring this up to show that i am aware of these possible criticisms that could be levied against this track… and i think they’re all bullshit. for starters, there’s an important question these criticisms fail to ask: where do we draw the line between what is and isn’t derivative? even better, what does it mean to be derivative???? I mean, MoonXplorer is basically saying the same thing that people like pocke have been saying. the only thing that really differs is context. pocke is someone who’s felt a lot of imposter syndrome and self-consciousness around making art and chose to make art anyways. MoonXplorer is just a child who probably just likes the stuff pocke makes and wants to do what they do too. therefore, it’s harder to believe that the feelings in this track are feelings MoonXplorer holds. understandable… but why??? is it not also possible that MoonXplorer was affected by the stuff pocke has made? could it just be that MoonXplorer wanted to not only make another version of Just Far Enough, but a love letter for the Line Rider community on how we affected him. at the end of the day, we’re all basically imitating each other, and the beautiful thing about making and enjoying art is how it can expand the perspectives of ourselves and others. If MoonXplorer got something truly meaningful out of the sources he took from, then why does it matter if the way he presents himself is what some may view as “disingenuous”? MoonXplorer, despite not presenting himself in a universally acceptable way, is right. It doesn’t matter.
if a piece of art borrows aspects from another piece of art but doesn’t engage with what the other piece of art’s themes are, that’s another story. but that’s not what’s happening here. here’s the thing. I believe the criticisms i brought up stem from an intrinsic worry. “you say that good and bad isn’t real, but how long are you gonna keep saying that until you start getting anxiety around it or until audiences prove otherwise?” notice how this line of thinking doesn’t imply that MoonXplorer is wrong or that what he could potentially go through would be his fault. this line of thinking is actually indicative of something else; that being publicly confident in your work, regardless of concepts surrounding good or bad, is actually a dangerous concept in our society. that people buy into concepts of good and bad in order to protect themselves. vulnerability is dangerous. not making sense to others is dangerous. And that leads to what i love about this track. It is brave!!! It is genuine!!! Because believing in the narrative this track provides inherently implies a sort of risk, and MoonXplorer took it anyways, and it’s powerful!!!! because this stuff shouldn’t be a risk in the first place!!!! I don’t wanna discourage MoonXplorer from having this viewpoint towards his art. I want to tell him “go MoonXplorer go!!!!! Keep going!!! <333”
then again, perhaps it’s easier to dismiss our inner child because we know better now. It’s easy to write this track off as coming from someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about yet. but i think this track is really beautiful.
Look At The Sky - JK_sum_boi
Guest review by ∞:
and now we’ve come to the final track in this fake little trilogy of mine!!! >:3333
Look At The Sky hit me on such a deep level my first watchthrough due to its beautiful progression and poetic irony. the track is about enjoying you’re alive, reveling in the fact that you’ll continue to be alive and that, even if you aren’t doing so right now, you have the ability to make “something good”. but i don’t think JK_sum_boi can make something good. i think they already did. and why i think this track works perfectly after tracks like detail and I think you’re really beautiful is because this track just works really well as an end to an era. whether that end has to do with time or personal growth or both is up to your interpretation. regardless, the track still gives off a sense of accomplishing something. and that something isn’t necessarily anything material. It can be something as simple as a realization. with motifs such as scratchy scribbles, crudely drawn skylines, and manually adjusted zoom levels that get expanded upon as the track goes on, i get the sense that this track is telling me a story of some sort. however, what that story may be might not be clear due to the track’s motifs being sparse and ambiguous. the track isn’t cryptic by any means, but it isn’t polished. It’s not perfect.
this is what makes the track speak to me. one reason i felt like i couldn’t get into Line Rider is because i wouldn’t be able to make anything polished, and therefore, anything good. but with the encouragement of others, i was able to move past that fear and make stuff anyways. and the truth is, with my own stuff, i don’t know what meaning one could obtain out of them, if there is any. but i still want to make stuff anyways, because it reminds me that i am alive!!!! and that’s what this track is about to me!!! and watching this track after watching detail and I think you’re really beautiful respectively is like i’m constructing a reflection of my own artistic journey!!! this is the stuff i want to make!!! :DDDD
I’ve rambled on for long enough throughout these three reviews, but i guess if there’s any takeaway i’d want people to get out of them, it’s that you make your own meaning out of what you make and watch! and that meaning doesn’t always have to be positive; sometimes it’s important to attribute a negative meaning to a piece of work where it would be unhealthy to otherwise; but you shouldn’t let anyone tell you the “right way” of experiencing art or what’s “good” and what’s not. as long as you’re not hurting anyone else, do what you want to do, and be happy! 😄
I’ll end this off with a quote that i think best describes the journey i laid out among these tracks:
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win
I don’t know if that’ll make sense to anyone else, but it makes sense to me. thanks for reading!!! :3333
A Cup of Coffee - Jaylen Goh
Jaylen Goh’s Line Rider output started unassumingly as another DoodleChaos-inspired attempt at visualizing piano music back in summer 2021, but as they have slowly continued to release Line Rider videos, their work has tilted more and more toward narrative. March 2022’s Lavender Hill had sparse, abstract, and yet undeniable themes of flowers, spring, and love. A Cup of Coffee, however, is Jaylen Goh’s first track with an explicit narrative. It’s simple - the rider goes to a coffee shop to meet someone they feel strongly about - and everything about the track and scenery feels unpolished, even crude at times. But I think the power of the simple narrative speaks to the power of storytelling itself. Why do humans tell stories, anyway? It’s an extremely broad question, but (at the risk of oversimplification) I think it boils down to finding connection with others. A Cup of Coffee tells a story that is itself about the simple joy of human connection. Maybe this could explain why a Line Rider track that would appear absolutely unremarkable by any metric still manages to pull at my heartstrings.
Thanks for reading!
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