Free Rider Walkthrough

So you loved Line Rider, which is, without a doubt, one of the MORE addictive drawing games out there? Yeah? If that's the case then you will also love Free Rider. This drawing game is a refreshing take on Boštjan Cadež's massively popular Line Rider, which was voted to be the best web toy back in 2006. Many original elements from Line Rider are found in Free Rider...PLUS more.

Pete, coming from OneMoreLevel.com, added more interactive elements to the game which gives you an entirely different experience. It's like a combination of Line Rider and Tea Games' BMX series. The end result? A drawing game that lets you create your own levels and tracks.

Let's take a closer look at some of the elements and palettes in the game. There are 11 of them (1) Pencil (2) Stars, which would be like coins the player needs to collect to score high (3) Eraser (4) Directional Keys that would allow you to move the screen to the edges and tweak your tracks (5) Trash Bin for clearing the map in case what you created is utter failure (6) Play (7) Rewind button, very self explanatory I believe (8) Floppy Disk for saving your game...the rest is for loading and saving your work.

You will be using these palettes of drawing tools a lot for creating a series of lines, ramps, as well as jumps for your bike to maneuver on. Another plus that Free Rider has over its original inspiration - Line Rider, is that you get to control your character. Control your rider by pressing up to move forward, X to switch directions, and left and right for leaning forward or backwards.

You can place collectible stars around your level (using the palette I mentioned above). Another nicety added is the fact that you can easily share levels. No need for sharing, uploading, or downloading files. It's as easy as pasting a line of text into a comments box or on your favorite gaming forums. The guys at OneMoreLevel even took it to the next level by creating their own forum where you can find other fans of drawing games, especially Free Rider, to share levels with.

What I find interesting is that there is no red line that divides editing and playing your level! You can play and edit as you go, which is what I ended up doing. The minor quibble, though, is that creating a visually appealing level is much more difficult here than in Line Rider. Free Rider doesn't have a background tool, pencil, or brush tool that would allow you to draw curves. Oh! One more thing, the interactivity also made the game more challenging as maneuvering is unforgiving. Crash a bit and you fail the level...which means you may need to reconstruct your track.

Well, there are no perfect drawing games after all. BUT no matter what, this is well worth a look. That's especially true if you are a fan of Line Rider. If you are waiting for the Wii and DS release of Line Rider, Free Rider should make the long wait a little more manageable.