My father used to tell me (when I struggled with poetry in school) “if you needed a degree in order to ‘get’ a piece of art, then it’s the ‘art’ that failed, not you.” I’ve found this to be true in many spheres of my life.
as someone from "the general public", line rider always looked like a silly little game to me, when I saw a symphonic level on facebook i got interested in it. I highly doubt I'll create stuff myself since I play L4D2 but I really enjoy seeing the stages synced with music or the nicely designed stages (art-wise) subbed cause i want to know more though
I love your content! I will be honest I have never played line rider and don't think that I will but I Absolutely LOVE how you take such a seemingly simple program (line rider) and go into a complete deep dive of it. I personally feel that your argument was very convincing and much better than anything I could ever create. I will definitely keep watching your content and I hope to hear more about the art aspect of line rider. 😃
Hall of the Mountain King was the video that introduced me to... the entire idea of Line Rider. Thus, it was always about art for me. Always about quirkiness (whether that included quirk or not). Though I haven't gotten past the initial learning curve yet. I know that all the drawing is manual (and it should be), but is there a tool of some sort I could use to sync music easier? If not, okay, but I figured you or your viewers would know if there was anything.
Sorry for super late response - there are two released versions with music linking built in, Line Rider Advanced and lr.conundrumer.com. I believe the feature is coming to linerider.com soon.
I have been thinking about it for a couple of months, but seeing this video makes me want to do the same. One problem though: I don't know how people sync tracks to it. Is there a function in the app that lets you put audio into it? Do I have to use my own audio from a different source? I don't know.
So much of what you have to say about Line Rider could be said about many other art forms in many other cultures at many other times. Certainly Western Art Music has gone through periods of "gamification," when crazy technique became an end in itself, but even within these times, there were some who strove to use the expanded techniques to express new things. The idea of art as something where expression is a top priority is a relatively new thing; in more traditional cultures, you almost always have to prove your technique before you are allowed to be an artist.
Personally, I am one of those that started getting into Line Rider after the video from DoodleChaos was released. So, at first, and without any knowledge of the technical LR stuff, I just thought that quirkers (didn't know the name back then tho) used cheats to achieve their videos. So, without really digging into the physics and dynamics, that might discourage casual viewers. The same as as it would, for example, affect the views of a gamer who uses cheats to play a certain game (without trying to refute your point that LR is an art form). The bottom line is compatible with your argument though: the way they try to approach and execute the ride should be looked as an art form. But if they want to get to the widest audience possible they should either make it comprehensible to the regular viewer (the one without the technical knowledge); or so damn creative that the regular viewer can be entertained anyway. PS. Love your videos, fun and engaging (notification squad).
correcting, After seeing the What does the Fox say video, if the physics were abused to create a slideshow effect or something that can be used specifically for the art medium It can be valid, because it does introduce a "how did they do that" aspect.
Hey friends, here's the link to the [NEW] Line Rider Artists Discord: forms.gle/dHfn8Upo2kFxmYsX9 [JULY 2019 UPDATE: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--L5owoxOvmU.html] Also, if you found this valuable, consider buying us a coffee: ko-fi.com/lineriderreview I'll be in the comments to answer questions as always! And I'm also down for some discussion, though I'd appreciate it if we could keep it civil.
This is a really great video! I think the view I meant to express (15:25) was that the "go down and left" music syncing tracks, not all non-quirk tracks, could quickly become montonous, but to be honest I don't know if I truly believe that. I don't really know what I think about this whole game vs. art conflict, but this video will definitely help me figure out my stance. By the way, what do you think of the Taco Truck Adventure by anton? For me it has an overarching artistic vision/narrative, using rather technical quirk. Would you say the technical stuff overshadows the story?
Hey gao, rabid here - the issue I took with your comment was that you were answering the question "why do I make quirk" with "because accessible tracks like Mountain King quickly become boring". You then went on to say "If track makers diverge from just making simple song-syncing tracks, there are two general options: scenery and quirk", and that scenery is slow and difficult in the making. Thus, you seemed to be claiming that since scenery is boring and less fun to make than quirk, and "simple song-syncing tracks" will get old very quickly, quirk is the best option for making things in Line Rider because, according to you, it's fun to make and doesn't get old. I think this is, to be a bit blunt, ludicrous, for reasons that hopefully were made clear by the video essay. (But I am happy to elaborate if you wish) We're not super interested in talking about Taco Truck Adventure, but well, to be blunt again, we thought it was absurdly bad. Speaking from my own perspective, it's generally a lot of highly technical, incredibly inaccessible, extremely boring quirk with some narrative-curious post-production thrown on top that only creates confusion for the vast majority of viewers, even extending to most people inside the Line Rider community itself. 13:27-13:51 was added in to this essay after it's release and you could probably consider it a subtweet of sorts. We take other issues with it as well, but that's a summary of it purely from an executional perspective.
Thanks for the reply! Honestly I find that post of mine extremely reductive and not entirely accurate to my view of LR (my policy in general being, if you make it I'll watch it and if I like it I'll rewatch it) so yeah... anyways, I'm looking forwards to your future videos! (sorry if this reply has so little substance, I'm really not sure how to verbalize my impressions)
Tbh I have pretty much only done line rider pretty casually but I have looked at line rider as an art thing and I just tried to make my tracks look cool.
So quirk is like counterpoint in music, neat. You don't have to learn it to write good music, but my god you should learn it to write good music, you don't even have to use it, it's such a good skill.
Thanks! That video was uploaded January 2017 (we literally had 10 subs then) but didn't really take off until October when the Mountain King track went viral. In the last 2-3 months since then our subs exploded from ~30 to ~850 heh
It could be me not getting the exact message, but it almost feels like you're arguing that artistic LR is better when made of simple techniques/tracks, as that is more applicable by more people. If that's not the intention than please clarify. Personally, I think there is some artistic merit to a complicated quirk-heavy track in terms of art. Personally, such tracks inspire a sense of wonder at how baffling the track is, or how the creator was able to make the track even work. Even then, sometimes quirk just does a better job of pacing or visualizing something IMO (like in Sujitori's "handlebars," where it's used to mimick the escalating song.) I can understand an idea of making simple tracks for the sake of a wider reach, but art doesn't HAVE to be recognized or understood by many people for it to be valid. Either way, good video. I love LR and I'm glad there's someone really digging in to it.
Thanks! And yeah you actually really bring up a good point, that is that there is definitely an aesthetic to power quirk and it can be cool for casuals to watch kind of like we mention in the video about Smash being fun to watch even if you don't understand the specifics of the techniques. Or like how we watch the Olympics! Handlebars is actually a perfect example because 1) it's one of my all time favorite quirks because of the aesthetic and music sync, and 2) it's often poo-poo'd in quirk communities because apparently it LOOKS really intense when it's actually not as intense as other stuff, according to the hardcore quirkers, lots of them say it's "too messy" and that the techniques sujinorite/roflmaoqwerty used resulted in a lot of lines that apparently aren't actually necessary to get the desired movement. This was actually something that we talked about in the Discord group as I was putting this video together, that like, maybe there's a possibility of making entertaining content using the aesthetic of power quirk. I'd imagine something like pro wrestling might be possible, where you create fictional meta-narratives of some kind around the quirkers themselves and more emphasis is placed on making the quirk LOOK super intense than anything else. Anyway, to circle back and clarify what you were wondering about at the top of your post, "artistic LR is better when made of simple techniques/tracks" no, definitely not. A great example is a track like Ragdoll by Conundrumer, which uses highly advanced quirk techniques (a lot of quirkers don't even understand how he made it) to make something super accessible and entertaining. That's what we mean by saying you should prioritize the artistic goal and think about what kinds of skills and techniques you want to utilize to get there. Also, yeah totally, art targeted at a smaller group than "everyone in the world" can also totally be valid, as long you're thinking about how to reach the group of people you are targeting. For example, OTDE and both have been not-infrequently making things in Line Rider in recent years that target the Line Rider community directly as the audience, and don't worry too much about making sense to the general public. (Braggadocio is probably the clearest example) So to summarize, yeah there's certainly potential both for using power quirk aesthetic for artistic purposes and for targeting narrower audiences than "everyone". We just want people to think critically about both! We'll try to emphasize this point in our video on some of our favorite quick experimental works in Line Rider. Thanks for the comment and thanks for reading this gigantic text wall lol
What was that one line rider clone that had like a school bus and a rally car as playable characters? I've been trying to remember what it's called for years now
I see quirk as modern day classical music. Not film score. Classical music. Like avant garde. People see it as so odd but the composers see it as the next level of music where its so complicated with its harmonies but yet not very attractive to the public.
Having gone to a liberal arts college that was essentially part musical conservatory, I totally agree. (well, except quirk lacks the institutionalization of modern classical music in society, but it's very similar in form)
wow.....I just heard of line rider yesterday and then found your video a few minutes later while looking to see what other people had made. Obviously I was shocked - and inspired! I made this tragic comedy called, "the death of line rider": www.linerider.com/view/E2TU4L/the-death-of-line-rider keep up the excellent work!
i really dislike the concept of gravity wells and quirks. all it is is just a bunch of dots and dashes people put together in a disheveled fashion to throw a sledder around violently in random directions, and as Ben said, when comparing tracks over the span of 10 years that use quirks and gravity wells, they all look exactly the same.
It's weird, I'm not really a line rider player/creator (I've fooled around with it a little, but nothing serious). I remember seeing some of those "art heavy" tracks back in the day, but then it seemed like the scene just died out. However, recently I've come across Doodle Chaos and a few others who are doing music-sync videos which I think are quite cool. I remember way back when "quirk" (I didn't know that's what it was called until this video) becoming more and more prevalent and it just seemed... boring to watch. I'm sure it was difficult to do and required a lot of skill to make, but as an outsider looking in, it never really seemed "in spirit" with the original intent of the toy/game/whatever. This is, of course, my opinion, but I think if you look numbers, you'll see that the views on Line Rider videos reflect this. People were putting out super-technical videos... that nobody cared to watch. I 100% agree with your assessment that this toy was "gamified" to extraordinary levels. People cared more about creating a technological achievement than about creating some that was fun and engaging to watch. And that's where they lost people. Too clarify, I'm not saying that Quirk can't be fun and engaging to watch, but when quirk is done for quirk's sake, it rarely is. So if you're a line-rider creator, consider the audience you're trying to reach. If you want to impress your fellow creators with your Quirk skills, by all means, go for it. But don't expect the video to rack up millions of views, because it won't. If you want to impress a wider audience though, you will need to take a more artistic approach, and big of art is not just knowing what to put into it, but what to leave out.
