Have you ever been in a meeting where the soporific effect of the presenter or the warmth of the room has forced you to doodle to keep awake? I have, and when I look at the doodles that I generally make there is something rather disturbing about the ridiculous set of pencil scribbles that I create. Therapy required me thinks!
Anyway, I read a very interesting article in this month's Edge magazine that made me wonder what it would be like your doodles could come to life. Imagine creating a doodle world that by magic can become something dynamic and challenging in terms of what you create with your bored pencil. Well if that's you then you need to try Line Rider. This is a crazy Flash game that will amaze and astound you and take up lots of your time. All you do is draw a world on the blank screen with the pencil tool. When you press play, a small guy on a sledge attempts to slide about the world that you create.
Here is an example of Line rider in action:
Isn't that something! I have tried this a few times without any real success but I am getting there. I'll have to upload my efforts to YouTube too. For the primary teachers out there who remember the Foundations of Writing scheme this may strike a chord with you. Do you remember the activities that it was suggested that we do with emergent writers? Remember the line walks for example? The children would take a line for a walk and then tell the story. For example they could have slopes to slide down, spirals to climb up, rocky bits to scramble over etc. I wonder if this tool could be used in this context. Maybe a little bit of an ambitious leap but well worth a look...
Another nice thing about this game is that there is no points or competiton here. I like competiton, don't get me wrong, but this is a world where the player/designer can lose themselves and create something quite magiucal.
Have fun playing this....
What a fantastic idea - we still value the good old black pen drawings - def going to have go at this one - thanks Derek
Posted by: Anna Rossvoll | February 16, 2007 at 02:45 PM
My kids took to LineRider at Christmas time and I couldn't get them away from it for ages. When I say kids - one is 19, one 16 and the other 11!
Posted by: Gordon McKinlay | February 17, 2007 at 08:57 AM