Freeware Game; XMoto & Elastomania (and what they teach)

I discovered Elastomania when it was stuck on a cover mounted CD on PC Gamer about seven years ago. Having played it avidly, then forgotten about it, then remembered it and downloaded the full version illegally two years ago – I still pick it up and play it all the time. It’s a 2D motocross game in which, by manipulating the acceleration and angle of your cardboard bike and your perennially stiff driver, you must collect all the apples in a level before reaching the flower to finish. It sounds ludicrous, even to me, to say this, but it’s the best computer game I have ever played.

What makes something so simple (and so cruel; you will die quickly the first few times you play it, and frequently afterwards) so incredibly awesome is the physics. The only parts of your bike that have any solidity, with the exception of the driver’s head, which kills you if it touches anything, are the two wheels. The wheels seem to be mounted on two heavily springy elastic bands, and, by using the inherent weight and momentum of your bike you can use these bendy appendages to great effect. At the simplest level, they make riding around the levels both tremendously fun and quite challenging; as you cruise across hills; round loop-the-loops; off ski jumps; landing correctly is made deeply satisfying by the difficulty of controlling it. When you start using the bouncy physics to achieve seemingly impossible jumps and spins, or to squeeze your way through tiny spaces, it feels profound. When your feel for the game allows you to alter trajectories in a moment, or survive a stupid mistake with an instinctive reaction, an elation incomparable in computer games grips you.

XMoto is a more recent, but totally free update to the theme. It is unashamed in it’s copying of Elastomania, so that’s fair enough, and it does change things enough to be a separate game. The physics are different; the bike is stiffer and heavier allowing for more robust climbing of hills, jumping and a more responsive altering of your angle. It also allows for scripting in levels, resulting in moving platforms, lifts, ‘quest’ levels where you have to collect things and so on, which is a nice addition. However, with the stiffening of the physics you do lose some of the deep pleasure that comes from the elastic bike, and the scripting takes the focus away from the pure level design of some of Elastomania’s more brilliant moments. There are a lot more levels available for XMoto though, so it’s well worth having just because it’ll keep you going forever.

Both are amazing, wonderful games. It is stupid how much enjoyment I have taken from them. They are an object lesson in why excellent graphics is the last thing a computer game needs to succeed. At their basest level, games work as an input of commands that results in actions performed on a screen in front of you. It is when those actions are pleasurable that a game becomes good; and when we are able to ignore our act of inputting commands that a game becomes immersive. By playing these ostensibly simple, 2D bike games, with childish graphics, you start to learn the physics; the feel of their little worlds. In time, you begin to be able to control your bike perfectly with minute taps of the keys, without even thinking about it. There is a direct link between an intuitive part of your brain and the game; and in this is immense gratification. You do not need fancy explosions or realistic AI to achieve that.

Get more levels for Elastomania at The MopoSite