In 2015, I revisited my unlisted line rider tracks.
Feeling nostalgic, I decided to revisit the forum to see if it had died off yet. It had not.
I take a look around, and a lot of faces I recognized are still here. I find that there has actually been version development in the form of mods. I quickly download the latest version, and am immediately disappointed by how clunky everything is. Long story short, I take a shot at the project of making a more ‘usable’ version of the game, seeing all previous project efforts had failed.
Conundrumer reaches out to me regarding this, suggesting I work on a Javascript code base that he and someone else were planning. I decline, as I have no experience with Javascript and also, frankly, every previous effort had failed. The forums were littered with failed attempts to ‘re-invent’ linerider.
In August of 2015, I decide I’m far enough along with the project that I’m going to finish it.
By July, an alpha is released, and things are going smoothly.
However, by September, a different, competing version is posted: lrjs.
A version of linerider written in javascript by Conundrumer.
It didn’t make sense to me at the time why another project was necessary, and it felt like all the time I had put into Line Rider: Advanced was a complete waste. However, I kept on.
Back then, linerider.com was a dead website that pointed to Sparkworks. However, in a move I didn’t expect at all, Conundrumer ends up getting rights to the website, and he develops a second, more official line rider version: linerider.com. Because it’s on the website, it had to be official.
I should have stopped the moment I heard he got rights to the website.
The problem with Line Rider Advanced is that it can never make money off the work I put into it. It was never supposed to, because at the time Line Rider was abandonware, the trademark existed so I couldn’t profit from it, but that was fine. Nobody else could either. But, the moment he got rights to the website, it was like an official approval from the trademark holders that he could profit from it.
However, I kept working on Line Rider: Advanced. For years.
Finally, a mobile app for Line Rider is released by Conundrumer. But for free. That’s fine. I don’t care if it’s free.
But that was just the launch price.
Now it’s 3 dollars.
His only job is developing linerider.com now, and it’s very profitable for him. As far as I know, he’s living off the income.
I’m not saying he hasn’t worked hard, and I’m not saying he doesn’t necessarily deserve it.
But it feels fucking rotten to have worked so damn hard to make a project that is legitimately loved, that is backed up by a community who still prefers it over my version that hasn’t seen an update in over two years now. It feels rotten to have been the first to show results with the actual project. To have come in to this with nothing but good will. And yet, someone else has made it something in their life, and I have a pile of git issues that I’m afraid to touch because it’s a waste of my time.
I recently decided that having multiple versions is not healthy for the community of people who avidly play the game, and it definitely isn’t healthy for me. I’d just be fighting against the profitable version of the game.
Conundrumer has voiced plans to implement most of the Line Rider: Advanced specific features. So I asked him if he would allow me to work on the development of linerider.com, so we could smooth over the transition of features LRA is strong in and implement new features to a bigger audience faster, and in a way that reaches everyone.
Conundrumer said no, because he doesn’t want to share the money.
That’s fine. If he’s living off it, why would he want to even grant a fraction to someone else. He’s doing fine on his own
But that leaves me here, with a code base that’s just competing with something that’s making someone else money, a lot of it.
So I’m done. This all brings me too much pain. I hate that I was stupid enough to work on this project in the first place. I’m leaving the community, and development of the project is officially abandoned. Please do not reach out to me for bugs or issues any longer.
I want to forget the 580 commits to the code base I’ve put in. I want to forget the fact I rewrote a user interface library from the ground up to suit my needs. I want to forget that I worked so hard and so long on this, with a period I worked between 12-16 hours per day for months. I want to forget the hand pain that I now experience every day as a result of overworking myself that much.
I want to forget about this part of my life.
Thanks to the people who have supported me.