Ace Triker - my latest ridiculous Giant Bomb game

Because making games based entirely around puns is what I do, here's my latest project after Commander Ryckert - the high-flying roguelike racing platformer Ace Triker!

In the distant future, daring thrillseekers perform death-defying three-wheeled vehicular acrobatics while being chased by a pyrotechnic deathwall, all for the benefit of their adoring fans.

This isn't a task for an amateur biker. This is a job for an ACE TRIKER!

All music made with Sentris. You too can make music!

Play/Download Link (EMBARRASSING THEME SONG WARNING)

http://havochq.itch.io/acetriker

(Headphones recommended because dear god I made a theme song for this one too.)

(With special thanks to Jason & Lisa Oestreicher, Samantha Kalman and the great big extended giantbomb.com family!)

Instructions

They're written on the wall when you begin! Navigate the interface with WASD and Spacebar, or the arrow keys and Enter.

Characters

Choose from three different aces, each with wildly different special abilities!

• Jason and his secret-technique-cable-wound-grappling-hook!
• Lisa and her transforming ride that swaps between a stunt mode and a speed mode!
• S-Zero and her gravity-defying beat drops!

Have Fun

Hope you enjoy! :D

Quality name, 5/5.

Obviously I've only been playing for a hot minute, but damn man this is great.

This is great, Samantha is my best character for sure. I also love playing Jason. Lisa is way too squirrelly for me though! I think maybe I just couldn't get a handle on when to use which mode.

Cool game with great music. The stores between the levels (I only reached level 3) were a cool surprise.

Also Pssshewww

I listened to that entire theme song and am a better person for it.

Neat game. Particularly liked playing as Lisa - I couldn't figure out how to really effectively use Jason's or Samantha's abilities.

EDIT: Ah...I missed the part about aiming with Samantha the first time I tried playing as her. She actually is OP.

@havochq: Oh wow, this is so fun and utterly charming. Fantastic work!

@marino@zombiepie you know what needs to be done!

@samanthazero is OP

Ha! That was fun. :D

Thank you so much for your kind words and feedback! :D I've just updated the game to version 1.1:

• S-Zero's beats take a little more time to charge, but are much easier to aim
• Stunt points for all three characters' specials have been rebalanced, and now scale with their stats

Thanks again for playing! You've made the past few months totally worth it. :D

Game of the Year - shut it down, just start the podcast already.

"The sickest beats imaginable" - some journalist guy.

Lisa's folded up form seems nearly uncontrollable. Jason was the best feeling of the three!

The game has now been updated to version 1.2, with many adjustments related to failure! Yay!

• The Pyrotechnic Deathwall will now reliably toss you out
• Dying in the Deathwall will toss all your trike's bits out
• The camera keeps tracking your trike's core when you run out of armor, because that's pretty cool
• If the core of your trike crosses the finish line before the game sends you to the game over screen, you'll enter the next shop with zero armor and have a single shot at buying more armor if there's some in stock (hopefully you won't get Vinny's store)
• New helpful tips have been added

Thank you so much for playing, and let me know if anything else merits a tweak! :D

Thanks for the update!

The only thing that could make it better would be some boxart. If only you knew an artist with plenty of spare time on his hands.

Wait, I'm an artist with plenty of spare time on my hands!

Quick sketch:

Updated sketch: (I just realized I spelled it wrong)

Update:

Finished:

That was fun. :)

For what it's worth, I don't expect you to actually use this or anything. I just thought it was a good joke and I wanted to do something to convey that I too appreciate a good pun. Cheers!

@zzombie13: That is absolutely fantastic! Thank you so much, you've made my day! :D

Game is Fantastic Spent more time then I should have playing it, Plus seeing all the different shops were hilarious! Keep up the great work! You Rock!

Why doesn't Samantha's Space skill work when you're in the air (which where you spend 90% of the game)?

This was actually pretty fun! Also the sound bites were fucking perfect

@getz said:

It works in the air, but it only charges up on the ground. This means playing her involves judicious charging and spending of beats so that you don't end up free-falling to your doom without any beats left.

@zzombie13: Jason's a fan! :D

So good! Love the other giant bomb cameos as the shopkeepers. Also, who does the voiceover for the high score screen?

Thanks! :D That's Austin, who was kind enough to read a lovely paragraph he wrote about getting into writing about games, which I then tweaked to apply to the oddball Ace Triker mythos. I initially wanted to put it as an easter egg in Austin's shop, but I loved the whole thing so much I decided to put it on the scoreboard screen and it made the whole losing experience incredibly more motivating.

@havochq: Ah, okay. I thought that sounded familiar. I was wondering how you got Austin to talk about Trikes. That was really good, though. Good use of game over audio!

Wow! The grapple mechanic on a vehicle is so much fun! I don't think I've ever come across something like that.

Anybody know any games that use a grapple mechanic with vehicles?

This is dope as hell and you should feel dope as hell!

This.is.AMAZING!!!!

Holy crap, this was great!

Was not prepared for the shopkeeper!

@mathey said:

Thank you so much! :D There are 10 shops in total; some only show up after stage 3, and the most potent/devious ones only appear after stage 5.

Ahh, I see. For some reason I thought it was a timing based thing where I have to hit space as the circle shrinks. Cause to my brain music game=rhythm game... anyway cool little game, I especially like the Dan troll in the shops.

I don't know what I was expecting, but this is actually pretty good. Been playing mostly as Jason, just can't quite get the hang of the others.

This is rad as heck. I love that you made the music in Sentris, too. Great job!

That was actually super fun! Really digging all the upgrade store managers

Oh man, this is so good. Going to put Red Lynx out of business!

Thank you once again everyone for your wonderful feedback! :D It really warms my heart to know that people are having fun with my ludicrous game.

Also, I've learned that the OS X version is super duper busted! D: So sorry about that! I just uploaded it blindly and assumed it worked since I had no Mac to test it on. My apologies for wasting your time! I'm looking into what can be done to fix it up.

Finally, I added a "Low Performance" version to the downloads for all platforms. I needed a version I could run on my netbook in case I wanted to show it at PAX, so I figured I'd put it up for anyone else who needed it. Thanks again for being amazing, and keep on rocking! :D

Only just got around to playing this and it's actually super fun. I was pleasantly surprised how well it plays. Lisa feels a little too squirely but she's definitely a character that requires good use of swapping back and forth between the 2 bike modes.

This is absolutely amazing, any game that allows me to play as a Robotic Samantha Kalman has my full support.

I want to watch the entire Child's Play stream now (for the third time, Rummy Beeeear)

Wasn't prepared for this to actually be really good! You are seriously talented! Love seeing so many people have different opinions of what the best character is (Lisa all the way, the rest of you are crazy!).

@havochq: DanDanDanDanDanDan Havoc, you monster. You beautiful monster.

This is rad!