Has a track ever changed you?

I think about this a lot. I interact with Line Rider in some form most days. A lot of my friends tell me I'm obsessed. But have any tracks actually changed the way I think about trackmaking? About life? God forbid, my religious views? What about you guys?

In terms of emotional impact, I sometimes run into tracks that make me feel. But that, I think, is different than actually changing a person's perspective. I find that this was the main method through which scenery tracks convinced me to do scenery: Mysteria, Bolted to the Wall, Monumental, all of these did this.

I'm interested to hear what you guys think.

i am a firm believer of constant change. I believe that every track i watch has an impact on me, albeit, not necessarily a big one. No track has in any way changed my values outside linerider. I watch tracks, they influence my track making, which is a part of my life, so I guess in some way, all tracks change me.

I don't believe line rider is a versatile enough tool to convey messages that can seriously impact a person's beliefs. But maybe ine rider does have the potential to do this. If that is the case, one might find it natural to ask why no track has done this, despite having a repertoire containing 10 years worth of tracks. Maybe it works on a much more individual level? Has there ever been a track released with the intention of changing people's minds? Sorry for the derail.

Tracks themselves haven't necessarily changed my views, but the community certainly has. To name just a few things, the aftermath of Eden 2 taught me more about how to deal with criticism and the importance of just that. Handlebars taught me people care. The quick reviews have been extremely helpful in the creative process. And more generally, over the years I've begun realising that there's always an actual person behind the username and I believe we're all struggling with LR and the community in some extent, but we're helping eachother more and more and I really like that. I've got more to say, but I'd quickly diverge from your question

@anton: Braggadocio comes to mind.

Anton wrote:If that is the case, one might find it natural to ask why no track has done this, despite having a repertoire containing 10 years worth of tracks. Maybe it works on a much more individual level? Has there ever been a track released with the intention of changing people's minds? Sorry for the derail.

Interesting. I think, as a whole, the goal of this thread is to find out exactly who has been impacted, and maybe start a conversation about how we make tracks, since I've sort of rediscovered my love for the game in recent months and want to share that. Regarding off-topicness, I think this kind of thread is the exact place where we can get a little divergent, ya dig?

Helios Pavonine wrote:And more generally, over the years I've begun realising that there's always an actual person behind the username and I believe we're all struggling with LR and the community in some extent, but we're helping eachother more and more and I really like that. I've got more to say, but I'd quickly diverge from your question

@anton: Braggadocio comes to mind.

First bit is important. A lot of our online interaction tends to ignore the personhood we see implicitly in face-to-face interactions. One upshot of doing quick reviews with rabid (besides getting to talk about line rider with my good friend) is that you see a face behind each of our reviews. As I said above, I'm interested to hear what you two have to say, even if it diverges a little. We all have brains worth picking, in my opinion.

<3

Anton wrote:I don't believe line rider is a versatile enough tool to convey messages that can seriously impact a person's beliefs.

Hard disagree here. We just haven't figured out how. (Or tried to)

Anton wrote:If that is the case, one might find it natural to ask why no track has done this, despite having a repertoire containing 10 years worth of tracks.

I have lots of opinions on this but I think all of you know them. Can be summed up as: The community has been hyper-focused since 2008 on competition in linecount/detail in scenery, perfect execution of tricks, extreme abuse of gravity wells, etc, as the ends themselves rather than means to the end of impacting someone's thoughts and beliefs (a primary goal of many art creators, including myself)

Anton wrote:Has there ever been a track released with the intention of changing people's minds?

Most of my recent work fits this category at least loosely. Clearest examples for this community are probably Braggadocio and i squared, but Driftwood, Colorblind, Line, Daisies, Broken, Wind Up Toy, 2:27 am, and even the experiment series were created with this goal somewhat in mind. Hell, even Bolted to the Wall had this, albeit as a backseat focus and sloppy execution (but I was 16 so I cut myself some slack)

EDIT: Guess I should answer the question. A lot of tracks have changed me in small ways in that they affect how I make tracks or inspired me to make tracks, but in terms of tracks that have changed me outside of Line Rider itself... a lasting change, instead of just creating a temporary feeling... Nope, nothing yet.

...I guess if you limit "released with the intention of changing minds" to outside of how they think about Line Rider, then the only real example thus far was Broken (one of the main goals was to reach and express solidarity with and thus help those experiencing the loneliness of depression). Most of what I've been making has been art made in Line Rider, made about Line Rider. Trying to convince people to conceive of it in different ways, and also help myself think of it more broadly. I want to create art with the intention to really affect people's ideas and beliefs about things beyond Line Rider but that's not something I know how to do yet. But I'm very optimistic that it's not only possible, but a great medium for some messages. And the more people who think of Line Rider that way the easier it will be to bounce ideas around through artmaking and actually be able to get to that point, which is why the first step it to use Line Rider to change the way people think about Line Rider, because that's an easier step to tackle.

wow that was a really long edit and now this post is an essay and I just wrote out my whole post-2015 philosophy on trackmaking lol whoops

I like this thread.
By far the most influential track in my life has been Blue Champion (by IGotGreasyBalls for those who don't know). It made me aware what role music plays in a track and I've been obsessively music syncing ever since. Eventually I dedicated my life to music, and I can't imagine what my life would look like if Blue Champion hadn't been released.

Recently, Tantalos made me come to realisation. I think we've grown so much in technicality that we lost overview of what tricks work together and which don't. There are just too many tricks. Going back to basics might help in reinventing flow for the better.

Over all though it's the people here that influenced me. Rabid taught me so much about what art is and how to think about it, it's insane. And just philosophising about Line Rider and more with all of you continues to teach me more.

I think CommanderCoke's scenery has guided my drawing style in real life, and I first got into discovering musicians through WRTL, but I'm not sure if Line Rider has ever changed me outside of art-related things.

There have been many tracks which portray emotion, and make me feel that emotion, especially ones such as Phantasmagoric Heart, Broken, and Hasta La Raiz. We're stopping short of changing people's perspectives, but I don't think that's a bad thing. I can think of very few times when art as a whole has changed my opinion on anything, with a few examples being some movies, but any specific examples are lost on me. Instead, much like the few examples in Line Rider, I experience emotion because I already have some connection with what the artist is trying to convey. I can relate to what is being said, and it resonates with me. But it doesn't change who I am as a person, at least not to the degree where I notice it happening. To ask for LR to change our perspective is asking more than what most professional artists are able to accomplish with a much more versatile medium.

The community's reaction to a track has more effect on me than the track, usually
Although my answer to the question in the title is yes

Opal Rider wrote:I can think of very few times when art as a whole has changed my opinion on anything, with a few examples being some movies, but any specific examples are lost on me. Instead, much like the few examples in Line Rider, I experience emotion because I already have some connection with what the artist is trying to convey. I can relate to what is being said, and it resonates with me. But it doesn't change who I am as a person, at least not to the degree where I notice it happening. To ask for LR to change our perspective is asking more than what most professional artists are able to accomplish with a much more versatile medium.

This highlights the gulf between myself and the rest of y'all pretty nicely. I regularly seek out and succeed in finding art that gets me thinking, and I think it's the most important reason behind art creation. Sadly our society (I guess I can only really speak of my own US society here) consistently devalues this approach in favor of entertainment with a broad appeal and lots of spectacle that will draw in large audiences because that's where the $$$ lies - to the point where so many people don't really understand why people even make art for a purpose other than entertainment (EDIT: or enjoying the process itself)

This also brings up something I think is important—WHY we consume the art we choose to consume. I think it's safe to say that (most) of us joined as bored teenagers who were looking for some kind of entertainment, and found an internal intricacy in Line Rider that kept us entertained. I don't think we were equipped to ask these kinds of questions at that early stage of our interactions with Line Rider, but I think now, as we become adults with jobs and education and existential crises and all the other normal things adults have, we're in a better place to question not just how we make art, but why.

With that comes an extra dimension a lot of us aren't really used to considering. Asking the "why" is valuable. Why is this track built the way it is? Why do these motions work well and these ones don't? Is this significant?

I'm not saying every track needs to be some grandiose work with themes and backstory, don't get me wrong. But I think there's spaces we can (and, I think, should) be exploring in the world of Line Rider that we haven't gone to yet, and I hope some people will go there with me.