— Work · Game

Paper Rider

페이퍼 라이더

A bike flip game where you ride and flip with one finger on a track drawn in pencil.

Google PlayApp Store
type
game · bike · one touch
platforms
Android · iOS
controls
hold to accelerate · hold in the air to backflip
made_by
odd duck

Why we made it

On a graph-paper notebook, a single pencil line becomes a hill, and a small bike rides over it. The title screen of Paper Rider reads: “Ride the track drawn in pencil.”

You have probably drawn a long line in the corner of a notebook and imagined something racing along it. Paper Rider turns that doodle-like daydream into a game you ride with one finger. Where Paper Perch stacked blocks on paper, Paper Rider rides across it.

There is only one control. Hold to ride; hold in the air for one full turn backwards. Touch down lightly on both wheels, and that’s a Perfect.

Title screen — PAPER RIDER handwritten on graph paper, ‘페이퍼 라이더 · 연필로 그린 트랙을 달려라’ (Paper Rider · Ride the track drawn in pencil), a pencil-line hill and a small bike, and ‘화면을 터치해서 시작’ (Touch the screen to start)Course map — My Street (Once around the block): courses numbered 0–8 over a pencil-drawn hill with houses and trees, the stamp ‘Easy stroll ▲38m’, stars 16/24, and the list of the first neighbourhood’s courses along the bottom
The title on graph paper, and the first course, My Street

Drawing lines, riding bikes — a few scenes

There are plenty of games about riding a bike over hills, and plenty about drawing a line to make a road. Here we touch on only a few scenes people often talk about.

In Nintendo’s Excitebike, released in Japan on 30 November 1984, the player races as a motocross rider (Wikipedia). Trials, which began as a browser game in 2000, grew into a series in which a motorcycle rider clears obstacles in simulated physics (Wikipedia).

In September 2006, Boštjan Čadež, a student in Slovenia, made Line Rider. Draw a line with the mouse, and a boy on a sled rides along it (Wikipedia). Hill Climb Racing, by Finland’s Fingersoft, came out on Android on 22 September 2012. It is a racing game of climbing hills with 2D physics, and Fingersoft said it passed 100 million downloads in October 2013 (Wikipedia).

A few scenes from games about drawing lines and riding bikes — 1984 Excitebike, 2000 Trials, 2006 Line Rider, 2012 Hill Climb Racing, and Paper Rider 1984ExcitebikeNintendo, motocross racing 2000TrialsPhysics-based obstacles 2006Line RiderDraw a line and it’s a road 2012Hill Climb RacingUphill with 2D physics NowPaper RiderBike on a pencil line, one finger
A few scenes from games about drawing lines and riding bikes — 1984 Excitebike → 2000 Trials → 2006 Line Rider → 2012 Hill Climb Racing → Paper Rider (spacing is not to scale)

Put side by side, Paper Rider sits somewhere in between. The road is a line drawn in pencil, the bike follows that line over hills and spins in the air, and the controls take one finger.

From around the block to mountains and deserts around the world

The first course is called My Street, with the subtitle ‘Once around the block’. The stamp in the corner of the map reads ‘Easy stroll ▲38m’ — a walk once around the neighbourhood. The courses are linked by number on a hill-shaped map, and you collect stars on each one.

The road goes further and further. Mount Etna’s subtitle is ‘Smoking giant’, and Erg Chebbi’s is ‘Dune surfing’. The fun part is the stamps. Etna, more than 3,000 metres high, is stamped ‘Light hike’; a 150 m sand dune gets ‘Serious climb’. As if to say that higher doesn’t mean harder.

The real Etna is one of the most active volcanoes in the world, and its height changes with every eruption. In September 2024 it was 3,403 m (Wikipedia). UNESCO describes Etna as the most active stratovolcano in the world, and inscribed it as a World Heritage Site in 2013 (UNESCO). Morocco’s Erg Chebbi is a sea of wind-blown sand, where dunes rise in places up to 150 m above the surrounding rocky desert (Wikipedia).

From around the block to the world — starting at My Street, past Mount Etna and Erg Chebbi, with what comes next left as question marks — ride there and see for yourself My StreetEasy stroll · ▲38m Mount EtnaSmoking giant · Light hike Erg ChebbiDune surfing · Serious climb ? ? From here on, ride there and see for yourself
From around the block to the world — My Street → … → Mount Etna → … → Erg Chebbi → ? → ? · for what comes next, ride there and see for yourself (spacing is not to scale)

How far it goes beyond that, we have left off this page. Ride there and see for yourself.

Course map — ‘에트나 화산’ (Mount Etna), subtitled ‘연기 나는 거인’ (Smoking giant): courses 0–8 on a grey mountain with smoke rising from the top, the stamp ‘가벼운 등산’ (Light hike), stars 13/24Mount Etna
Course map — ‘에르그 셰비 사막’ (Erg Chebbi Desert), subtitled ‘모래 언덕 서핑’ (Dune surfing): orange sand dunes, the sun and palm trees, the stamp ‘본격 등반 ▲150m’ (Serious climb ▲150m), stars 8/24Erg Chebbi
?
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Mount Etna and Erg Chebbi — ride the other courses for yourself

Collect, upgrade, compete

Bikes gather in the garage one by one. There are bikes with names like Turtle, Decal, Skull and Sun, and the one equipped right now, ‘Freedom’, comes with the Stardust effect. Upgrades level up one at a time, at random, and apply equally to every bike. They range from ones that help you ride, like Engine, Spin, Suspension and Nitro, to ones that help you collect, like Gem Magnet, Lucky Pencil and Letter Hunter.

Garage screen — the equipped sky-blue bike ‘자유’ (Freedom; Special, effect: Stardust), the bike list below with Turtle, Decal, Skull and Sun, and the ‘바이크 뽑기’ (Roll for a bike) buttonUpgrades screen — ‘무작위로 하나씩 레벨업 · 모든 바이크 적용’ (Level up one at random · Applies to all bikes), with cards for Engine, Spin, Gem Magnet, Suspension, Nitro, Gift Box, Gem Value, Lucky Pencil and Letter Hunter
The garage and upgrades — collect bikes, and level them up one at a time, at random

In Endless Ride, you keep riding along a line that never ends, collecting gems and the letters R·I·D·E·R. In Grand Prix, you climb eight leagues, from Beginner to Legend. Each league is three races against seven rivals on time, and whoever comes first on the three-race total wins and moves up to the next league.

The eight Grand Prix leagues — Beginner, Rookie, Amateur, Semi-pro, Pro, Elite, Master, Legend. Each league has three races and seven rivals, and first place overall moves up to the next league Beginner Rookie Amateur Semi-pro Pro Elite Master Legend 3 races 7 rivals Win overall, go up
The eight Grand Prix leagues — Beginner → Rookie → Amateur → Semi-pro → Pro → Elite → Master → Legend

The rivals’ names are worth a look, too: Galaxy Gus, Neon Nina, Ink Ian, Origami Ori, Charcoal Chuck, Fountain Pen Fiona, Pastel Patty. They are all named after stationery. It’s a race on paper, after all.

Endless Ride screen — a bike riding on graph paper, score 17, the collected letters R·I with D·E·R still empty, and gemsGrand Prix screen — Master League, 3 races · a time battle with 7 rivals; the riders Me, Galaxy Gus, Neon Nina, Ink Ian, Origami Ori, Charcoal Chuck, Fountain Pen Fiona and Pastel Patty; and ‘그랑프리 출발’ (Start the Grand Prix)
Endless Ride and Grand Prix — collect letters, and race the stationery rivals

Right now we are in the middle of polishing it.

We hope you set off lightly, like a doodle in the corner of a notebook, and before you know it find yourself riding over sand dunes somewhere in the world. And we hope a short trip you take with one finger becomes a small pause in your day.

How to play

  • Press and hold the screen to ride.
  • Keep holding in the air for one turn backwards — a backflip.
  • Land softly on both wheels for a Perfect! You get a boost and go faster.
  • Collect stars on every course, and build up your bikes in the garage and with upgrades.

Sources — Excitebike (Wikipedia) · Trials (Wikipedia) · Line Rider (Wikipedia) · Hill Climb Racing (Wikipedia) · Mount Etna (Wikipedia) · Mount Etna (UNESCO World Heritage) · Erg Chebbi (Wikipedia) · Game screens: October 2026