A Totally Normal Bike Ride

Overview

A Totally Normal Bike Ride is a jam prototype built around an intentionally unstable bike-platforming premise. The project shipped with a browser build and a Windows download, which made it easy for judges and players to try without extra setup.

The three-day constraint meant the central physics joke had to become playable quickly, then remain predictable enough for level design. The implementation therefore separated locomotion, balance, jumping, wire authoring, and visual time-of-day systems instead of concentrating every behavior in the player script.

What I Contributed

As the primary programmer, I owned the physics character, wire-authoring utilities, and environmental visual pipeline. I also handled debugging and integration needed to turn those systems into a stable browser and Windows build within the jam window.

Two-body physics character

The character is a wheel and rider rigidbody joined by a pin joint. Locomotion applies torque to the wheel while balance applies lean torque to the rider, with separate tuning for ground and air control. Using two physical bodies preserved the deliberately unstable premise; the design problem was providing enough control to make recovery feel earned rather than random.

The variable jump uses a charge-and-release model. Holding the input compresses the rider toward the wheel, and releasing applies an impulse scaled by hold time. Ground state comes from the wheel’s contact count, while a rolling average-speed buffer drives camera and feedback decisions without reacting to every single-frame physics fluctuation.

Telephone-wire authoring tool

The telephone-wire tool generates a segmented physics rope between two static anchors. It automatically spaces and sizes segments to the span, chains them with joints, and renders their current positions as a smooth baked Curve2D on a Line2D. Authoring a wire is reduced to placing two endpoints.

This traded some editor-tool implementation time for much faster level iteration. Designers did not need to place, size, and connect individual rope segments, and the generated physics structure stayed consistent across every wire.

Day-night cycle

A normalized day timer drives a canvas-item shader that blends a four-phase vertical sky gradient—night, dawn, day, and dusk—with smoothstep transitions. Scripted celestials use the same time value: the sun arcs across the sky with eyes that track the player, while the moon scales and fades alongside stars and tinted clouds. Sharing one normalized input kept the visual layers synchronized without coupling their individual presentation code.

Integration

I contributed debugging and integration so the final build had a clear input model and could be shared through itch.io as both a browser build and a Windows download. The delivery work also exposed physics behavior that felt acceptable in isolation but needed tighter bounds when played as a complete level.

What The Work Shows

The useful lesson here was handling a deliberately unstable mechanic without letting the implementation become unclear to work with. The project needed fast iteration, direct feedback, and systems small enough to ship in three days. Separating the physical character from wire generation and environmental presentation kept the core joke intact while giving the team practical places to tune stability and polish.