Who would have thought? There is a new Hall of Fame levelpack
 7 Year Itch
Thanks must go to   BikerBrian and   Alpha who compiled the pack, and of course the level creators:   thedudeguy   _alex_   Bg   Champ   Ergo

BoD is 7 years old and I'm still alive! (even though I am now focused on some other projects... but who knows, I might come back to BoD then )



Anyway, here is the season 2010-2011 chart, showing the some interesting changes, most notably the new Champion!
Congratulations, BikerBrian!

Past charts: 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Bike or Die is 6 years old - which means today is the top-50-chart-day

See the 2009-2010 chart

Congratulations to all the awesome bikers who managed to get into top 50 this year!

Past charts: 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

And yet it moves! Play the new Hall of Fame levelpack, gain ranking points, win gold medals and crush your competitors.
It's the  Spring Revival time!

Direct download link:  Spring Revival

The levels of Spring Revival were chosen from the levelpacks created by
  thedudeguy,   Champ,   Bg, and   _alex_
Thank you!

It is hard to believe it has been 5 years already!

Here is the last year's ranking chart, showing all good players who managed to reach top 50. Congratulations!

Past charts: year 1 year 2 year 3 year 4

The new  Introduction levelpack becomes the starting pack in new BoD releases - easy and nice levels demonstrating basic gameplay features should help new players learn basic biking skills.

By the way, the following enhancements have been added:

"Need help? Click here!" hints how to complete a level and offers to replay the tutor ride (instead of starting the replay immediately)

Ghost bike uses the tutorial recording if a given levels was not yet completed

(Palm only) "rescue" can now handle multiple players' recordings

(Palm only) new "Go To Hall of Fame" menu option opens the Hall of Fame listing for the currently played level (or its Levelpack Explorer page if the level is not in HoF). I forgot to include this in the iPhone update, will be added in the next one.

Palm:
download Bike or Die 2.1b

iPhone:
Bike or Die in AppStore (the above changes are added in version 2.1.3, will appear in the store soon)
Bike or Die - Lite Edition (recently released free version)

 3 comments

The 14th Hall of Fame levelpack is  Winter Pack, containing 14 amazing levels created by the best Bike or Die players!

If you downloaded the Winter Pack before, please delete it and download the current version, otherwise your scores won't be accepted into the Hall of Fame!
Players using the old Bike or Die v1.6, should upgrade to the most recent version 1.6b, earlier versions contained a bug that affected the radial gravity levels, which was not an issue until now - as the Winter Pack is the first Hall of Fame pack using radial gravity (see  Planet Time Trial).

Do you prefer freestyle over time trial racing? The new competition has just started:
 One Wheel Fun - "Save rubber, ride on one wheel!"
Is it possible to complete a level using just one wheel? Probably not, but can you go farther than anyone else?

More about Freestyle

I thought the iPhone version will appear first (it has been sent to AppStore few days ago) but the delay is longer than expected. I managed to compile the new Palm version in the meantime

And here it is:
Download Bike or Die! 2.1a for Palm

- introducing "Save & Resume", as shown in the previously published video
This means the game will be easier and less frustrating for new players - you don't need to play the level from the very beginning each time you die. However, you still have to complete the level in one go in order to submit your score to the Hall of Fame.
The new "automatic Save & Resume" feature is ON by default, which means you will experience it just by playing the game as usual. This might be not what you want if you are the experienced player struggling to get the best Hall of Fame score - read the Hints below to learn how to tame Save & Resume.

Hints:

Note the "R" icon in the bottom right corner. It reminds you the current game has been resumed (so you won't be surprised you can not submit it later)

Restart the game twice in a row to get back to the beginning (making the game HoF-able again)

You can disable the automatic saving completely (see Control Options)

Even when auto saving is disabled, you can still save manually, anytime you want (press and hold Pause, or define a button in Control Options/Function)

Notes:

The "R" icon is also displayed in level selector if a given level was only completed by resuming.

As a "side effect", the game is now also saved on quit (and resumed on the next start). Such feature was requested long time ago - after all, this is the standard Palm application behavior.

Palm only: Manual camera movement is now more usable - it stays in place after releasing the pen so you can look around more comfortably while playing. Wait a few seconds to shift back to normal. (iPhone version worked that way since 2.0)

Bug fixed in 2.1a (Palm)

levels completed by resuming did not unlock further levels

 23 comments

Most people who play the game for the first time complain on the very high difficulty level so i decided i have to do something.

The change is small but very influential: ability to save and resume the game. So now you don't have to play the level from the very beginning each time you die (this was the most frustrating for newbies!).
There are 2 ways to use this: the autosave algorithm saves the game after collecting a red flag or at any place considered "safe", so in many cases you don't have to do anything to benefit from the new feature. Those who want more control can also save the game anytime they want be pressing and holding the "pause" button.
But there is one catch: you still have to complete the level in one go, in order to submit your best score to the online competition. Changing this rule would be unfair to the people who already played long hours to get their Hall of Fame medals!

Thanks to   Xuzz , who enhanced my replay routine, it is now possible to view more than 2 players simultaneously!

Examples:
 rachman! vs. 4 others
 Kristopher vs. 6 others
 Shane vs. 7 others

Additionally, the Head-to-Head links will no longer become invalid after making some games secret - now the page displays normally, just hiding the secret items.

Another improvement suggested by Xuzz is displaying links to other commented games in the "Related" section. This helps finding older comments for HoF games replaced by later submissions.

It is now possible to redownload your best recordings by clicking a button in your player's profile (in "Games on-line").
This allows you to regain your best times, ghost bikes, and open all previously available levels, after losing your files or switching to a new device.

After installing the files in Palm you have to rebuild the results database manually. Start the game, type "rescue" (without quotes) + enter. Repeat for all levelpacks. (Omitting this step only restores the recorded games without marking the newly installed files as your best times)

iPhone/iPod users have to log into their player account in the mobile safari browser and use the "Download" button from there. Yes, this is also a way you can transfer your Palm recordings to iDevice

Releasing the iPhone version motivated me to implement the "mobile" version of the BoD website (finally!). It is not much smaller by data transfer, but its layout is better suited for small screens. This was done by replacing the left column navigation with combo boxes, using smaller images and omitting some information.
The website automatically recognizes Blazer and iPhone/iPod Safari as mobile browsers. You can also switch between these versions using the new icons (see the top right corner): =mobile =regular

Bike or Die is now available for iPhone and iPod Touch!
Bike or Die in AppStore

The game is basically identical to the Palm version. The main difference is that there are no buttons - everything is touchscreen-controlled.
See YouTube video

iPhone users play the same levels as Palm users and compete in the same Hall of Fame. However, it is not clear yet if the touchscreen control will prove good enough for the real world class champions. There is only one way to find out - play!

What's new in version 2.0d:

supports 320x480 in Sony Clie

"Next Level" tells you to complete a level before going further instead of just ignoring you

background music is stopped when a "foreign" window appears on the screen (eg. incoming call on treo)

biker girl character
(see: menu -> options -> bike)


Download Bike or Die version 2.0d

 21 comments

Today is the 4th anniversary of Bike or Die!

I made the traditional ranking graph showing the top 50 players changes during the last 12 months.
Congratulations to all who managed to reach top 50 this year

Past charts: year 1 year 2 year 3

 BikeForce has been added to the Hall of Fame. This means 13 new gold medals and numerous opportunities to outrun your competitors!

BikeForce looks best in Bike or Die 2 but it is also playable in the old Bike or Die v1.x.

Do you prefer freestyle over time trial racing? The new competition has just started:  Final Frontier "To boldly go where no one has gone before..." - the goal is to reach seemingly inaccessible location in some level.
More about Freestyle

I fixed some bugs:

Holding the button assigned to "restart level" no longer restarts the level continuously (which breaks your stats)

Didn't ask before quitting even if the option was enabled (Control Options)

(Not really a bug) by using more flexible memory management the game also works on devices having much smaller dynamic memory heap (e.g. Zire 71)

Download Bike or Die 2.0c

Thanks to   Ricardo there is now a Spanish version of Bike or Die 2!
Download Spanish translation

 3 comments

New features:

Textures

Picture Editor


Improvements:

"Copy & Paste" can now handle multiple objects and can copy objects between levels

"Copy & Paste" colors (activate by pressing and holding the stylus on the color field)

Download Bike or Design v1.5

Read more about Picture Editor and Textures

 10 comments

Here comes the new Bike or Die!


Download: Bike or Die! 2

The most important difference is graphics - now it is possible to design levels using multiple textures and there is a nice 3D effect making everything look more real than ever.



Summary of version 2 changes:

Improved level design, more textures, 3D-like effect

Background music

High contrast mode

Customizable bike appearance

"Player Profiles" for storing multiple configurations, especially useful when playing with family or friends

Variable zoom

"Map mode" is no longer static, you can even play on the map screen (as long you can manage to steer a tiny bike)

Commonly used menu commands can be assigned to buttons

Note: V1-> V2 upgrade is not free

 59 comments

The new Bike or Die is almost ready...

...except for one thing: it lacks a nice intro movie. Freestyle champions needed! Submit your best ride to  Bike or Die 2 Intro and win the eternal fame!

How to submit:
1. Download the BoD 2 Title level:  Bike or Die 2 Title
2. The title level cannot be finished - there are no flags. It means you have to abort the game by selecting menu "Save The Last Game" (or you could crash and then save)
3. Make sure you select "Freestyle" when saving, so it is easy to locate your game later
4. Submit your game
5. Find your game in your Freestyle games list, click "View" and submit it into the competition using checkbox

Note: The new Bike or Die v1.6a does not need registration to play the BoD 2 Title level (look for level #26 in the builtin levelpack)

Finally, the new website is ready, bringing a lot of long awaited features:

Search (see find.php?fp=search)

Completely new  Freestyle

Reworked page design

More convenient private messaging (and you can see your sent messages too)

"Preview" before posting

URLs in comment become clickable automatically

Easy paging through Hall of Fame tables (type page number or player name)

and more!

Many of these improvements are your  Ideas - thanks!

 59 comments

As you may have noticed, there are 2 new elements in the player profile pages - rank distribution chart and small green/red level rank charts. (Both these ideas come from Ibanez - thanks!)


This is the first of many planned improvements i'm going to implement before releasing BoD v2 (the most important ones are the search facility and Freestyle competition revival)

Stay tuned

My website is moving to a new server - I will have to disable the submission for a while to ensure the database consistency. Sorry for inconvenience!

If my understanding of the DNS is correct, the new IP should work within one hour

[edit: if you are reading this, you are already accessing the new server - so you can disregard this news!]

This is just a small update, introducing the new gravity options suggested by Cody (Thanks!)
See the video!

Download Bike or Die v1.6

I made a small levelpack  Gravity Fun as a demonstration - you are welcome to create more gravity-bending levels using the new Bike or Design v1.4

Download Bike or Design v1.4

Changes:

Diagonal portals (eg. Hall of Mirrors Time Trial) crashed (some?) color devices when color was disabled

Some sound effect stayed active when disabled in the system preferences

Fixed the probable cause of the "Chunk overlocked" bug

Download the new version here: BikeOrDie-1.5a.zip

 no comments

The application itself was not changed, but i added some documentation about new features, especially portals (included in the package or you can read it online here).


UPDATE: the new version 1.3b fixes a bug in loading old levelpacks: depending on the circumstances it could change the regular checkpoint and obstacles into "dynamic" ones (in other words, the additional numeric attribute in these objects was not always zero).

Bike or Die v1.5 introduces several new features in level design, gameplay and the user experience:

sticky surfaces

portals

dynamic checkpoints and obstacles (appear/disappear during the game)

zoom out for a wider view

and more!

Download: BikeOrDie v1.5



Along with the release of v1.5, the new levelpack has been added to the online competition.
Play  Supernatural, get know the mindbending portals and the treacherous sticky grounds!

 18 comments

Each forum thread has now the RSS link so you can track comments and threads easily.

What is RSS?

everyone knows what new features can be expected in this version (see  3 Years on Bike!), so just click here and download:
BikeOrDie-1.5test1.zip
(there is a little "v15 testpack" in the package, containing several simple v1.5 levels so you can start learning new tricks)
please report all bugs you can find

but that's not everything - there is also a brand new level editor able to create portals and sticky surfaces:
BikeOrDesign-1.3.prc
(later i will make some documentation on portals, this is the most complicated level element that not always works as one might expect - for now just learn from experimentation and the included v15 testpack )

"Bike or Die!" is 3 years old!

See how the Hall of Fame evolved during that time:
Part 1 (2004-2005) Part 2 (2005-2006) Part 3 (2006-2007)

Congratulations to everyone who appeared in top 50 this year! (I didn't make it, my best rank was 54 )

And later this week I'm going to announce my new plans for the further development. (In short: this is going to be the best game ever )

Today, another new levelpack was added to the online competition -  Next Generation

This feature allows you to replay two recordings simultaneously.
It looks like two player were chasing one another in a direct race. This is not only amusing, you can also utilise this feature to improve your skills by finding places where your competitors outrun you.

Here is how use it:

1. Go to the Hall of Fame listing for a level, or "Games on-line" in the player's profile

2. Click "Head to Head" in Tools (upper right corner)

3. Select two public recordings using checkboxes

4. Click "Show Head to Head"

Note: You can navigate between pages while selecting the recordings (in step 3), and also between Hall of Fame and games on-line.

And here is the "Head to Head" example

"Old School" is the new official levelpack in our online Hall of Fame. 15 new gold medals are waiting!

 Old School

The ranking has been just updated, according to the new rules agreed in this thread:  Medal Bonus Points Voting.
Top 15 players in each levels are now given special bonus points.

Rank	Before	After	Bonus
#1	100	121	+21
#2	99	116	+17
#3	98	112	+14
#4	97	109	+12
#5	96	107	+11
#6	95	105	+10
#7	94	103	+9
#8	93	101	+8
#9	92	99	+7
#10	91	97	+6
#11	90	95	+5
#12	89	83	+4
#13	88	81	+3
#14	87	89	+2
#15	86	87	+1

Most players are not affected.
Top gainers are:  Sirinx (#559 to #529),   ZAX (#353 to #337),   DavidE (#450 to #435),   Vega (#181 to #166),   magnus (#374 to #359),   Martyn (#571 to #561),  oh my god (#576 to #561).
Loses are not that spectacular, with the biggest change of 4 ranks ( Kap #570 to #574)

CSV file is available for detailed analysis if anyone is interested

This version fixes a bug in loading extremaly complex levels - like the Kristopher's "Infinity" from the upcoming "Scary Files" levelpack.

Download: BikeOrDie-1.4b.zip

Finally, the game is ready!
Let's celebrate - I'm going to give away 10 free registration codes for the top 10 "Bike or Die!" players (you will receive the instructions in private messages).

But there is more: "Arcade Reality" contains a hidden "Bike or Die"-related game. The first person who discovers how to enable this game will get another free registration. We all love "easter eggs", don't we?
(i'm announcing this "competition" only on this forum - it is meant for active "BoD" players)

Arcade Reality Homepage

This is the game that was supposed to be released at least 2 months ago... Now it is almost ready (expected release date - next week) and there is also a youtube video for your enjoyment

Arcade Reality homepage

See it on YouTube

For everyone: easy to use Chat (visible as one of the forum sections)

For webpage owners: FlashTool - this thing can create swf files from your recordings (including your own unofficial levelpacks). Great way to show off your riding and design skills (the idea comes from   MacGuru)

 16 comments

I managed to fix some bugs at last:

Bike or Die v1.4a:

Updraft didn't work well in big levels. This was first discovered by Kristopher in his  Maze Mission #05, and perhaps this is also the same bug:  Updraft bug

Fixed the problem with card levelpack names not matching the internal levelpack names (this prevented from loading such levelpacks automatically on startup).

Bike or Design v1.2a:

No longer crashes 320x480 Palms (LifeDrive, T|X, etc.)

Loading large levels does not move the view outside the level area

 2 comments

Finally, you can create your own levels with updraft and variable friction!


"Sketch mode" is another new feature introduced in this version , drawing levels was never easier:


Links:

Download "Bike or Design" (this links is now updated to point to v1.2a because of  Bug fixes)

"Bike or Design" online User's Manual (including the detailed list of changes)

 12 comments

The previously announced "Bike or Die!" v1.4 is ready!
Download link: BikeOrDie-1.4.zip

This version is the biggest update so far, adding a lot of gameplay features and technical improvements (ghost bike, updraft forces, slippery surfaces, external card support, and more!)


Along with the new version, the  New Deal levelpack entered the official Hall of Fame (the first levelpack featuring the updraft and slippery surfaces).

Download the first public beta here:

BikeOrDie-1.4beta1.zip

BikeOrDie - New Deal.prc - levelpack utilising 3 new gameplay features, described below

New in gameplay:

Updraft (can work as an elevator, trap, create effects like reversed gravity, weightlessness)

Variable friction. Certain surfaces can be marked as "slippery" or "reduced friction"

Selectable number of mandatory checkpoints (can increase the number of different ways a given level can be solved)


Technical improvements:

Ghost bike. Race agains your best recordings! It's almost like multiplayer

Improved map

Levelpacks on card. Levelpack selector can be used to move levelpacks between internal memory and card. When installing manually, place them in /Palm/Programs/BikeOrDie/Levelpacks

Recordings on card. Just switch to "Card" in "Recording Options" and all your recordings will be moved to external memory freeing a lot of space in your device. (The full exaplanation of this feature and its benefits would not fit here, i will describe it later)


Bugs/Compatibility issues resolved:

No more annoying pause when dying (experienced on NVFS devices like Lifedrive, Tungsten 5, Treo 650)

Better power management (does not run on full power when not needed, eg. in pause, map)

Pause automatically when the device is turned off

 135 comments

Time Trial Champions and Levelpack Rankings are now calculated differently.
In general, the new method gives more points to average players. Until now, only top 99 players in each level could win more than one point in a level. Most players only gained 1 point and there was no difference between players below top 99.

Old method

Under new rules you always gain some ranking points by improving your position in the level. First 50 players get 1 point a rank, and each next 50 decreases the points/rank factor by half.

New method

See also:  Improving the global ranking calculation

The Hall of Fame database was reorganized, this allows me to add more sophisticated rankings, like  Total Race and  Golden Club.
Ranking history is now much easier to extract so I have placed it in the profile. And you can proudly display your BoD achievements on the web using the new image button (bike.toyspring.com/plbutton.php?p=XXXX) like this:

Yesterday was the second anniversary. I have prepared the traditional ranking chart
This time it begins where the previous one ends (the picture would be too big in a single piece).
Enjoy! Part 1 (2004-2005) and Part 2 (2005-2006)

I'm also working on a number of new features for the site and the game itself, stay tuned!

Only one new feature in this version:

By selecting "Other..." in Control Options you can configure any button to perform the given action, even if it is not listed in the popup, like the alphanumeric Treo keyboard. This should work on all devices having additional buttons not known to "Bike or Die".

And 2 small changes:

Menu key is also blocked by "disable other keys" on Treo 650 (but shortcuts still work)

Menu+Q shortcut for "Quit" (very useful on Treo 650 with Home key disabled)

 6 comments

This update fixes the long standing bug in the submission procedure. It means that you may be able to submit your recordings directly from your palm even if it always failed in previous versions - try it!

Other improvements since last official release:

"Bike or Die" now supports proxy servers, which may help when your operator or ISP only allows for proxy web connections. (See: Menu -> Options -> Hall of Fame -> Set Proxy)

Treo 650 "Home" key can be disabled to prevent accidental quitting ("disable other buttons" in Control Options). You can still quit from menu or use the Home key after the game is finished.

Fixed "stuttering" on Tungsten T|X (using sampled sound caused the game to pause for a split of second whenever the "free-wheeling" sound effect was started)

 8 comments

The new Toyspring toy is not yet released, but you can try the beta version here.

Edit 12-Feb-2006:
And now it is official v1.0 - download and enjoy!

At last, the new game from Toyspring! This is not the famous ever-late game, which was promised months ago, but I just thought I should release anything this year to save my dignity
3D Mines Homepage

It is only relevant for the LifeDrive and Tungsten X owners - the old version failed to recognize the Left/Right/Select buttons. The BIG update with some new features taken from  Ideas is planned before Christmas.

Yes, this game is one year old. Actually it was on 12th July but the usual ranking chart preparation took longer than expected. Click here to see the chart. This time it is really big! (0,5MB)
Can you trace your Hall of Fame history back to the first day?

At last! This translation was started by Alexis Sánchez from tecnopalm.com and finished by   Ricardo. I'm sure the spanish speaking players appreciate their work! Download

Update: v1.3c on pdassi

James Steel from plankfilms.com has just published a video review of "Bike or Die!". See it here!
This site is definitely worth visiting even if you already know "BoD" because of several other Zodiac/Palm game reviews and independent movies!

16 levels from the existing levelpacks were selected to form the new Hall of Fame levelpack. Most of the Summer levels are noticeably easier than other levelpacks - now everyone can earn the Time Trial Competition points!
 Summer Pack

Marcel Dopita made a Czech version of the game. Download it here!

See all levels on a single page! Here (warning: 300K)

Finally, there is a place where you can find all "Bike or Die" levels! Enter here: Levelpack Explorer
In addition to the usual comments you can also rate all levels - let the world know your opinion. I hope this will help us selecting the best levels for the Hall of Fame, but will be also very convenient for everyone looking for news levels .

New levelpacks are always welcome support@toyspring.com

The new  Forum grows on the old Hall of Fame commenting system. It allows for better organized talks (with threads). For now there is no notification on new messages, but you can easily spot new messages on the initial "All messages" page.

New medals are waiting!
 You Qi Levels