Wheelsprung

I very much love the Trials games, ever since Trials HD on Xbox LIVE Arcade – my very first professional video game review. I had a 36” CRT which was too low-def to read any of the tiny flavor text. Still, loved driving that motorcycle over things. I had no idea that “trials” was a term for a thing that bikers do in real life. I loved the other Trials games that came out later, too – even the mobile one! Maybe you also loved Trials. Or maybe Elasto Mania? Or Uniracers? Anyway, Wheelsprung will utilize those same skills, just without analog controls.

You play as a squirrel on a motorcycle. Each level has a series of increasingly complicated obstacles, some that wouldn’t feel out of place in The Incredible Machine, and you just need to collect acorns and reach the goal in the shortest amount of time. The courses are short – most won’t last a minute. The wheels on your bike go… round and round. Your suspension is, let’s say, springy. As long as your wheels don’t hit something pointy and you don’t bounce your helmet off a wall/the ground too hard, everything else is pretty fair game. You’ll go up walls, around loops, you’ll dangle one tire while the other rides a rail like you’re on a roller coaster. It’s a wacky game, made even wackier by the Julie Bjørnskov art and cutscenes (from Escape the Arcade and Escape the Boardgame fame). It’s REALLY HARD, though. Which it should be.

It’ll take a while to really get the hang of how to control your bike, and there are some very competitive online leaderboards waiting for you. Even the tiniest difference in angle when you hit a wall can drastically affect your speed and, ultimately, the whole run. It’s quick to replay, though, and easy to say “just one more run” long after your hand needs a break.

The missions have a decent difficulty curve, but you’ll sometimes hit one that you just CAN’T figure out how to get past. Luckily, you can skip a few of the levels and still make it through the game. Come back later when you’re better! Because that is the only tool you’ll have: your skills and understanding of the mechanics. Ten of the levels also offer hints if you want, where you can see a bit of a ghost showing you a good way through the level.

One note: this is the first (maybe last?) game of the season to have utilized generative AI during its development. It wasn’t a lot, and maybe shouldn’t have even been mentioned – it was basically using GitHub Copilot to complete single lines of code, and ChatGPT to help the non-native developer come up with better-sounding English level names, but if that’s a sticking point, then that’s a sticking point. It’s disclosed on the game page, but there isn’t currently a way to disclose with nuance whether your game is VERY AI-made or there was just a little bit used to help. Most of the Playdate development community is anti-AI, but since this is included as part of a season with a bunch of other games for one price, all you can really do at this point is say: “Please try not to next time, thank you.”

The game itself, though, is fun! If you like Trials, Elasto Mania, X-Moto, Motocross Maniacs, or even Excitebike, you’ll find something to love here. There’s also a level editor where you can make your own stages for friends/enemies, which I didn’t play around with but might be your favorite thing about it. Will definitely add some replayability, and there is talk of maybe adding user-created levels as a free update later? Huge if true.

Rolling on, only eight more games in Season Two!

(Released June 5, 2025, as part of Season Two.)