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Happy Wheels is Jim Bonacci's ragdoll obstacle-course game, first built by his studio Fancy Force back in 2010 and still one of the most recognizable browser games around. You pick an oddly unsuited vehicle — a wheelchair, a mobility scooter, a segway, a bicycle, a shopping cart — and try to carry its rider across a level built entirely out of spikes, saw blades, mines and drops. The physics engine doesn't forgive mistakes: a bad landing snaps limbs and sends the rider flying, and getting to the finish line in one piece is the actual goal, not just clearing the obstacles.
Levels are largely player-made — Happy Wheels shipped with a level editor and a huge library of user-submitted tracks, which is a big part of why it's stayed around this long. Some are straightforward gauntlets, others are elaborate deathtraps designed purely to wreck your character in creative ways. Expect blood and dismemberment; it's part of the joke, not a bug.
Controls
Arrow keys move and steer your vehicle. Space triggers whatever action your current character's vehicle has — pedaling harder, leaning, firing a boost, depending on which one you picked. Shift and Ctrl handle secondary actions on vehicles that have them, and Z ejects your rider from the vehicle if you need to bail.
Tips
- Momentum matters more than speed — a controlled roll over a bump beats flooring it into one.
- Different vehicles suit different levels; a segway's balance is nothing like a bicycle's, so switch if one keeps failing the same obstacle.
- Ejecting with Z on purpose, just before a landing you know is going to be bad, sometimes saves your character better than riding it out.
It's best in short bursts — a few levels at a time, ideally with the gore played for laughs rather than taken seriously.
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