So, this is that kind of game where it looks really cool, but you're kinda on the fence about it... will it turn out to be really fun, or is it one of those that looks cool but ends up being a dud? Then you check the reviews and find out all kinds of stuff about the camera angle, etc. If you're like me, you'll sit on the fence about it for a while, wondering... will it be worth it? Or am I going to be disappointed?

Verdict: Totally worth it. I was actually shocked and ended up REALLY loving it. It's one of those kind of games where you think, "Ok... got a few minutes to kill... I'll run a couple trails, then get back to sweeping the floors." Five or ten minutes later, you check the time and it has been an hour and a half.

CAMERA ANGLE ISSUE: It's spoken about a lot in the reviews. I was wondering if everyone was complaining over nothing, or if it really was an issue. Alas, it IS a bit of a horrifying annoyance at times - the camera has a fixed angle on the playing field, and these trails go round and round, so yes - sometimes the camera becomes a little infuriating. To dev's credit, they do a pretty good job of working around it - the points on the maps that are truly frustrating aren't tremendously common, and with a little practice you can get it figured out. But the comments that talk about little rocks hidden by trees in the foreground... yeah, sometimes that happens. It's also a little frustrating to line up for a jump over a drop, feel like you've got it nailed... then figure out that due to the camera angle you were actually way off.

The camera angle, though, to me, is not a deal-breaker - it's like a fly in the room, as opposed to a wasp. Every now & then it'll be an irritation, but you're not going to leave the room.

This game is great for any occasion - if you're in a casual mood, hit up the free ride mode. Roll down the hills, try new hidden paths, look for the 'rest spots' (that's actually kinda cool), search for Easter eggs. (Yes, plenty of Easter eggs - won't give any away totally - but every now & then you'll run into one. For example there is a tree you can crash into that will bring up a comment by one of the game backers, dedicating the tree to all the poor souls that will wreck into it during their runs.) If you're in a competitive mood, try the challenges, or try to improve your times on your runs - if you really push yourself, you'll be sitting on the edge of your seat. So whether you're in a fast-paced, aggressive mood or just want something fun to do right after waking up in the morning, there's a mode for you.

(TBH that's one of the features I like the most - there's really no set "pace" of the game. Play as hard.. or easy.. as you want.)

The graphics are spectacular. Yes, it's done in low-poly, but it's rendered in a way that is actually immensely aesthetically pleasing. The scenery is just gorgeous. The rendering of the bike-riding, too... It just... FEELS and LOOKS like you're riding a bike. Absolutely wonderful. This coming from a guy who used to ride 15-20 miles every other day. I was so VERY pleased by the way this game looked, and felt. I've tried other bike games before, and most of them just feel stupid, and feel nothing like riding a bike. This one is excellent.

I like the way the trails are split up into checkpoints. If you crash, you just restart at the last checkpoint. That way, if you get amazing times on the first two, and immediately crash in the third zone... not to worry. Your first two zones' times are still locked in. This, however, DOES lead to INSANE high scores on the global leaderboard... if you don't appreciate the time you're getting in your current zone, just wreck. Just take one look at the leaderboard scores - some of the top runs have thousands of crashes. Lol.

The daily ride feature is a fun one that adds a bit of a twist to the game, a daily flavor. They're based on already existing trails, but with all kinds of new obstacles added in to make it extra hard. Watch your crashes on these daily runs, though - each crash adds a .5sec penalty. Try to climb up the ranks, and win some cool prizes while you're at it.

Umm... I don't know what else to say. If you're sitting on the fence about it, I'd say that I definitely wasn't disappointed in my purchase, and would do it again if I had to. It was so much fun I bought the DLC trail within a day or two of purchasing base game. It really is that nice. Give it a whirl

A good game to play for 20 minutes, then put down for a bit. Wait, what do you mean I've been playing non-stop for 4 hours?

10/10, would crash into a tree again

With over a thousand hours of experience, I could also throw my hat into the ring and share the essentials about this fantastic game:

For the casual player:
Lonely Mountains: Downhill offers plenty of entertainment and challenges for those seeking a relaxed pastime, challenging themselves. While the game's challenges can sometimes be a bit repetitive, they offer interesting trials for the new player for a good amount of time, perhaps about 20-50 hours of gameplay. The different bikes are quite easy to unlock, and their handling actually varies quite a bit. You'll find intriguing moments as you get acquainted with them, noticing that one bike doesn't suit every terrain as well. Additionally, the daily changing Daily Rides are a great extra touch, allowing you to compare your level with other players daily (on average, about a couple of hundred players participate daily). You can get nice cosmetic customizations quite effortlessly for free from them.

For the competitive player:
The game offers very diverse leaderboards, where you can compete in several different competition formats. Each trail is divided into 5-8 sections, each with its own rankings available. You can aim for world records on individual sections or the overall time for trails. However, the leaderboards are highly competitive, so setting records will not be easy. Practically, this means that speedrunning this game requires grinding, which explains my thousand hours of gameplay. During this time, I've achieved about 6-7 world records, of which only one remains valid now. So, the game indeed offers plenty of challenges.

Drawing from my personal experience, I highly recommend it to anyone who has an interest in games of this genre.

First: I backed this game on Kickstarter and have played it in various backer-versions pre-release, so don't let my short Steam playing time fool you.

Second: I love this game. It is beautiful, elegant, simple, polished, fun, addictive, challenging and rewarding - just everything a game should be. It is rare that these adjectives fit one game all at once. This is just world class video game craftsmanship.

I applaud the developers and I urge everyone who lands here on this steam store page to buy and play it. You won't regret it.

As an old downhill rider, who gave up after all my friends retired from downhilling, this scratches that itch as much as a computer game can. The ability to take shortcuts, find new paths and explore the maps really makes the game.
The 3rd person view takes a bit of getting used to, and the view is occasionally obscured by terrain, but all in all I think it's a great game.

As a lifelong mountain biker and gamer, I wanted to love this game. And a big part of me does. Except when I'm actually playing it.

I owe my dissatisfaction to the camera. Too often trees in the foreground completely obscure my view and I crash into an otherwise easily avoidable object. Too often, I'll drop through cliffs and gullies, nail adrenaline-fueling gap jumps, only to crash on a bridge because of the slightest bump against the side of the railing. Maybe it's just me, but I find it way harder to memorize the trail from the provided camera angle. Landmarks are harder to gauge and the isometric view makes running across screen far trickier than it needs to be.

The challenge from the game comes not from finding an advanced line or hitting jumps, but in avoiding what would be simple obstacles on a beginner mountain bike course. And it's all due to the camera.

Souls-bike.

Don't listen to the people who complain about the camera angle or difficulty. You are going to want to use a controller.

I switched my steering controls to the left or right option, instead of the screen based one about 20 seconds into the game and I immediately had so much fun. This game is not unfair at all. Its creative, full of content, and a great buy. Definitely deserving of all its awards.

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Lonely Mountains: Downhill really does not need a great lengthy description or much explanation as to the gameplay mechanics. It's an open-map downhill cycling simulation game that has 16 trails, each with its own set of challenges, with progressively completing challenges to unlock more tracks, outfits, bikes, etc.

Each trail comes with a suggested route that you can take, usually demarcated fairly clearly by the paths you can follow. This is not necessarily the best route or at times the easiest, but it's one set to give you a direction towards the finish line. The entire map is open from the start to the finish and you can choose to take as many side paths as you wish, as long as you don't mind starting repeatedly from the beginning or from checkpoints along the way after crashing left and right.

What I am saying is that it's happened to me plenty. Maybe you will find it easy, but I find some of the challenges really tough, even the beginner challenges. A lot of the unlocks are rather challenging as well, you really have to familiarize yourself with the trail, the normal paths, the other possible paths, etc., before you will be able to really make it through most of the challenges.

Also hidden on each trail is a rest spot that is off the beaten path that you will have to look around to find. These are rather rewarding to find, a fun little sub section of the game that you can really go after or ignore completely. These are a couple of the ones I have found so far. Don't worry, seeing the screenshots won't tell you how to get to them, no spoilers here.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1898902063

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1901939511

Everything is in a fairly lo-poly appearance with still some nice touches to the important details. The really noticeable details are involved in the crashes. This game's cubic chunks of blood that spews out at random times are a definite sign that these attempts have ended in some form of disaster. Fortunately you can turn the blood on/off in the settings, and the game becomes really a fun and challenging downhill simulation game for audiences of all ages.

Leaderboards exist for each trail, globally, among friends, and different selective filters you can use. At the end of each run, as long as it's not your first time on that trail, you are given a statistical breakdown of how much time you spent for each segment and how you shuffled up and down these leaderboards based on your performance at each segment. Not worrying about timed-challenges and only running through carefully and casually with not so many crashes will unlock about 7 of the trails. You can also come back and play without a timer as if you are playing for the first time for any of these trails.

Anyway, enough rambling on my part, because this game is quite straight forward and is very fun. I have a video showing my first-look experience with this game, and dare I say, I did pretty poorly, so only watch it if you want to see what it looks like and perhaps what it feels like:

https://youtu.be/to7_tVAsgOI

I played with a controller, which felt right. I know you can use keyboard and also mouse as well, from the settings. I have not used these and I don't know how well they work.

You have two settings for using the controller's joystick, you can turn left and right with the directions on the joystick, or you can use the joystick to aim for a relative direction on the screen. You should play around and see which works better for yourself.

Otherwise the controls are simple, there's a button for peddling, a button for breaking, and a button for sprinting/speed boost that uses up stamina that restores when you are not using that function.

Lo-poly appearance works really well, there is enough attention to detail where you need to have it for the game to feel really smooth with the general appearance.

This is played in 3rd person with the camera moving on its own accord without user control. It works fine, after you get used to it.

Part of playing this game is to take in the sights and sounds, just as if you are biking on a mountain trail, there's no music, just sounds from nature. Too bad you cannot smell the scents or to feel the wind rush by your face while playing this game.

This can be a very casual experience or a seriously challenging one, and as such and a game that's easy to pick up, it's definitely a potentially fun addition to anyone's library.

Base price is $19.99, and I am pretty sure that anyone who is going to go after all of the challenges and achievements will find that it's well worth the full price.

Lonely Mountains: Downhill is a really nice downhill cycling game with some serious challenges.

Even though you will need to take on the trail challenges to unlock the trails after the initial one available, you should be able to unlock about half of them just by playing carefully and casually. The others are locked behind timed challenges and will likely take a good number of trials down unconventional paths to unlock, but that's part of the fun of playing this game as well.

It's fun, casual, and offers a lot of replayability. I often find myself conflicted between the calming atmosphere and the stressful challenge that I am trying to take on. Sure, it's not a game for everyone, hardly anything is. At least the developers tried their best to make the game accessible and fun for everyone who takes the dive.

My only wish for change is to allow people to access all of the trails just by playing casually and not worrying about hitting timed goals.

Nevertheless, I am having a blast, I think you will too.

I received the product for free. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.

It's a lovely little indie gem with tight controls, simple, but difficult to master gameplay, a low poly but pleasing anesthetic and quite relaxing and peaceful despite challenging.

I stayed away originally from this title since i kept hearing it described as "dark souls bike". I really hate everything getting compared to Dark Souls. It wasn't the first challenging game to ever be released.

This isn't anything like a souls challenge. The challenge is as difficult as you want to make it. The courses get tough but the most challenging aspect is the time challenges and if you are going for the insane shortcuts (which I can't help myself and do haha).

There are many challenges not related to time. My favorite being simply getting to the end without checkpoints. No time to beat (unless you want to beat your personal best), just stay on your bike.

Don't pass this one up because of people and their reckless use of the souls-like label. There are 3 free courses, a paid dlc one, and daily challenges. The developer seems quite engaged still and supporting an Indie Dev is what the gamers need to keep doing.