Game:

Hill Climb Racing (2012)

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Hill Climb Racing is a 2012 2D physics-based racing video game released and published by the Finnish studio Fingersoft for Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows, and Windows Phone. It was originally created by Toni Fingerroos, Fingersoft's founder, and it's the brand's best-known and selling game. The player controls a driver named Bill Newton across hilly terrains, collecting coins and diamonds along the way and spending them on vehicular upgrades and vehicles themselves while being watchful of the driver's head and fuel supply.

Hill Climb Racing

Developer(s)
Fingersoft
Publisher(s)
Fingersoft
Director(s)
Toni Fingerroos
Composer(s)
David Ko
Filippo Vicarelli
Harri Karppinen
Platform(s)
Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows, Windows Phone
Release
Android
WW: September 22, 2012
iOS
WW: November 8, 2012
Microsoft Windows
WW: October 21, 2013
Windows Phone
WW: November 27, 2013
Genre(s)
Racing
Mode(s)
Single-player, multiplayer
The game received favorable reviews. Critics describe the graphics as rudimentary at best or ugly, and sometimes panned the gameplay as unimpressive, but the original was overlooked when they launched the physics. Further praise went to the simplistic gas and brake control buttons and the freemium monetization model for its passive approach. Its success led to the creation of a sequel, Hill Climb Racing 2 released in 2016, and also in 2018, the Hill Climb Racing franchise became the second Finnish mobile game franchise after Rovio's Angry Birds to a total of 1 billion downloads.

Hill Climb Racing was developed by Toni Fingerroos, a self-taught Finnish programmer who was 29 years old at the time of the game's release. Prior to developing the game, he started writing software at the age of ten. He was intrigued by car racing, wrote the racing game Ralli 94, and shared it with his friends. At that time, he named his own hobbyist firm Fingersoft.

A decade after his first game, Fingerroos revived the Fingersoft trade name as a professional studio that programmed games for Nokia mobile phones. Fingerroos described he "failed at that quite miserably." He since pursued other occupations, all with unfavorable outcomes. One of them was working with Pixolane, a game studio, and spending his money on developing a PlayStation 3 game called Rust Buckaneers. that was ultimately cancelled as the studio wasted its seed money, causing him to accumulate debt. Another was repairing and selling sports cars imported from Japan and the United Kingdom, which also drained his personal savings. Fingerroos returned to and revived Fingersoft once more in late 2011, where as the company's sole worker, he designed a photography application every few days to see whether some of them would turn out to be successful. One of these apps was Cartoon Camera, released in February 2012 and having quickly amassed over ten million downloads. The app's profitability strengthened Fingerroos' confidence, helped him pay off debts, and secured the creation of his next project, Hill Climb Racing.

Fingerroos said he spent 16 hours a day for a couple of months developing Hill Climb Racing in a compact bedroom before completing the project. The sound assets were crowdsourced, and his friends and acquaintances drew the visuals. As Fingersoft's business manager, Jarkko Paalanen, states, the visuals were intentionally drawn to be "naïve and childish", as part of the game's character. Bill Newton, the game's protagonist, was drawn as a sketch by Fingerroos' partner Pia Turunen. Fingerroos then photographed the sketch with one of the company's earlier camera apps and modified it for the game's inclusion. It was released for Android devices on September 22, 2012. Amid the game's success, Fingerroos contacted Teemu Närhi, a former Pixoline employee, to port the game for iOS. That version was released on November 8, and the game was later ported to Microsoft Windows on October 21, 2013, and to Windows Phone on November 27.

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