Hill Climb Racing is a mobile game developed by Fingersoft. You play as Newton Bill, a man driving various vehicles, trying to reach the end of each stage, be it in a motorbike in the countryside or a monster truck on the moon. You can earn coins by collecting them in each stage, by receiving big air timenote , or doing tricks in midair in your vehicle. You can use your coins to unlock new vehicles or upgrade the ones you already have, as well as purchase new terrain. The only obstacles you face throughout the entire game are getting your neck snapped through reckless driving and running out of fuelnote . That's the plot, and it's pretty straight forward, though frequent updates adding new vehicles and courses keep the game fresh.
A sequel, Hill Climb Racing 2, was released in 2016, featuring an actual racing mode and multiplayer functionality.
Tropes present throughout Hill Climb Racing:
- 555: The Ambulance has "DIAL 555-NECKFLIP" written on it.
- Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: Every time you purchase an upgrade, the next one's cost goes up, usually to the next squared number*1000. Same thing is done with boosters, which have their costs go up by about 30 with each one you buy.
- Alien Abduction: Run into aliens in the Space level and they will abduct Bill, which causes a game over.
- Alien Sky: The Alien Planet has an oddly dark green sky.
- All There in the Manual: Yes, the driver has a name—Newton Bill, to be exact.
- Arc Words: The word "finger" keeps showing up because the game's made by Fingersoft and the player controls it with their finger. Large tires have "Finger Monster" written on them, tourist bus has "Experience the Finger!" and "FingerTours" advertised on it, the police car is used by "Fingertown PD", there are the Finger Screw and Big Finger vehicles, and the Roller Coaster takes place in Fingerpark.
- Artistic License – Cars: All vehicles use fuel at a fixed rate, regardless of speed. So it's not a good idea to go slowly and "conserve" fuel, as it will just make you run out of it in a shorter distance. The fuel canisters are essentially just time extensions. For the Moon Lander though, fuel usage is much greater when flying than driving, so it's possible to conserve fuel by minimising flying.
- Artistic License – Physics: Apart from the Acceptable Breaks from Reality (such as not having your car or driver destroyed by big falls), there are a few weird ones:
- Moon Lander: Despite the fact that the booster nozzles auto-swivel to face downwards most of the time, you will still pick up more groundspeed while flying horizontally if you point your nose up than if you fly level.
- Hovercraft: Despite the fact that you have a massive fan mounted high on your back that should be forcing your bow into the ground, the hovercraft readily tips over backwards.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The Potato Man in Super Countryside stomps in Bill's vehicle and killing him when he harvest his potatoes.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Some vehicles suffer of this trope:
- The Dragster, Fast Car and Race Car accelerate very fast, but it tips really fast especially if fully upgraded at the point of causing Bill to snap his neck easily.
- The Mutant can transform into a elevated suspension, lowered suspension and a ball mode. Both of them has their pros and cons
- The elevated suspension which is the starter transformation has a higher grip but it tips extremely easily. It is the least used mode.
- The lowered suspension increases the car's speed but the main problem it has very low grip and can't climb steep hills.
- The ball mode prevents you from getting you to get killed.note and has decent grip which can climb shorter and some long steeper hills. However it is very slow and can't climb very long steep hills preventing the player to go anymore further and due to its big size it does can't fit narrow paths in stages like Seasons or the Cave.
- The Super Offroad is easily one of the most OP vehicles of the game due to being a combination of a race car and a tank. It is extremely fast and climb very steep hills without problems and is very grippy in every condition due to its inmense downforce and the usage of tank tracks. The main problem is the wing can be loose very easily after landing hard and losing it, it greatly reduces the stability and can tip easily when climbing long steep hills due to lack of downforce.
- Badass Normal: The jeep, your default car, definitely proves itself as one of the most balanced vehicles once it has been completely upgraded. It's especially good at flips, one of the best vehicles for that purpose, in fact (behind the motocross bike).
- The driver may also count. Look at all the things he can do in his cars! Even breathe in space!
- Batman Can Breathe in Space: The guy who drives all of these vehicles never wears anything special on the Moon, Mars, or Alien Planet levels.
- Big Bad: The Potato Man in Super Countryside which he comes to rage and stomp the player's vehicle whenever they harvest the potatoes.
- Big Badass Rig: The truck is described as having "weight, power, turbo whistle, and attitude" as well as a large upgradeable fuel tank. It also has a more elaborate and cool design compared to most vehicles.
- Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: There are two Game Over messages: "Driver Down" and "Out of Fuel", with the former being shown if you hit your head on something and the latter if you run out of fuel. However, it is possible to run out of fuel after being hit or hit something after running out of fuel. Then the game would show "Driver Down & Out of Fuel".
- Bottomless Pit: A few levels have pits that, while you may fall into them and doing so ends your run, aren't actually bottomless. The same cannot be said for the Rainbow level, though.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: You can pay for coins or gems so you can buy vehicles, tracks, and upgrades much faster.
- Cap: Coins and diamonds max out at 2147483647, due to that being the limit of 32-bit signed integers. It would take an exorbitant amount of time to get that many coins and especially diamonds anyway, so you're unlikely to reach it.
- Controllable Helplessness: There are times where the vehicle gets stuck in a hill with absolutely no way to escape. You can tap the pedals and it may even move slightly, but the only action left at that point is waiting for the fuel to run out or restarting/exiting.
- Convection Shmonvection: The Volcano level allows your cars to pass through lava completely unharmed. It slows you down and catches your car on fire, burning away gasoline, but does no permanent damage whatsoever.
- Cool Car: All the cars.
- Cool Bike: The motorcross and quad bikes.
- Cool Train: The kiddie train.
- Covered in Mud: Your character and his vehicle, while driving through the Mudpool, especially the more mud-covered areas. It's actually the only track where this happens.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The Ragnarok stage is almost completely black, white, and grey, with the vehicle and most interface elements getting changed. The only things that stay colored are gems and the next level flag.
- The Determinator: Newton is really only doing this because he wants to. As the app description puts it:With little respect to the laws of physics, Newton Bill will not rest until he has conquered the highest hills up on the moon!
- Down in the Dumps: The Junkyard stage, full of abandoned vehicles to drive on.
- Dreaming of a White Christmas: The Christmas and North Pole stages.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The original versions wouldn't have the ability to switch from each tab freely, instead you had to tap a button to move to the next tab.
- Edible Collectible: The Xmas and North Pole levels have chocolate coins to collect instead of normal coins, though they have the same value as regular ones.
- Endless Game: Stages don't end, no matter how far you drive. You can keep going forever if you're good enough.
- Four-Seasons Level: The Seasons level changes its background and setpieces corresponding to another season every few hundred meters.
- Gold Makes Everything Shiny: The Luxury car, which is the only vehicle that appears gold and costs 2000000 coins. While it's not great as a vehicle itself, it does have paying passengers in the back.
- Grave Humor: The Halloween level has graves which say "Flip in peace".
- Halloween Episode: The Halloween level, which has you driving through spooky graveyards, past haunted houses, over pumpkins, and across bridges made of bone, all while lightning occasionally strikes and sends you flying if you're too close. It's also the first level to have different music from the norm (a "spooky", Danny Elfman-style version of the main theme).
- Hippie Van: One of the unlockable vehicles is a Hippie Van, a van decorated with a rainbow, a flower, and a pacifist symbol, with two hippies sitting in the back. It isn't that fast or practical, but it ignores trees in forest levels and its gas tank is better than most vehicles'.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: Bill regains some health lost due to red chemical poisoning and fuel in the Factory when he eats a carrot.
- Joke Item: Or rather, "Joke Vehicle", of which there are several.
- The tractor is slow as hell, and while it has a lot of power for climbing hills and pushing through obstacles (especially when upgraded), it also tips over extremely easily. At least it's cheap.
- Both games have a Segway/hoverboard-like vehicle, referred to as the one-wheeler in the first game and the monowheel in the second, and in each game, it falls into this category. Its controls are very different from the other vehicles and take some time getting used to, and even when you do get the hang of it, you can't build a running start to climb hills without face-planting — forcing you to go much slower than other vehicles. Given that the second game is built around racing, this renders it effectively useless for the bulk of the game. When upgraded, it is surprisingly good at climbing hills without such a running start, but still not as good as other vehicles.
- The police car is pretty much a Jack of All Stats all around, but what pushes it into this category is the fact that it was the first vehicle to take visible damage. This means that, as you drive, the siren, the doors, the hood, and eventually the roof will come flying off, causing it to look like Buford T. Justice's car in Smokey and the Bandit when all is said and done. (All the damage is purely cosmetic, though.)
- The Carantula is a very slow vehicle which is not suitable for steeper hills even when fully upgraded. Also it uses legs instead of wheels.
- Lethal Joke Item: Or rather, "Lethal Joke Vehicle":
- The hippie van in the first game. It's not only slow, but it's the only vehicle that takes damage that isn't just cosmetic — its wheels will get damaged over time, reducing their traction before they eventually fall off, forcing you to stop so the driver can get out and change them. Sounds terrible, right? Well, it is... except on those levels that have trees in them, where the hippie van is by far the best choice due to the fact that it can drive through trees without any issue. When upgraded, its large gas tank also makes it a good choice for levels like the Highway and the Beach that are more focused around long-distance driving than climbing steep hills.
- The Minibike also qualifies. It's hard to control at first, until you get the hang of altering your balance in midair and realize it's a money-making machine thanks to its ability to flip in ludicrously tight spaces. The game nerfs the payout you get for back and front flips to balance it out.
- In the second game, there's the bus. While its high grip, low cost, and the fact that it's the second new vehicle you unlock make it very useful in the early game, it comes with one caveat: it eventually breaks in half as it takes more and more damage. Oddly enough, given that the front wheels still have power going to them, you can still drive it — and in fact, some parts (especially big gaps that the bus' rear wheels might've gotten caught on) are actually easier to get through with only half a bus versus a full one.
- Lethal Lava Land:
- The Volcano in the first game. Driving through lava doesn't kill you, but it does set your car on fire, which burns through your gas tank.
- In the second game, lava eventually shows up in the Mine and Desert levels. If only your vehicle touches it, you're fine, but if your driver touches it, it is a One-Hit Kill.
- Level Goal: Unlike most levels, Space Mission has a point where it ends. It's the planet at the 650m mark, and you have to actually land on it rather than pass it.
- Limited Wardrobe: Bill always has his red shirt, jeans, and red cap on. Even in levels with much lower or higher temperatures/other severe weather conditions. He only puts on a Santa hat and fake beard whe he's riding the Sleigh.
- Loads and Loads of Loading: The game takes between 8 to 15 seconds to load, with each level taking 3 to 5 seconds to start. Levels themselves don't have mid-play loading zones usually, though there are some stages that have to cycle through multiple backgrounds and assets, like Boot Camp and especially Seasons. You can expect several times where the game freezes for a second or two to load the next part of the stage there.
- Master of All: The Garage vehicle. Thanks to its customizability and power of Legendary parts, it can excel at every major attribute (speed, acceleration, grip, stability, wheel size, etc).
- Mind Screw: Prognosis. It features you driving on an unknown location with water, huge clouds, floating rocks, snakes with shells that feel rubbery, and blue alien mushrooms. The developers have described it as "a psychedelic mind-bending and surreal experience inspired by classic progressive rock."
- Money Multiplier: The Luxury car has two rich passengers in the jacuzzi with one of them throwing coins as you drive. If you can keep in them in, they'll throw more and more money, which can further be increased with wealth upgrades.
- Mood Whiplash: The Ragnarok level. Whereas the rest of the game is fairly lighthearted (even the Halloween level is more spooky than scary), Ragnarok has a Deliberately Monochrome art style reminiscent of Limbo, with the music and HUD altered to match. Lovecraftian abominations the size of skyscrapers wander around in the background, one of which you drive on top of, and there's also a huge difficulty spike owing to the traps scattered throughout, including pits of magical, deadly water (the only points of color in the level) that kill you the moment you touch them.
- Moving the Goalposts: There are achievements for unlocking all vehicles, levels, and maxed vehicles. However, since new vehicles and tracks are introduced in almost every update, these goals become harder and harder to achieve (especially the "fully upgrade all vehicles one", which would easily take months).
- Mythology Gag: In the second game, one of the unlockable paint jobs for the starting jeep is its original, low-res appearance from the first game. You can also unlock the original Newton Bill driver skin.
- Neck Snap:
- One of the two ways you can lose. Aim it right, and you can get extra points for a Neck Flip.
- When driving the tourist bus, the kiddie train, or the hippie van in the first game, or the bus in the second, your passengers would also get these.
- Neon City: The Neon level takes place in a very 80s-styled purple and turquoise city full of neons (some of which can be driven on) and palms.
- Over-the-Top Roller Coaster: The Roller Coaster has some extremely steep hills which many vehicles won't climb over and as with most tracks, goes on forever.
- Palette Swap: The body of your garage vehicle is typically another vehicle's body with a different color. For example, Hill Climber goes from red to blue and Rally Car goes from blue to purple.
- Peninsula of Power Leveling: The Moon is the best place for quickly earning coins, thanks to you getting half a thousand coins for every second spent in the air.
- Press Start to Game Over: It's easy to get the driver hit within seconds if you only hold the gas panel at the start. The "Live Fast Flip Young" achievement actually encourages ending the run early by getting a neckflip within 5 seconds from stage start.
- Randomly Generated Quests: There are three random Daily Missions given each day. They typically involve you doing stunts or collecting items. There's also a Daily Challenge which has you reach a certain distance of a random stage (even those you haven't unlocked) with five free tries.
- Red Ones Go Faster: The red race car was originally the fastest vehicle in the first game. Since then, though, new vehicles like the rally car (blue), the dune buggy (brown), and the dragster (orange) have it beat.
- Retraux: The Retro mission level shows the game in 8-bit style, with chiptune music, high-score table, and a shop to match.
- Ride the Rainbow: The Rainbow level literally has you drive on it. There's also a lot of strange imagery in the background and it's one of the more difficult tracks.
- Shifting Sand Land: The Desert and Beach levels.
- Shows Damage: Bill shows when and how much he's poisoned by his skin color changing.
- Shout-Out: The Potato Man resembles Sal Spudder, the trio of The Root Pack boss
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: There's the Arctic, and later on the Arctic Cave and the two Christmas-themed levels.
- Some Kind of Force Field: The game only lets you go so far backward.
- Space Zone: The Moon, Mars, Alien Planet, and obviously Space levels take place there, complete with altered gravity.
- Spider Tank: The Carantula is a vehicle that walks on four legs and has a seat for Bill in the middle, designed with a clear mechanical aesthetic.
- Tank Goodness: The tank. The flavor text when unlocking it even simply says "it's a tank!".
- This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Some of the less useful or difficult to use vehicles tend to have an actual purpose on a specific track. For example, the rather crap Hippie Van can ignore trees on forest levels which would normally be quite the obstacle. There's also the Sleigh, which is pretty long and awkward to use on most tracks, but it can hold gifts on the North Pole stage in its back which then can be delivered, making earning money from delivering and getting an achievement related to it far easier.
- Transforming Vehicle: The Mutant can transform between three forms - a standard car, a car with higher elevation and suspension, and a car surrounded by a huge wheel, with each form having benefits in different situations.
- Visible Odor: To show that Bill is intoxicated due to chemicals in the Nuclear Plant, green odor clouds fly out of his mouth.
- When All Else Fails, Go Right: There is an invisible wall on the left which appears to move the further you go right, making it clear that you're supposed to go in the opposite direction.
- Would Hurt a Child: The Kiddie Train. Now you can smash children into the ground too!
- Wraparound Background: Some levels have backgrounds which effectively repeat if you enable the background scroll option. For eample, Construction has a huge pointy skyscraper on the lft which with some driving moves to the right, then after driving for about 400 more meters of it going to the left it'll show up on the right again.
