Uniracers (Unirally in PAL territories, and called 1x1 during development) was a video
game released for the SNES in 1994 by DMA Design (now
Rockstar North).
Undoubtedly one of the more unique racing games for the SNES, the gameplay of Uniracers involved racing riderless unicycles around a 2D track.
Heavy emphasis was placed on performing stunts. Said stunts either caused the unicycle to
go faster on race or circuit tracks (the logic is justified in the instructions) or earn points on stunt tracks. Even the instruction manual was unusual, using an extremely non-serious and tongue-in-cheek tone throughout. A particular example could be the entire page dedicated to the instruction manual itself, which then manages to change the topic to how small pizzas "...are about the size of a
CD and cost
twice as much."
As unicycles are not very well-suited to complex stunts, the stunts that could be performed were relatively simple, mostly only involving jumping in the air and rotating about a given axis in 3D space. The idea was to be able to perform these stunts quickly in tight situations while landing the unicycle on its wheel to avoid wiping out (and losing speed).
The
game featured nine tours of five tracks each (two race, two circuit, one stunt). Beating each of the first eight tours (Crawler, Shuffler, Walker, Hopper, Jumper, Bounder,
Runner, Sprinter) required defeating
computer-controlled opponents for each of bronze,
silver, and
gold ranks. The last circuit, Hunter, featured the Anti-Uni as the
computer-controlled opponent. During that tour, touching the Anti-Uni caused several odd effects, such as the track becoming invisible, the controls reversing, and the background no longer moving in sync with the actions.
Split-screen two-
player modes were available as well, including a league mode that allowed up to eight players to compete in one-on-one races.
