Oddities: Uniracers

Welcome to Oddities, a new weekly feature in which we plunge head-first into the bargain bin of gaming history to extract a single game that you’ve either never heard of, or probably wished you hadn’t. We’ll be bringing you some of the strangest, most obscure and most incredibly awful games that have ever appeared since the invention of Spacewar!. They won’t all be bad games, but we’ll make it our mission to find the really, really weird stuff. Our first game is Uniracers:

If you’re a fan of Happy Wheels, or rather a fan of watching funny people play Happy Wheels, then allow me to enlighten you on a game that definitely didn’t inspire that bizarre cycling classic. OK, maybe it did just a little bit. Uniracers (or Unirally in Europe) was a SNES game that saw players take control of an anthropomorphised unicycle in races across a 2D track. It was released in the mid-’90s as a demonstration of the power of Nintendo’s newest console amidst claims that the SEGA Mega Drive (or Genesis) was much quicker (the SEGA console was generally quicker and more powerful, by the way).

So while SEGA had its blue hedgehog, Nintendo were betting on a bunch of riderless unicycles. The game never sold especially well, particularly considering it was developed in tandem by Nintendo of America and DMA design - who would later go on to become Rockstar North and rule the world. We’ll get to why in a moment, but regardless Uniracers is regarded as something of a cult classic. The fast-paced gameplay, which really is reminiscent of proper Sonic games, is fun and impressively varied, with a great selection of tracks, two player split-screen and a general presentation that didn’t take itself too seriously.

The game was also somewhat ahead of its time, incorporating a detailed trick mechanic that allowed players to pull off stunts in order to gain bonus points. Most people struggled to do more than the basic roll, but the more complex tricks were there for those who were willing to invest the time. Two ‘mega stunts’ could be pulled off during races: the Head Bounce and the Tabletop, among various basic moves. Plus, the game featured the Anti-Uni, an AI opponent that appeared on the final stage. The Anti-Uni could make the track invisible, reverse controls and even instigate a slow-motion mode titled Hedgehog speed - burn.

Despite proving popular upon initial release, as mentioned the game never sold more than the initial print. This was due to a lawsuit, from Disney of all places, against Uniracers. The animated short Red’s Dream, released originally in 1987, featured an anthropomorphised unicycle rather like those in the DMA game. Disney felt that Uniracers infringed its copyright, as the cover ‘star’ of the game closely resembled Red, the unicycle of focus in the animation. Disney won the lawsuit and all copies of the game were removed from shelves and no more were ever printed. It does certainly seem a little harsh, although DMA founder David Jones allegedly claimed later that the game was indeed inspired by Red’s Dream. Go figure.

Uniracers has been lost to history really. That short print run meant that very few cartridges ever made it into the market, severely limiting the game’s widespread popularity. Sonic went on to carry SEGA through the ‘90s, DMA Design went on to develop some game about stealing vehicles and no unicycle-themed games were ever made again. Yes, it’s a little odd that one was ever made in the first place, but video games have always been a medium for creativity and originality - especially when they’re inspired by Disney cartoons...

That’s all for this week, we’ll have a new edition of Oddities here for you every Friday.