Happy Wheels
Ragdoll obstacle courses where the vehicles are terrible, the hazards are worse, and the character comes apart in detail.
Jim Bonacci released Happy Wheels in 2010 and it became one of the most-watched games on the early internet, largely because of how specifically it models injury. You pick a character — a man on a segway, a father and son on a bike, a wheelchair user with a rocket — and try to reach the end of a course.
The joke is that the characters are fragile and the vehicles barely work, so the courses are less about driving than about which limb you are prepared to lose. The level editor and the community that used it are the real body of the game; there are hundreds of thousands of user levels, ranging from careful platforming challenges to elaborate machines built purely to destroy you.
Controls
Arrow keys to drive and lean, Space for the character special, Z and X to eject or grab, Ctrl to break apart
Tips
- Lean with the up and down arrows constantly. Keeping the vehicle level matters far more than going fast.
- Ejecting on purpose is often the correct play, since a sliding body clears some hazards a vehicle cannot.
- Losing limbs does not end the run. Only a head injury does, so protect that and ignore everything else.