Li-Ri

About the game

Li-Ri is a toy train game. A wooden engine runs along a track laid out on a play mat, and it never stops: your only job is to decide which way it goes at each junction. Wagons are scattered around the map, and every one you reach couples on behind the engine, so the train keeps growing. The level is over when there are no wagons left to collect.

The catch is the train itself. If the engine bumps into one of its own wagons, you lose a life and the level starts over, and the longer the train gets, the harder it is to find a route that does not cross its tail. You start with three lives, and a few pick-ups on the track change things for a while: one stretches the gaps between the wagons, one shortens them, one speeds the engine up and one gives you an extra life.

The game was written in 2006 by Dominique Roux-Serret under the name Ri-li, with music by Maf464. Johnny Jazeix took it up in 2023, moved it to SDL2 and released it as Li-Ri. After each level, a quiz from the original game shows one of the thirty articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and asks you to pick its title; a right answer is worth 50 points.

Playing it here

This is Li-Ri 3.1.6, the latest release, compiled for the browser from the project's source code. The download is about 14 MB, and each language other than English adds roughly half a megabyte the first time you choose it. Unlocked levels, high scores and settings are kept in this browser; clearing this site's data deletes them. The first screen asks you to choose a language, and you can change it later in the options.

Controls

Getting started

Pick a speed. Play asks for Easy, Normal or Hard, which set how fast the engine runs, and then for the level. Each difficulty unlocks its levels separately as you clear them.

Plan one junction ahead. The arrow drawn on the next junction shows where the engine will go. Press the direction you want before the engine reaches it; if you do nothing, it follows the arrow.

Tips

Keep a way out. Every wagon makes the train longer, so collect the ones in tight corners while the train is still short, and leave the open loops for later.

Use the pick-ups on purpose. The shortening pick-up packs the wagons closer together, which helps in a crowded level; the stretching one does the opposite. The speed pick-up is worth 30 points but leaves less time to react.

Pause to think. P stops everything, so you can study the track before the engine reaches a busy crossing.