Backgrounds are backdrops hand-drawn by Jim Bonacci that can be selected by users making levels in Happy Wheels. There are three backgrounds in the desktop version: Green Hills, City, and blank, while the mobile version has many more. You can also choose a color from the level options you want the background to be.
Green Hills is a background that seems to be out in the country. There are green hills in the background, and one large hill in the foreground.
Green Hills.
The gradient sky for the Green Hills.
City
The city background is based on a huge city with towering skyscrapers. This background is extremely unrealistic, though, because if you counted every story in the buildings, some would go beyond even 150 stories, with the tallest building having only 163, therefore, this city could be a futuristic city.
City.
The gradient sky for the city.
Blank
The blank background is simply a blank, white screen (unless the background color is set to a different color).
Mobile App Backgrounds
The mobile version contains several backgrounds that do not exist in the browser version. There are six backgrounds, three of which are available in the mobile level editor, while the others can only be found in some levels.
The backgrounds available in the mobile level editor are:
Bricks
This background consists of a wall of light-grey bricks. This background is tiled when seen on levels.
The "Bricks" background.
A darker variant.
Dark Bricks
Just like with the "Dark Lab" background, this background is basically a darker variant of the "Bricks" background, with the bricks being dark-blue rather than light-grey. It can only be found in Mobile App Level 5 (Business Guy). This background is tiled when seen on levels.
The "Dark Bricks" background.
Clouds
This background is basically the "Green Hills" background, except that the hills are missing, leaving only the clouds and the sky.
The "Clouds" background.
Lab
The "Lab" background consists of light-grey hexagons sitting next to each other. This background is tiled when seen on levels.
The "Lab" background.
The gradient used for the background.
Dark Lab
The "Dark Lab" background is basically a darker variant of the "Lab" background. It can only be seen in the level Mobile App Level 8 (Business Guy). This background is tiled when seen on levels.
The sunset background as seen in an Irresponsible Dad level.
The gradient used for the background.
Background Color Selector
The color selector in the level options.
Level options containing the background color option without the color selector.
There is a color selector for the background color in the level editor, which allows you to select any color possible as the background. It is exactly like the color selector for shapes and polygons. Whichever color you select, it will cover the background, and stay one solid color. However, the color only shows up when you test the level, so you will not see the color when you are editing the level. It was available since version 1.60.
The mobile version has a background color selector too. However, unlike in the browser version, where a color palette is available, the user must drag some sliders until the color they want is found. Instead of the background color being in a separate category like in the flash version, the background color is in the same list as the possible level backdrops, under the name "solid color". Like in the browser version, a selected color will cover the entire background and stay as one color, but only shows up when testing the level. The mobile background color selector has been available since the app was released.
The background color selector in the mobile version.
Glitches
Happy Wheels - Bigfoot Forest - Backgrounds,levelXML and stuff
The strange glitch in action.
There is an exploitable glitch, where the background actually shows what is currently shown on your screen before you test it. This glitch happens when you load the LevelXML data with the "bg" value changed to a number above 2 (3, 4, 5, etc.). This only works in the editor, if you make the level public the entire level goes weird. If you try to go to the level options menu, it won't let you.
If you go into the Demo Version and you load a level with the Green Hills background (this only works with green hills), if you zoom in three times on a hill (right click, then click on "Zoom In"), the screen will turn into the sky. If you zoom in 4 times, the entire screen will turn white. If you zoom in 5 times, it will turn back to normal.
In the mobile version, there used to be a glitch, where no matter what color you chose the background to be, the background would always be blank (or white) when testing.
Currently in the JavaScript test version, many of the buildings in the city background do not load up the way they're supposed to.
Trivia
The bottom of the Green Hills background being blue coming from the tint of the background hills.
It has frequently been stated that one of the clouds in the Green Hills background resembles male genitalia.
There are 3 layers of the green hills background: The main green hills, the background hills, and the sky. Movement affects how these move, as the first layer of hills will move much quicker than the sky in the background. The same goes with the city background, only the 2 closest layers are buildings instead of hills.
In Happy Green Hills, a small character, barring the Elf, can fall through the log bridge, allowing you to go beneath the standard background limits, where the front-most layer of hills finishes, and the hills behind it can be seen. Due to the blue hue used for the background hills, the entire area seen underneath them follows the same color.
Jim said that he might make more backgrounds, but it is unknown when or if these will be released. These new backgrounds may appear in the sequel.
It is not possible to add a background color when Green Hills or City is selected.
Before the background color option was available in "Level Options", players would place uninteractive 5000x5000 rectangles until the map was filled.
Gallery
The city background in the JavaScript test version.
(js_test).png "Messed up city background (2)(js test).png (265 KB)")