Great game! I really like the music and art style. Very professional and superb!
I don't like how the game has the instructions written down in a different screen. I know it's a complicated game, but when people play flash games, the attention value tends to be quite low for a lot of people (Or at least that's what Tom Fulp thinks as he mentioned in a podcast). It's much better to have a good tutorial level with as minimal written material as possible to guide the player. That will get people hooked in the first five minutes rather than rage quit to the next flash game.
However, my biggest complaint is the controls:
Quote: "We tried to make [Motorjoust] as retro as possible", says the long description of the game.
The funny thing about that quote is that I don't quite see it in the physics! I would say that was due to the physics engine (Which I "suspect" is Box2D).
Of course, the physics problems are defiantly not because of lazy programing.... Oh no, that would be very silly to say. The programmer you have is really great having made a really well done in-game level editor, a feature missing in a lot of 2D games. But I would say he is a little misguided for making the game feel realistic rather than retro. Example: The balance controls in mid-air feels like controlling a snowmobile rather than a bike. Also, when I press UP or DOWN, please let me detach from the driving lane without a fifty-fifty chance of leaping off into space and landing face first on a large chunk of spikes please!
Finally, a brief mentioning to the music. I love 8-bit harmonies and this soundtrack is no exception, I love it too!
You might think I didn't like the game a lot because of my lengthy criticism of the controls but that's in the end a small bump in a very good, very mesmerizing flash game 9/10 - 5/5