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Run - TV Tropes

  • ️Thu Mar 19 2020

Run (Video Game)

This is just the start.

Run is a 2008 3-D browser-based Endless Running Game by player_03. It's much like other endless runners, except that every time you touch a wall, it becomes the new floor. In space.

It has two sequels. Run 2 introduces another player, adds optional bonuses, and makes the levels significantly blockier. Run 3 reverts to the old tunnels, adds an infinite running mode, an Excuse Plot, and plenty of new characters.

Run can be played here. Run 2 is here. Run 3 can be found here, and it has a free mobile app.

Not related to the book Run. Also easily confused with its own sequel, as Run 3 was renamed Run for the iOS and Android release due to being the only one of the three games on mobile. To differentiate, sometimes this game is referred to as Run 1.

The Run series as a whole provides examples of:

  • Alien Geometries: Random, infinitely long tunnels (or scattered rectangular platforms) in space for no reason.
  • And Your Reward Is Clothes: Run 1 introduced several costumes for the player character upon reaching certain levels, and most of them were expanded into separate characters for Run 3. Run 3 in turn added its own costumes.
  • Endless Running Game: Subverted; there are levels, which ultimately end. Despite the name, it's subverted by the Infinite mode of Run 1, which is considered complete upon beating a level with 99% difficulty. Played straight by the Infinite mode in Run 3.
  • Featureless Protagonist: The Runner, and the Skater as well as of Run 2. Justified since we only see them from the back in the first two games. Averted in the third game, when we see them from the front.
  • Floating Platforms: The tunnels are essentially this. Run 2 plays this straighter by having rectangular prisms that the character jumps on.
  • Freeware Games: All games are completely free.
  • Gravity Screw: The game's gimmick. Touch a wall? Or a ceiling? Weaponized by certain characters in the third game:
    • The Child holds a balloon, which allows him to glide.
    • The electromagnet in The Gentleman's hat pulls him to power cells.
    • The Student can flip gravity if she jumps for long enough.
  • Heroic Mime: The player character never talks. Until the third game, that is. Even then, it's only in speech bubbles.
  • Level Editor: All three games, and you can share levels with other players too.
  • Level Goal: Each level ends once you reach a hallway which lacks any holes.
  • Malevolent Architecture: It's not actively trying to kill you, but it's certainly not making forward progress easy.
  • No OSHA Compliance: Gaping holes in the floor to the point where it can barely be called a floor? Why are you even here? Lampshaded by the barrier at the beginning of Run 3 that warns you of unsafe ground.
  • No Plot? No Problem!: You're in strangely geometrical tunnels. Who cares why you're there? Just run!
  • Oddball in the Series: Run 2, the only one of the three with a 3D level layout instead of tunnels, the only one with the little yellow bonuses and the only one with more than one default character.
  • One Hitpoint Wonder: Fall? You have to start from the beginning.
  • Video Game Remake: Run was originally supported on Adobe Flash. Due to Flash's discontinuation in December 2020, Run is being remade with a new camera called Away3D, which is supported by HTML5.