Gravity Runner is one more in the endless running genre; appearing on the App Store just before Monster Dash it takes a path not trodden by the other games of this type and that is level based trial and error free running. Sure, there’s always the danger that you’ll fall off the screen but the game actually lets you stop and take it in once in a while. Mind, that’s usually only when you come across a staircase of blocks and run into the bottom.

Mainly though, the difference here is one that lets you switch the gravity whilst you’re in mid-air. You’ll find that the gravity is fairly low here too, so it can be a delayed change depending on how fast you’re traveling and where you are in space. You switch to avoid the spike traps, dead ends or bottomless pits that populate the game and you win if you make it to the finish line in one piece.

However, you have an unlimited stock of lives so you can do it in as many tries as you like; some longer levels even have checkpoints. Others have power ups that can increase your speed or give you an extra gravity switch in mid-air; later on in the game you’ll find warp portals where a semblance of a puzzle platformer creeps in, but most of the time you’ll just be trying to get to the end and collecting as many coins as you can.

The main problem is that the game isn’t adventurous enough; for all the jumping and precise navigating you have to do you find yourself wishing for the ability to move yourself left and right instead of being driven forward automatically. Indeed, the last few levels are really difficult and patience testing; with platforms that can be only a square wide in many cases.

The presentation doesn’t have a great feel to it either; Gravity Runner has, for lack of a better word, a weird art style. The foreground is populated with elements that look pixelated but they are actually made up of tiny blocks. The look just doesn’t sit right, especially when the background is rendered in a completely different style; everything just looks out of place. Even the running animation is a bit suspect; plus the menu screens take on this same look. We can sympathise with the desire to be different but in this instance, it doesn’t work; especially with Monster Dash and its stylish environments as competition.

We can’t really see a reason to buy this over Monster Dash, or even Canabalt. It still needs more work; we’d say that you should hold off buying until it gets updated.

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Review by Tom Grimes, March 26, 2010

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