Running the ‘Tri-app-alon’

In an increasingly crowded app store, it is very hard to spot games that stand out. Especially, when it comes to ‘first person running’ games, it is rare to spot the ones that ‘run’ differently. But when you do come across such gems, it makes the Temple Runs and the Subway Surfers seem lame in comparison. It is time you made space for these sci-fi running games.

It might have started life on a PC in 2011, but the second you start it up, the game feels at home on your smartphone or tab. This is a first person running game, which is nothing like you have ever experienced before. This is what Temple Run would look like if it were to enter into darkness (a whole new level of difficulty). It feels as if the game is based in a dark wind tunnel.

Hold the screen and you keep running forever forwards on a track that looks as winding as a chromosome, increasing in speed as you keep going. It is just gradual, infinite acceleration. If you let go, you fly mid air across what looks like a bottom-less pit. Yes, you read it right. Hold the screen again to land back to…er… reality. You need to time it to perfection as a single slip-up spells doom. Each level gives you a different visual treat. One level will have you running on what looks like a wooden train track, ready to give way at the slightest of stress, another level will have you run through corridors that disappear as you keep moving, just like you see in disaster movies. It is actually a breeze playing Fotonica. There is a hard option as well if you find the default arcade mode too easy. There are three ‘endless’ modes as well, which will tax even the most hardcore gamer. There is also a split-screen mode for the user to challenge a friend.

Price: ₹50.99

Disclaimer: the developer did not intend to make a grammar blooper while developing the game. Unpossible will test your skills, your reflexes and your memory as well.

Unpossible is played with either touch or tilt and has an option for external controllers as well. The aim of the game is to dodge an endless series of glowing obstacles in this futuristic sci-fi world. Get as far as you can in each level -- survive for 60 seconds to unlock harder levels. And there are many levels. There is simplicity, futile and ultra. Then, there are ‘daily gameplay’ levels if you like to play the same level. These levels are the same difficulty as their namesakes except the levels stay the same for a full day.

Price: ₹119.72

This app developer definitely did not have any problems with grammar. Impossible road is a game about risk, rewards and roller-coasters. In this game, however, you don’t play ‘yourself’. You are a white circular object moving at increasing speeds on a twisty track. If Fotonica is at one end of the spectrum, Impossible Road is definitely at the other end – because the background is pitch white in the latter. You feel as if the track, which is endless, is in heaven. And when the ball goes off the track due to your utter carelessness, you definitely will be praying to God to get it back on.

Price: ₹125

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