Temple Run’s Fall From Grace + How to Save it
Temple Run is an iconic classic that stands as one of the defining mobile games of the golden age of the App Store. This game is remembered for its addicting and engaging gameplay loop that is still fun all these years later, though the experience has been degraded a bit following it’s shift to being a free app. When this game became a free download rather than a $0.99 purchase, many changes came in that alter the game in a way that have cheapened the game experience in a way that demonstrates that the developers fundamentally misunderstand what made their game fun and engaging to begin with.
To start off, it’s worth identifying what specifically went wrong. From my understanding, this game, like many other successful mobile games of its era, conformed to the structure of becoming a free download with ads and micro transactions rather than an upfront $0.99 price tag. That isn’t inherently problematic as the micro transactions, although a little contemptuous, can often be ignored and you can simply pay a small fee to remove the ads. The “no ads” fee in this particular game is obviously a dollar more than it costed to play this game without ads back then. I’d be willing to put up with that if it weren’t for several other key issues in how they’ve integrated ads into this game.
The most apparent issue with the ads is that, even if you do pay for “no ads”, this only removes forced ads. You do still have the option to double the coins you get each run or revive your character after you die by watching an ad. You certainly CAN ignore this, but you’re probably going to end up sitting through ads anyway as you want more coins. Watching the ad to double those coins is going to save time in comparison to a new run and you want coins since you want to be able to afford the upgrades and characters as that is your reinforcement you get to continue picking away at the game and it’s what makes continuing to play the game feel rewarding over time. The “watch an ad to continue” revivals, however, I always opt out for. These are just broken. Regardless of whether you choose to use it, the fact that you even have the safety net to begin with dampens the fun a substantial amount. It should be fun to get high scores, right? The option to watch an ad to keep going after you fail really disrupts this. It detracts from the thrill of getting a high score or the challenge of beating a friend’s high score, in turn making the game less addictive to play. If you ask me, I strongly believe both of these “watch an ad to benefit” features should be omitted in order to not disrupt this game’s sense of progression and the satisfaction derived from achieving something in this game. The free revives that recharge periodically in Temple Run+ are also part of the same problem and it could be argued that their implementation is even worse there as now the app isn’t just trying to make you watch ads, it’s actively assuming that you WANT the revives and that they enhance the game.
Both of these alone are the antithesis to what initially made this game consistently rewarding, addictive, and fun to pick up and play at a moments notice. So what could corrections look like? Well, first off, scores from before a player uses a revive should be saved separately. That’s the first part. The second part is that, ideally, a separate “Temple Run Classic” app could go up that is just the original game, as it used to be, $0.99, no ads, no crutches (honestly just omit revives entirely), no in-app purchases, can be played offline, and, if possible, it would be cool to see it be able to sync with those “revive-less” scores from the current app so that you’re still in an environment where you can compete against friends’ high scores in a way that can actually feel rewarding and competitive.
From what I’ve inferred, the developers of mobile games this, Angry Birds, and Jetpack Joyride seem more focused on the sequels for their games that are receiving more attention in regard to updates and whatnot, so it feels like the original apps only stick around for legacy’s-sake. So why be the ones to go back and blow the dust off to try to care for this old app again? Because it’s the original endless runner and it’s seemingly Imangi’s first big mobile game success which should warrant a lot more care for its legacy from them. It’s a good game that could be improved greatly if it is just brought back to a previous state it was in. Why not give this old classic some proper love again and set an example for other games that have also had periods where they’ve fallen from grace?
