Temple Run

Temple Run is a simple, addictive mobile game with one goal: run as far as you can. In Temple Run, you control a hero attempting to escape from a temple with a priceless artifact. In order to escape, you have to run along a dangerous, narrow, and exhilarating path while being chased by evil monkeys.

Temple Run is perhaps best described as a third-person platformer that's somewhat similar to the Sonic games. In Temple Run, you control a running person from the viewpoint of a 3d camera that stays behind them. Your character runs automatically, allowing you to concentrate on steering, ducking, and sliding past obstacles. Unlike in other games, in Temple Run, one mistake almost always means the end of a run.

That's not a bad thing, though! Temple Run isn't an easy game by any means, but it's also not a game where you're worried about losing progress. Each time you die, you restart from the beginning of the temple. This means you get another chance to get a high score by getting very far away from the temple before you die.

Temple Run presents both obstacles and rewards as you run away from the monkeys. Obstacles include gaps that you have to jump over by swiping up, tree branches and other obstacles that you have to slide under by swiping down, and sudden turns along the path. In order to turn, you can swipe in either direction. Turns include both sudden angles and intersections, giving you the ability to choose your path.

As you progress in your run, you'll find a number of coins on the path, often in straight lines. Running through these coins will pick them up, giving you currency you can spend in an in-game shop. Red coins give you two normal coins worth of currency, while blue coins give three.

Just because the coins are in your path doesn't mean they're trivial to pick up. Instead, Temple Run has multiple lanes along the main road that your character can run in. Coins appear on one of the side lanes more often than not, meaning you'll need to tilt your device to get your runner to change lanes and grab the coins.

The in-game shop has many unlockables, including different characters, powerups, upgrades, and more. Because you keep the coins you collect on each run, you'll have the ability to make steady progress towards the unlocks you want, even if you're on a bad streak.

Finally, a handful of powerups appear occasionally throughout the world. These powerups will make your character run faster and control themselves, make you invincible (like a star in Mario) but allow you to retain control, give you a bunch of coins, or make other coin pickups more valuable. Picking up these powerful boons can change your run dramatically, so be sure to grab them when you see them.

These systems might seem simple - and they are - but Temple Run remains a frantic, fast-paced game that's easy to learn and difficult to master. Even experienced platform veterans will struggle to perfectly react in time to every obstacle. At the same time, new players will be able to pick up Temple Run incredibly quickly, enabling them to join in on the fun!

Temple Run is a difficult game that ends with you dying, no matter what. Because of this, be sure to not get too hung up on the fact that you perish at the end of each run. As long as you're having fun, you don't need to worry too much about your score.

That said, there are definitely some things you can do to make playing Temple Run a bit easier. The first is to make sure that you're holding your phone comfortably. Think about your grip and ensure that you'll be able to marathon a gaming session without cramping up. A simple, relaxed grip with one hand should allow you to utilize the tilt controls, while gently resting your other hand on something so you can swipe tends to be best.

Early on in the game, try to focus on upgrades like the coin magnet and double coins. These powerups will help you earn more coins faster, making them much more valuable than unlockable characters or single-use boosts. Later on in the game, these single boosts can help you push for a score on the leaderboards, but they're definitely not necessary until you need a small edge to beat your old high score.

One of the best tricks for getting farther in Temple Run is to jump over obstacles. This might seem basic, but there's a hidden catch. Many of the obstacles that you can slide under you can also jump over. As you run farther, the game gets faster and faster, meaning a slight hesitation about which action you should take can cost you your run. This means that it's a great habit to default to jumping so you don't have to react to as many things.

Temple Run is a game about survival first, coins second. The longer you run, the more valuable coin pickups appear. This means that you should prioritize safety over picking up coins. For many players, this means that you'll want to ignore strings of coins and instead focus on the path ahead. This can save a lot of brainpower and reaction time that will keep you alive for longer, enabling you to pick up all of the coins in the middle along the way. If the middle doesn't exist, you'll still have to tilt into one of the other lanes, but you might not always want to hunt for small strings of coins.

Finally, if you're after high scores, try disabling powerups that aren't the coin magnet. This will require a recent version of Temple Rush, but it'll allow you to get absolutely insane scores. Because every powerup that you find has to be coin magnet, you'll get incredibly high multipliers to your score, allowing you to top leaderboards with ease.

Are you a Temple Run expert? Just getting started? Let us know if you've got any tips we missed. We'd love to hear about your high scores, your favorite characters, and the hand position that you find works best to allow you to swipe and tilt comfortably during long gaming sessions!