Running Man

In Brief
Running Man is an isometric perpetual running game. It's in no way related to the movie of the same name starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. You can see a video of game play HERE

The Game
When you click on the games executable or shortcut it will open a configuration window (see the first image below) that allows you to adjust your resolution to fit the shape of your monitor, a toggle for full screen or windowed mode and a button that opens a drop down menu where you can change the graphic quality. That said there is virtually no perceptible difference between any of the quality settings i.e. Fastest, Fast, Simple, Good, Beautiful & Fantastic. It may be appropriate for very old single core laptops and PC's from 20 years or more ago, but most modern systems should easily cope with the best quality setting.

Running Man was created using the Unity engine. The aim of the game is to survive as long as you can, picking up stars as you progress. If you die (almost certainly within the first minute on your first try), you don't loose any stars you've already collected. Care needs to be taken when moving the running man from one plane (lane) to the next as it can end in disaster if your character is squashed by a side swiping block. To move from one plane to the next click your left mouse button. I've not yet figured out whether or not you can move to the left or right plane via a particular mouse button or keystroke; however, the direction of movement seems to change randomly after several mouse clicks; i.e. initially you move to the left, then, after several clicks the movement changes to the right, then back to the left etc. It took me a while to realize that running into a block doesn't automatically end the game. You can run into a block and
remain stationary for several seconds before the level closes and then you have to start again. It's only blocks that swipe from the left or right when you are changing lanes (planes) that automatically starts the game again. At this point you get access to the four icons mentioned in the last few paragraphs below. Most of the buttons in the options menu are disabled. The only ones that appeared to work were the sound toggle and the link to 'Follow Us on Twitter'; however clicking the Twitter icon takes you to a page that says ''This page isn't working at the moment''

Collect as many stars as you can; these are the in-game currency which is used to buy new characters. To get the cheapest character will cost you 300 stars. I've played the game for approximately 40 to 50 minutes and so far have only managed to survive for 40 seconds on one of my last runs. In that time I've picked up 27 stars. This equates to many hours of game play just to get the first of the 30 locked characters assuming my game play doesn't improve drastically. :)

addendum:

Once I figured out that you don't immediately die when running into a block, I managed to survive 100 seconds and collected several more stars)

When your character dies, ignore the shop as it appears that this is a 'pay for stars' link; however, in the PC version this is disabled. I presume playing the android version would enable purchases?. I did test the buttons to see if clicking on one took me to a web page to purchase the stars, but nothing happened. You get this screen when your character is splatted by a side swiping block. At this point you'll see four buttons along the bottom of the screen; (see the last image). The first one takes you back to the start of the game, the second one seems non-functional (looks like a bar graph icon) the third is a shopping basked that takes you to a price list for buying stars; for example, 500 stars costs $0.99, 10K stars costs $5.99 with different selections ranging from 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000, and 10 000.

The main screen shows your best score in the top left hand corner, the number of in-game currency (stars) in the top right hand corner. In the bottom middle of the screen is a button that says select character; clicking on this will being up a line of characters, all but the first one in silhouette. To return to the start screen just click on the forward pointing arrow in the middle bottom of the screen.

To start the game click on the image of the character and start clicking to keep your running man on track and avoid all obstacles that will swipe you from the left or right while transitioning from one plane (lane) to the next. These take take the form of different lengths of rectangular or or single square blocks.

There are 30 characters to choose from; (so long as you've earned enough stars to unlock them). To access any one of these, use the left mouse button then click and drag to the left or right to see the different characters; however, apart from the first character, all you see of the rest of the characters are silhouette's of their shape. To select a character you have to pay from between 300 to 1000 in-game currency for each character. The ones to the far right cost more than the ones nearest to the first and free character.

1 (first character) is free
9 cost 300 each
11 cost 500 each
9 cost 1000 each

In game currency is collected by running over the stars. The premise of the game is basically to avoid all obstacles coming from the side when you change lanes, collect as many stars as you can (some stars are placed in such a way that if you change lanes to capture the star you'll be side swiped if the lane direction changes. Also, run for as long as you can without dying.

Finally, when you die there is also an option that suggests you can take in-game PNG screen captures and gif's, (see the last image below) but this also appears to be disabled in the PC version of the game.

Other free games worth adding to your game library
The latest free games from Epic Games include three game this week; i.e. Deponia: The Complete Journey, a comedic point and click adventure game. Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth, a point and click visual novel with a medieval anime feel to it, and The First Tree, a atmospheric walking simulator., all of which you'll find HERE; the combined cost of these three games would set you back over £60/$84/€70. From this Thursday 22nd April we will be getting the excellent Alien: Isolation, A first person psychological/survival horror game based on the Alien movie franchise and set in an atmosphere of constant dread and mortal danger... Created using the CATHODE™ engine and Hand of Fate 2, is an RPG roguelike deck builder card game; Master a living board game of infinitely re-playable quests - unlock new cards, build your adventure, then defeat your foes in brutal third person real-time combat! (combined cost of both games is over £50/$70/€58).

Please see Delenn's threads for other Steam and Non Steam freebies HERE and HERE respectively. There won't be new freebies added every week from these sections apart from the Epic games, but it is worth checking them regularly for details of any games going for free. Delenn usually posts details when a game is being offered free for a temporary period. These include games from Good Old Games (all DRM free), Ubisoft's uPlay client, Valves Steam client, EA Games Origin client and other indie developers. You'll find hundreds of freeware games of all arcade and indie genres on Itch.io and Caimans Games as well as other sources. Please do check out the game discussion forums for older posts HERE (the sticky section is useful). Many of the earlier posts may be out of date with respect to the links I and others have provided to the free games; however, you only need to know the name of the game to find most of them via other sources. Many of those games from 2008 to around 2017 were posted as part of a project to supplement the lack of weekday games when the game giveaway went to weekend only games around Easter 2008 (mainly instigated due to the financial crisis of 2008) until November 2018 when Falcoware stepped into the weekday slot; however, from around 2015 onwards we did start to get the occasional Steam key for various games offered as limited giveaways, with a restriction on the number of keys available (anywhere from 25 to 2000+).

These included decent AAA games and indie arcade games; for example, lucky winners have been given Steam keys for several giveaways featuring Warhammer: Vermintide 1 & 2 plus DLC for version 2; as well as other games such as Dreadlands, DLC for World of Tanks and World of Warships, The Last Roman Village (two times)), ADM: Angels, Demons & Men (two times) and the sequel ADM 2: When Worlds Collide, U-BOOT 1945, Mount & Blade: Warband, Immortal Unchained, Onion Force (Three times), 1993: Space Machine (two times), Runaway VR, Jump Step Step, Megamagic: Wizards of the Neon Age, Tree of Life, Star Vikings Forever, Rogalia, Alien Hallway 2 (two times), Cargo Cult: Shoot'n'Loot VR, Bold New World, Forge of Gods dlc packs e.g. Team of Justice Pack (several times), The Apotheosis Project, Tangrams VR, Mighty Party dlc, UnnyWorld - Founder's Pack, Steam World Dig, Minion Masters (several times), Dreamals: Dream Quest, Destroyer: Invasion, MIND SHIFT, Madrobot X, MIND BLOX, MIND TWINS - The Twisted Co-op Platformer, Next Up Hero, Runaway VR, ZBlitz with 1000 Gems, Conan Exiles as well as others that I've forgotten the names of. The very first Steak key giveaway, that involved at least 1500 Steam keys had to be cancelled when it was found some community members were applying for lots of keys using different emails, then putting them up on various sites that sold Steam keys.

I've not posted details of any Indie Gala freebies since my older computer went on the Fritz back in October last year. Since then Indie Gala have added quite a lot more free games, some of which are definitely worth downloading. You can find the latest freebies HERE and their showcase list, which includes all the freebies still current; (many of which have been included for a couple of years now) HERE.

It’s worth adding these links to your favorites and checking regularly for available freebies. Most are only free for a specific time. If you miss the deadline you’ll miss out. Once added to your account, they are yours to keep. :)

Notes on Security
I scanned a zipped copy of the installed game and it found zero hits from 61 antimalware engines. The downloaded executable may include some low level adware that only opens your browser to Falcowares home page after the game has installed, but does not inject any malware into your system. When your browser is opened to Falcowares home page it earns them some money, part of which is given to the developer of the game for allowing the game to be given away free. You can see the results of the scan via the following link:

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/7c2f20d054dec6b3cb0a1d75b963370caba68f930aa9c96f1f5fb671c280152d/detection