I’ve Got to Run is an endless runner games in a sea of endless runner games. What started out as a modern take on arcade-style score-chasers ended up being one of the most popular genres on mobile devices. They tend to work well on those platforms due to the fact that they can be played in short bursts when you’re on the go, and are usually free to download. While I’ve Got To Run has the “short burst” part right, its severe lack of content makes it hard to justify the purchase.

I’ve Got to Run features three game modes: Endless Classic, Endless Double, and Endless Special. All three modes play very similarly, only with a few small differences: Double gives you a double-jump ability, and Special places various speed-up and speed-down items within the level. Each mode has you controlling Roy the Marshmallow Boy, our hero, as he makes his way through randomly-generated platforms. The only ability you have is to jump, and once you fall in a pit, it instantly resets your score. I would say that it sends you back to the beginning of the level, but it honestly feels like there is none. Each mode has one singular background image that never moves, and all the platforms have the exact same design and pattern, leaving no sense of progression.

What the game also lacks is any sense of individuality whatsoever. There’s no way to control the height or length of your jump, nor are there any sound effects or audio feedback within the game whatsoever. It feels like one of those early 2000s internet banner ads that had an extremely simple game to entice you to sign up for a chance to win a Caribbean cruise: soulless and unrewarding. The game does keep track of your high scores, but only if you manually save the game from the main menu, which shouldn’t be a big deal, but the fact that the game can’t auto-save is a bit odd.

Overall, I cannot recommend I’ve Got to Run when there are so many better alternatives out there, especially when most of them are free. If there was some incentive to keep playing beyond ten minutes, which is more than enough time to experience everything the game has to offer, it might warrant a purchase. As it stands, the only thing this game was running was out of ideas.