Rooftop Run

Across the rooftops

The whole game takes place up high, on the roofs of a city, and its own tagline sums it up as a race across town. Your runner has a small set of parkour moves, jumping, rolling and sliding, and all of them exist to keep you running. Each level brings three kinds of trouble: obstacles to dodge, barriers to smash through and enemies to escape. The levels are built to be fast, so you meet all three at speed.

A runner with a weapon

The controls show that there is more to Rooftop Run than footwork. On a computer, the arrow keys move you in four directions, Space fires a weapon and Shift sets off a boost that makes you go faster. On a phone, the same jobs are split between an on-screen joystick for movement and two buttons, one to fire and one to boost. A weapon makes sense in a game that sends enemies after you, and the boost is there for the moments when running alone is not quick enough.

Getting better

The game calls its controls simple and easy to learn, and it describes each level as a challenge to complete while you master your skills. With so few inputs, progress comes less from learning new commands than from using the ones you already have at the right time: the parkour moves to keep your run going, and the weapon and the boost when the situation calls for them.

The target the game sets is plain enough. Clear the levels, sharpen your parkour and become the best runner on the rooftops.