Running Fred Preview – The Living Fred

There are many stories in which being dead is not considered a serious impediment. From Dracula to Warm Bodies, MediEvil to Murdered: Soul Suspect, plenty of characters plainly do not consider death to be the end. Well, why should it be? If Sissel from Ghost Trick has found a way to inhabit this Earth after his untimely passing, more power to him, we say. It’s for this reason that we found ourselves rooting so squarely for the protagonist of Running Fred, which comes to us from well-known freemium developer Dedalord. If Dedalord’s name is enough to sell you, you can check out Running Fred on Poki before you read this review. A little context never hurt, right?

Running Fred is set in…well, it could be anywhere, really. Our take is that it’s the underworld and that Fred is attempting to flee his inevitable fate. Fred’s travails take him through doomy, imposing castles, on to dark caverns, and past ornate, well-constructed temples. There are few places those three would occur alongside one another besides some sort of afterlife or underworld. Wherever Fred happens to find himself, he’s got one mission: run. Everyone’s favorite scythe-wielding ghost is after him, and Fred doesn’t plan to give up his soul any time soon. Since there would be no game if everything was rosy, you control Fred right at his pivotal moment of defiance and must help him escape.

If it wasn’t clear from the name, Running Fred is all about running. There’s a handy little tutorial at the start that teaches players all about the mechanics of the game, then it’s right into the levels to get started. The tutorial itself is good; it’s just hands-on enough to help players master the mechanics on their own, but it doesn’t stand back while slightly more tricky concepts are explained. There are also a host of more complex tutorials for new moves on the game’s official website. Running Fred may be a fairly straightforward endless runner, but it’s got plenty of extra tricks up its sleeve for those who want to take the time to learn them.

Let’s focus on the basics for now. Running Fred’s main mode, Adventure Mode, is split into levels. Each level lasts only a couple of minutes, but the game packs as many hazards and jumps into those minutes as it can. Within the first couple of levels, Fred will be dodging swinging axes, leaping over death drops, and trying to maneuver past rotating spike ball traps. If just one of these things hits Fred, it’s pretty much always instant game over. If you do die, the game allows you to restart from the beginning of the current stage, and since levels are quite short, this never feels like a punishment; instead, the game simply wants you to tackle its challenges fairly.

In order for Running Fred to work, one thing must be sound: the movement mechanics. Happily, Running Fred’s developer Dedalord has paid a lot of attention to how Fred feels, as well as how he’s animated. There’s a joyful sense of terrified abandon to Fred’s movements, and the constant teeth-chattering of his face portrait in the top left of the screen is charming. The controls are responsive and smooth, so when you want Fred to jump, he’ll listen immediately. Running Fred gets away with the occasionally brutal difficulty of its levels sheerly through a well-crafted control scheme that always feels fluid and never feels like it’s working against you.

Running Fred may be an endless runner, but it’s got plenty of twists on the genre to keep players interested. Chief among them is a skill system which allows players to purchase new skills for Fred’s movement arsenal. There’s a double jump, a wall jump, and a glide move, among other things. Having these moves gives Fred access to new powerups and treasures throughout each level, so there are always plenty of optional challenges organically scattered throughout Running Fred’s many stages. You can even revisit earlier levels in order to claim prizes you couldn’t previously reach. In this way, Running Fred both encourages replayability and challenges players to overcome their skill limitations.

There’s plenty of ancillary content to unlock in Running Fred, including new avatars and new worlds to explore. In the end, though, this is a game that’s all about its central mechanics. Running through each level and dodging myriad horrors is always enjoyable thanks to light-hearted presentation and a consistent sense of momentum. When you die (and it’s when, not if), the game is kind to you, allowing you to restart with very little progress lost. Multiple gameplay modes are available to those who truly wish to test their skills, but even Running Fred’s adventure mode will keep you busy for a long time. This is probably the best endless runner we’ve played, and we have no qualms about recommending it to anyone who enjoys runners, light horror themes, or just video games in general.