Organization: Gaijin Games

BIT.TRIP RUN! is a shining example of how to port a game to mobile.  The tightly responsive, elegantly fluid experience of BIT.TRIP Presents Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien on PC and consoles has been translated to iOS with nearly identical content, quality, and fun intact.  Despite being best experienced with a controller/gamepad, the transition to touchscreen controls has been superbly executed, presenting mobile players with gameplay perfectly adapted to the platform without feeling watered down. That gameplay pits players against the same finite running levels found in Runner2 as they control the always-ambulatory CommanderVideo.  The dangerous, robotic minions of Mingrawn Timbletot are spread across three worlds—the Welkin Wonderland, Emerald Brine, and Supernature—in an attempt to stop our hero from escaping his current imprisonment in an unknown dimension.  Players of BIT.TRIP RUN! will be treated to the same story, Charles Martinet-narrated cutscenes, and even wacky commercials available in Runner2, although the final two worlds—the Mounting Sadds and Bit.Trip—will be released in a future, free update."Each level requires transporting CommanderVideo or one of his seven unlockable friends—like CommandGirlVideo and Reverse Merman—from start to finish while dodging everything from bottomless pits to boxing robots, spiked balls to wooden bot blockades.  Our always-in-motion characters can perform most of the same actions they utilized in Runner2, with a few changes made specifically for the touchscreen format.  Players will tap to jump, hold to glide, swipe down to slide, swipe right to kick or block, and swipe left to dance—a stylish move used only to rack up points, but one that BIT.TRIP RUN! would feel incomplete without.  Because tapping is inevitably slower than button-mashing, many of the stairway sections of levels have been fitted with automatic trampolines that propel CommanderVideo up and over without requiring the player to tap themselves to death.  Other springboards have also been automated, activating when run over instead of via player input.