Firefly Runner – Review

I’m not sure we’d normally cover free mobile games, especially one in the over-subscribed endless runner genre but Firefly Runner, from Red Kite Games, is here to help you buy back a bit of your soul. Although it is free, a single in-app purchase allows you disable in-game adverts and 15% of the money raised from that will go to two gaming charities, namely Special Effect and GamesAid who both support disabled and disadvantaged young ‘uns. Or you can go to the homepage and donate some quids at those charities more directly.

The game itself is a cute little 2D affair that has you controlling a firefly called Spark as he runs and flies along a sidescrolling randomly generated landscape punctuated by beasties and obstacles in an effort to rescue his captured friends. Despite being called Firefly Runner, Spark spends most of his time in the air where his height is controlled by taps a’la Flappy Bird. The comparison thankfully doesn’t extend to the game’s difficulty and Firefly Runner ends up being a far more casual experience than last year’s inexplicably popular crash ‘em up.

Spark can also use his catapult to fire fruit at oncoming enemies. Aside from that though, there’s nothing else to explain. Enemies are easily dealt with and obstacles, for the most part, are well telegraphed and easy to avoid (although most of my runs have all ended thanks to these annoying boulder traps that I’m still not quite sure how to get past effectively). The controls, simple as they are (with flight mapped to any part of the left half of the screen and firing on the right, targeted at where you touch), are responsive but inertia-heavy to add to the challenge.

The cartoony graphics are nice enough with some nicely defined enemies and three types of environment to progress through. The game’s scrolling did tend to make the background a little blurry on my iPad 2 but this didn’t seem the case on my HTC One where everything looked quite exquisite. You might be reaching for the volume controls after a while though as the game’s jaunty theme might eventually start getting to you.

Aside from the one-off IAP mentioned earlier, there are no other IAPs which is great as more often than not these type of games end up loaded with gameplay-affecting boosts and perks that kill the balance of the gameplay and render the whole thing pointless. Hopefully this will remain the case.

I’m not going to submit a score or the list of pros and cons that we normally would. The game is free to try and its up to you if you care about disadvantaged kids or not (you monster), so get yourself over to the App or Play Store, depending on your choice of mobile device, and give Firefly Runner a go. Or else you hate children.

• The Richie Report: Et Velum Ultimum
• Sky Force Anniversary - Review
• Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 - Review
• The Final Station - Review
• Ninja Pizza Girl - Review