Critical Play: Temple Run and Tiny Wings
Introduction
Race games like the ones I played this week — Temple Run, developed by Imangi Studios, and Tiny Wings, developed by Andreas Illiger—are distant relics of my middle school days. I can vividly remember playing both games during sixth period lunch, phone under the cafeteria table. I played these games endlessly. At some point, I must have stopped, although I don’t think I can pinpoint exactly when.
Still, it was fun to reacquaint myself with these games—this time from the perspective of a game designer rather than a player—and pick apart how the differences in their themes affected their gameplay.
Basics
In Tiny Wings, we play as a small bird whose wings are too small to properly fly. (Why this bird recklessly decides day after day that they maybe this time they will be able to fly is unclear.) Players help the bird along by closing its wings on downward slopes and letting our bird friend achieve some semblance of flying by spreading its wings as it travels upward.
In Temple Run, we play as an explorer (and presumably thief?) who is trying to find and make off with an idol from an Aztec temple. Players must navigate over, under, and around obstacles that come their way in the form of pillars of fire, giant trees, water, and metal bars, among many, many others. Careful not to stumble too many times, lest the demon monkeys chasing you catch up to you.
The similarities
Both games are classified as race games: the objective for every player is to make it as far as possible into the game. Players improve upon their previous high scores by getting further into the game—in Temple Run, this is measured in meters-run; in Tiny Wings, it’s measured in islands-reached.
They also employ a number of similar mechanics that are likely consistent across the genre of race games. I’ve listed a few below:
- “Coins” and other collectibles. Each game has its own version of coins and collectibles that you can gather if you run into them in the game. Temple Run has coins; Tiny Wings has little suns and speed boosts.
- Speed. The further along in each game a player gets, the faster our adventurer/little baby bird travels (unless we stumble against an obstacle).
- Ramping up difficulty. As we get further into the game, the game (generally) gets more difficult—this is mostly a function of the fact that as our character gets faster, obstacles come our way faster, too, testing our reaction times. (I got dizzy when Temple Run threw turn after turn after turn at me.) In Tiny Wings, as we happily fly along the islands, the game gets harder because it gets harder to time our drops-to-the-ground and not lose speed.
- Time pressure. Both games employ some variation of a time pressure, or more broadly, thing that is pursuing us. In Temple Run, it’s demon monkeys (lovely). In Tiny Wings, it’s the sun.
- Smaller sub-goals. At the end of each round in either game, players are prompted with smaller sub-goals to accomplish (e.g. run 500m collecting no coins, or reach the 7th island). These goals make the game feel more manageable, and provide incentives to keep playing.
Key thematic differences affect gameplay
For all their similar mechanics, these games are also undeniably different from one another in large part due to their thematic differences.
Tiny Wings is a decidedly much calmer, lighter game. The game’s central conceit revolves around making sure a bird gets a taste of what it’s like to fly, and that levity is carried through consistently in the game’s mechanics and design decisions.
Aesthetically, the game uses a brighter palette than Temple Run: soft blues, greens, and yellows make the game easy on the eyes, if a little saccharine. Even the “pursuer” in Tiny Wings is something pretty innocuous, taking the form of the setting sun. A “game over” just means that our bird friend is going to sleep. (It is worth noting that the game’s tutorial says “Night is haunting you,” which strikes a distinctly darker tone than the rest of the game suggests.)
By contrast, Temple Run maintains a darker, more frenetic energy. For one, its color palette is literally darker. Obstacles—including our demon monkey pursuers—seem to literally cause death when we stumble into one (or when the monkeys catch us). Temple Run’s 3D obstacles flying at us or appearing out of nowhere after a turn heightens this greater sense of dynamism and hurried energy.
There are also simply more obstacles—more ways to die—in Temple Run than in Tiny Wings. You’ve got the monkeys behind you, and the pillars of fire, metal bars, gnarled trees, and many other things that the game throws in front of you. The game’s mechanics reflect this added difficulty and complexity in that there are more actions players can take: they can turn left and right, slide under and over things, and tilt their phones to move side to side.
Type of fun
Though the gameplay of each game differs significantly because of each game’s thematic differences, they nevertheless employ the same type of fun: challenge. The terrain of each Tiny Wings island changes each time, providing a new kind of terrain (read: obstacle course) for the player. Temple Run also serves as a more densely packed obstacle course, albeit a far more dangerous one,
Takeaway
Though Temple Run will probably raise players’ heart rates a bit more, both games succeed by letting their themes inform other design and mechanics decisions. Each game thus manages to feel cohesive; the games together can teach valuable lessons about how a theme or main conceit of a game can drive mechanics, aesthetics, and gameplay.
