Lara Croft: Relic Run
Action-adventure endless runner
Description
Deveoped for Square Enix, Lara Croft: Relic Run is a mobile runner title featuring the titular intellectual property. This title, developed in Unity, featured some very elaborate "running" mechanics for the genre. There was a focus on a highly-agile character, using parkour to navigate complex environments while also having several different vehicle driving sequences as well as an extended cliff-wall running portion that turned the whole genre sideways.
Unique for its day, this runner also had combat (with a large weapon selection), and boss fights such as a fairly angry T-Rex. Also unusual for a runner, the game had a story that was uncovered as they played and transitional pre-animated sequences designed to bring Lara Croft's unique character to life.
My Contribution
Developed on Unity.
As with virtually every project, I was the lead designer and developer having a hand in every aspect of the code and focusing on key aspects.
The core running engine was a development based on experience with my previous work on One Epic Knight. This runner had a substantial amount of content to manage with three distinct running environments, a pile of weapons, skinnable character, enemies and seamless animated cut-scenes. Careful control over all this data was needed for mobile platforms of the day.
One difficult aspect of any runner is getting the controls right. Even though these games may seem to have simple inputs, it is devilishly difficult to nail just the right feel. And in this particular title, the challenge was much harder because of a need to integrate the concept of parkour, shooting mechanics and vehicles. Not to mention sometimes doing all of this at the same time with a boss enemy.