Free running games

What makes a good running game

In a running game your character keeps moving and your job is to keep them going. You jump, slide, dodge or change lanes as obstacles come at you, and the road, the course or the music decides how fast. Some runners never end and only stop when you miss, which makes the distance or the score the thing to beat. Others are races against rivals or the clock, where a clean run matters more than a long one.

The running games on Kiloo come from arcade, platform, sports, music and 3D, and three of them belong to the seasonal categories. They share quick restarts and simple controls, often one or two keys or a swipe, and they keep your best runs in the browser you play in.

Running games to start with

Lane Runner is the classic endless runner: sprint down a neon three-lane highway, jump the barriers, slide under the gantries and sweep up coins, with magnet and shield power-ups, until the road gets faster than you are. Lava Leap is a one-tap runner over a volcano. Marsh the marshmallow jumps, double-jumps and stomps through crumbling bridges, and a toasting meter shows how close to the heat you are, cooled by icy pads along the way.

If you want levels rather than an endless road, Ninja Rooftops has thirty timed courses across a neon city at night, with wall-jumps, ledge grabs and an air dash, a par for each course and a ghost of your best run. Rhythm Runner times everything to its own music: crates, gaps and low bars arrive on the beats, across 24 songs in four worlds, with an Endless Marathon where the tempo rises. Hurdle Hero is running as a sport. Alternate two keys in an even beat to build speed, hit the take-off window before every hurdle and lean for the tape in the 100 m, the hurdles and the relay against seven rivals.

Monster Party Rush is a 3D obstacle race for forty monsters. Run, jump and dive past sweepers, pistons and beach balls to finish in the top 24, and every level you clear opens a longer course. Three more appear only in their season: Trick or Treat, a Halloween street where you hop fences and ring doorbells for candy, Sleigh Run, a Christmas rooftop run that drops gifts down glowing chimneys, and Bunny Race, an Easter hop race for one or two players.

Controls, devices and tips

On a keyboard, Space, W or the up arrow jumps in almost every runner here, and S or the down arrow slides. Lane Runner changes lane with A and D or the arrows, Ninja Rooftops runs with the arrows or WASD and dashes with Shift or X, and Hurdle Hero is all rhythm: alternate the left and right arrows, then Space for the hurdle. Monster Party Rush runs with WASD, jumps with Space and dives with Shift or E.

On a phone or tablet, tap to jump and swipe down to slide or stomp. Lane Runner uses swipes in every direction, Hurdle Hero has you tap the left and right halves of the screen, and Monster Party Rush gives you a thumb stick with Jump and Dive buttons. Rhythm Runner has a timing calibration on its title screen, worth doing once before you chase stars. In Hurdle Hero an even beat builds speed and mashing loses it, and in Lava Leap you should keep an eye on Marsh, who starts to toast when you stay too close to the heat.

Frequently asked questions