R.U.N.

R.U.N. — Run Upward Nerd is a retro-inspired arcade adventure about one simple problem:

The water is rising. You should probably leave.

Strap on your jetpack, climb through a hostile underground world, blast obstacles out of your way, avoid snakes and bats, and keep moving upward before the flood reaches you.

There is treasure below.

There is safety above.

There is water immediately behind you.

Choose your priorities wisely.

Run Upward, Nerd!

The goal is simple:

Keep climbing.

Navigate through underground passages while the flood steadily rises from below.

Some routes are open.

Some are blocked.

Some contain wildlife that appears to have interpreted your evacuation as a catering opportunity.

Use your jetpack to reach higher platforms, shoot hostile creatures and plant dynamite when solid rock disagrees with your preferred route.

Standing around and carefully considering your options is permitted.

The flood will use that time productively.

Controls

• LEFT / RIGHT — move
• UP — activate the jetpack
• DOWN — place dynamite
• CTRL — shoot

The Jetpack

Your jetpack is the key to escaping the caverns.

Use it to climb vertically, reach otherwise inaccessible passages and maneuver around obstacles.

Unlike conventional platform games, upward movement is not merely an occasional jump.

It is your primary method of survival.

The flood is coming from below.

Gravity has therefore chosen a side.

Dynamite

Some parts of the cavern are inconveniently solid.

Fortunately, geology can be negotiated.

With explosives.

Place dynamite to blast through rubble and open a route upward.

Your supply is limited, so try not to spend it merely because explosions are satisfying.

Although they are.

Energy

Your survival also depends on managing your energy.

The jetpack is useful.

The jetpack is essential.

The jetpack is not a perpetual-motion machine.

Keep an eye on your resources and avoid wasting energy on unnecessary movement.

A perfectly executed escape plan that ends three metres below safety because the fuel ran out remains, technically, a failure.

Things That Object to Your Escape

The underground world is inhabited by creatures including:

• Snakes
• Bats
• and other things that have somehow adapted better to the cavern than you have.

Shoot them.

Avoid them.

Or perform whatever improvised combination of both seems appropriate while the water continues rising beneath you.

The important part is to keep moving.

Features

• Fast upward-scrolling survival gameplay.
• Constant pressure from a rising flood.
• Jetpack-powered movement.
• Limited energy management.
• Dynamite for destroying blocked passages.
• Projectile combat.
• Hostile cavern creatures.
• Route-finding under time pressure.
• Retro arcade-inspired mechanics.
• Runs directly in the browser.
• Strong encouragement to avoid prolonged philosophical reflection.

A Little History

R.U.N. is heavily inspired by H.E.R.O. — Helicopter Emergency Rescue Operation, released by Activision in 1984.

H.E.R.O. was one of the memorable games of the early home-computer era: explore underground caverns, use specialized equipment, destroy obstacles and survive things that live comfortably in places humans sensibly avoid.

R.U.N. borrows that spirit, although the original helicopter-pack has become a jetpack.

Partly because I preferred it.

Partly because accurately drawing a helicopter strapped to a nerd was beyond the available artistic budget.

And Then the Water Arrived

The other major inspiration is O'Riley's Mine, another classic from the early 1980s.

Its contribution is the rising threat from below.

In R.U.N., the flood transforms exploration into a race.

You are not merely trying to discover the correct path.

You are trying to discover it quickly enough.

This changes everything.

A wrong turn costs time.

An unnecessary fight costs time.

Bad dynamite placement costs time.

Admiring the scenery costs time.

Water remains magnificently indifferent to all of these explanations.

Under the Hood

R.U.N. was written in JavaScript in 2022.

It uses jQuery together with a collection of my own private libraries that would later continue evolving into the broader LaughingSkull technology stack.

Like many LaughingSkull games, the project began as an excuse to revisit a game mechanic I remembered from the C64 era and ended as another experiment in building reusable game systems myself.

The resulting mixture of H.E.R.O., O'Riley's Mine, jetpacks, dynamite and flooding seemed sufficiently unreasonable to keep.

Play R.U.N.

▶ Run Upward, Nerd! on LaughingSkull.org

Free to play. No account. No installation.

The water is rising.

The exit is above you.

This is not an especially complicated motivational system.