Tall Man Run 3D review

What it is

Tall Man Run 3D is a gate runner, a hypercasual format that appeared on phones a few years ago and has been copied many times since. Your character runs forward on his own down a straight track. The track is divided by gates, each of which changes his body: taller, thicker, thinner or shorter. Obstacles block parts of the track and a boss waits at the end of each level, and the developer's rule is simple: arrive thick and tall and you beat the boss. Arrive small and you do not.

That is the entire design, and I want to be plain about the store description because it is unusually bad: it is a block of repeated keywords rather than an explanation, and I have ignored its tone entirely. Judged on what the game actually is, it is a runner about picking the better of two gates while sliding around obstacles.

How it plays

The input is the mouse on desktop, moved left and right, with a finger drag doing the same on a phone. The runner slides across the track to follow, and forward motion is automatic. Gate runners live or die on how the gates are arranged: a good one puts the growth gate behind an obstacle so you have to choose between safety and size, and a bad one just alternates good and bad gates so that the game plays itself. The developer states you can take out bots on the track, which suggests size matters mid-level as well as at the boss.

The timing skill, such as it is, is lateral: you need to be lined up with the gate you want before the gate arrives, and gates come in pairs across the track's width, so a late decision means clipping the edge of the wrong one or hitting the divider between them. As with all runners of this type the camera sits behind you and the character occupies the bottom of the frame, so the earlier you commit, the cleaner the run.

Tips that actually help

There is not much to master here, but the few decisions that exist have a right answer.

• Read gates as a pair and decide before they reach the middle of the screen. Late slides clip the divider.
• Taller and thicker both count towards the boss, so a thick gate is not a consolation prize; take whichever is behind the safer path.
• Thinner and shorter gates are traps unless an obstacle forces you through one. Route around them, not through them.
• A wider body is easier to catch on obstacles. Once you are big, hug the open lane rather than gambling on one more gate.
• If a level keeps ending at the boss, you are losing size to obstacles in the last stretch; slow your corrections there and take fewer gates.

The boss

The boss fight is a size check rather than a fight; if you are big enough you win and if you are not you replay the level. The developer's description says you must be thick and tall, so the game is really asking you to protect two variables through a course of gates and obstacles that are trying to reduce them. That is a reasonable loop for a minute-long level, and a boss at the end gives each level a clear failure state, which endless runners lack. It also means the game has no tension once you have learned the layout of a level, because the same choices win every time.

Where it falls short

Almost everything. The concept is borrowed from a well-known phone template, the presentation is generic, and the description gives no level count, no unlocks and no word on saving. A mouse-only desktop control scheme with no keyboard alternative is a small irritation on a laptop. And because the boss is a threshold and not a contest, a level either plays itself or becomes a retry loop; there is little in between.

Questions people ask

How do I beat the boss?

Be thick and tall when you reach him. The boss is a size threshold, not a skill fight, so the level is about collecting growth gates and avoiding anything that shrinks you.

What are the controls?

Move the mouse left and right on a desktop, or drag a finger on a phone. Running forward is automatic.

Is it endless or level-based?

Level-based. Each level ends with a boss, and the developer talks about completing levels rather than surviving indefinitely. The number of levels is not stated.

Does it save progress?

The developer does not say. Expect your current level to be remembered in this browser only, as is usual for games of this kind, and treat clearing site data as likely to reset it.