Subway Surfers

Last updated

Subway Surfers
Subway Surfers app logo.png
Developer(s) Kiloo, SYBO Games
Publisher(s)
  • Kiloo Games (1.0–1.20.1)
  • SYBO Games (1.21.0–present) [1]
Director(s) Christian Balazs
Engine Unity
Platform(s) iOS, iPadOS, macOS, HarmonyOS, Android, Web browser, Windows 10 Mobile, Windows Phone 8, Amazon Fire Tablet
Release24 May 2012 (2012-05-24)
Genre(s) Endless runner
Mode(s) Single-player

Subway Surfers [a] is a 2012 endless runner mobile game which is co-developed by Kiloo and SYBO Games, private companies based in Denmark. It is available on iOS, Android, HarmonyOS, Amazon Fire Tablet, and Windows Phone platforms and uses the Unity game engine. [2] In the game, players take the role of young graffiti artists, led by Jake who, upon being caught in the act of tagging a metro railway site, run through the railroad tracks to escape from the inspector and his dog. As they run, they grab gold coins, power-ups, and many other items while simultaneously dodging collisions with trains and other objects. They can also jump on top of the trains and surf with hoverboards to evade capture until the character crashes into an obstacle, gets caught by the inspector, or gets hit by a train, at which point the game ends. Special events, such as the Season Hunt and others, including the game's birthday events, the Super Runners Challenge and Rivals Challenge, can result in in-game rewards and characters. Also with points and keys they can buy different outfits and characters.

Contents

Gameplay

A screenshot featuring the main character Jake running through the rails during gameplay in the "Mexico" theme update of Subway Surfers Subway Surfers gameplay.png
A screenshot featuring the main character Jake running through the rails during gameplay in the "Mexico" theme update of Subway Surfers

Subway Surfers is an endless runner video game. The game starts by tapping the screen, while Jake (the game's main character) or any other character sprays graffiti on a subway, and gets caught in the act by the inspector and his dog, who starts chasing the character. While running, the player can swipe up, down, left, or right to avoid crashing into oncoming obstacles especially moving trains, poles, tunnel walls, and barriers. By swiping rapidly as speed increases, more points can be acquired. A crash results in a game over, but the player can revive and continue by using keys or watching an ad. The player can collect various items such as coins, keys, x2 multipliers, super sneakers, jetpacks, magnets, mystery boxes, and pogo sticks. A pogo stick provides combustion by launching up the character, a jetpack gives the ability to fly, a coin magnet attracts coins on the track, super sneakers give the ability to jump higher, and a x2 multiplier multiplies the rate at which the score counts. Items, such as a hoverboard (which could be used by double-tapping on the screen), allow the character to avoid collisions and last about 30 seconds.

Daily Challenges and Season Hunts give rewards for unique movements throughout gameplay. In daily challenges, the player needs to collect letters that constitute a word related to the game, such as "score" and "jump"; also known as "word hunt". [3] [4] Missions have various tasks measured by player accuracy. Up to 18 characters can be unlocked using coins, keys, in-game purchases, collecting specific items, or connecting to a Facebook account. Most characters have up to 2 different outfits. Meanwhile, up to 17 hoverboards can be unlocked with the same methods. Each has different abilities that can assist the player. When the game updates to a new location, a new character, and hoverboard will be available temporarily until the next update.

Releases and downloads

Subway Surfers was released on 24 May 2012 [5] with updates based on seasonal holidays. Since January 2013, updates have been based on a "World Tour" theme, which updates the setting of the game every three (or four, usually for seasonal holidays) weeks. [ citation needed ]

In March 2018, Subway Surfers became the first game on the Google Play Store to cross the one billion downloads threshold. [6] In May 2018, Subway Surfers crossed the two billion download mark. [7] App Annie reported Subway Surfers as the #2 downloaded game of all time in iOS App Store. [8]

In December 2019, SYBO Games announced that Subway Surfers, according to AppAnnie statistics, crossed the 2.7 billion download mark. Subway Surfers was the most downloaded mobile game of the decade from 2012 to 2019. [9] [10]

A spin-off, Subway Surfers Tag, was released exclusively on Apple Arcade in 2022. [11]

Reception

Subway Surfers received mixed to positive reviews. Critics praised the game's visual style and entertaining gameplay but criticized it for its monotonous world and unresponsive controls. Review aggregator website Metacritic gave the game 71 out of 100 based on 8 reviews. [12]

Dan Griliopoulos of Pocket Gamer gave the game a score of 5 out of 10, praising the game's fun gameplay and free access, but criticizing the game's controls and parsimonious game design. [14]

Gamezebo's Dant Rambo scored the game 3.5 out of 5, writing "It makes little attempt to stand out from other endless runners, but it's hard not to appreciate the polish of Subway Surfers. The controls are responsive, the gameplay is addictive, and it doesn't try and force you into spending cash on in-game items." [13]

Other reviewers were not as critical. 148Apps and TouchArcade gave the game 4/5. [16] [15]

The game was nominated for "Action Game" and "Family & Kids Game" at the 2019 Webby Awards. [17]

Subway Surfers: The Animated Series

On 1 June 2018, a series of animated shorts debuted on SYBO Games' YouTube channel. [10] The 10 x 4-minute episodic series is scripted by Brent Friedman and Francesca Marie Smith, and produced by Sander Schwartz. Chris Bartleman is the supervising director and Michael Hegner is the director. Denmark's William provides post-production services. [18] The series has 11 episodes. [19]

Use in sludge content

The game has been a favorite among "sludge content" creators, possibly due to its highway hypnosis-like visuals. [20] [21] [22] [23] [24]

Notes

  1. ↑ (Danish: Undergrunds surfere)

Related Research Articles

Miniclip is a Swiss mobile game publisher and former browser game website that was first launched on 30 March 2001. It was started by Robert Small and Tihan Presbie with a budget of £40,000. In 2008, Miniclip was valued at over £275 million. In 2018, the company gained over $400 million in revenue through its mobile gaming hit, 8 Ball Pool.

<i>Sonic Jump</i> 2005 vertical platform video game

Sonic Jump is a 2005 vertical platform game developed by AirPlay and Sonic Team, and published by Sega for the digital distribution service Sonic Cafe, initially only available in Japan for mobile phones before being ported to iOS and Android and released in other regions in 2007. Unlike other games in the series, Sonic Jump doesn't involve running from left to right, but instead, Sonic automatically jumps up the screen, with the player needing to tilt the phone to move him from left to right. The original game's graphical style is based on the Sonic Advance series, which had ended shortly before Jump's release.

<i>Doodle Jump</i> 2009 video game

Doodle Jump is a 2009 platformer video game developed and published by Igor and Marko Pušenjak, who make up the Croatian studio Lima Sky. The game was released for Windows Phone, iOS, BlackBerry, Android, Java Mobile, Nokia Symbian, and Xbox 360 for the Kinect. It was released worldwide for iOS on April 6, 2009, Android and Blackberry on March 2, 2010, Symbian on May 1, 2010, Windows Phone 7 on June 1, 2011, the iPad on September 1, 2011, and Windows Phone 8 on August 21, 2013. Since its release, the game has been generally well received.

Kiloo Games is a Danish video game developer. It was founded in 2000 by Jacob Møller, with a focus on developing entertainment content for game console and handheld devices. In 2008, he was joined by his brother, Simon Møller. Together, they both ran Kiloo until it closed down in 2023.

<i>Temple Run</i> 2011 3D endless runner video game

Temple Run is an endless runner video game developed and published by Imangi Studios. The player controls an explorer who has obtained an ancient relic and runs from demonic monkey-like creatures chasing him. The game was initially released for iOS devices on August 3, 2011, and later ported to Android systems and Windows Phone 8.

<i>Temple Run 2</i> 2013 endless runner video game

Temple Run 2 is an endless runner video game developed and published by Imangi Studios. A sequel to Temple Run, the game was produced, designed and programmed by husband and wife team Keith Shepherd and Natalia Luckyanova, with art by Kiril Tchangov. It was released on the App Store on January 16, 2013, on Google Play on January 24, and on Windows Phone 8 on December 20. In November 2020 Imangi Studios released Temple Run 2 for the web on Poki.

<i>Sonic Dash</i> 2013 video game

Sonic Dash is a 2013 endless runner mobile game developed by Hardlight and published by Japanese game studio Sega. It is Hardlight's second Sonic the Hedgehog game, the first being 2012's Sonic Jump. The game was released in March 2013 for iOS, November 2013 for Android, and December 2014 for Windows Phone and Windows, along with an arcade release in November 2015 as Sonic Dash Extreme. It was initially released as a paid application, but was made free-to-play a month after its iOS release.

SYBO Games is a Danish video game company located in Copenhagen, Denmark founded by Sylvester Rishøj Jensen and Bodie Jahn-Mulliner. SYBO is mainly known for being the creators and intellectual property owners of the second-most-downloaded mobile-runner game, Subway Surfers, which SYBO co-developed with Kiloo. SYBO has also released a second mobile runner game titled Blades of Brim. Like Subway Surfers, Blades of Brim is also an endless runner freemium title with in-app purchases. SYBO was among the first seven Snapchat games with Subway Surfers Airtime, released late 2019.

<i>Temple Run</i> (series) Endless runner video game series

Temple Run is a video game franchise of 3D endless running video games developed and published by Imangi Studios. The primary theme of the series is an explorer chased from a group of demon monkeys, however, the characters and theme vary between spin-offs. The game was initially released for iOS devices on August 4, 2011, and later ported to Android systems and Windows Phone 8. The series consists of eight titles and has received commercial success with multiple entries surpassing 1 million downloads.

<i>Frisbee Forever</i> 2011 video game

Frisbee Forever is a 2011 video game developed by Kiloo and released on May 5, 2011 for iOS. A sequel entitled Frisbee Forever 2 was released on June 28, 2012.

<i>Crossy Road</i> 2014 video game

Crossy Road is an action game released on November 20, 2014. It was developed and published on iOS by Australian video game developer Hipster Whale and originally yodo1 on Android. The name and concept of the game play on the riddle joke "Why did the chicken cross the road?" It has been described as endless runner version of the 1981 video game Frogger. After June 2017, the publisher for the Android version of Crossy Road was changed from yodo1 to Hipster Whale.

<i>Super Mario Run</i> 2016 mobile game

Super Mario Run is a 2016 platform game developed and published by Nintendo for iOS and later Android. It is Nintendo's first mobile game that is part of one of the company's long-running and major franchises.

<i>Sonic Runners Adventure</i> 2017 video game

Sonic Runners Adventure is an endless runner platform game published by Gameloft for iOS, Android and Java-based mobile phones. As part of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, the game serves as a sequel to 2015's Sonic Runners. The game was first released in select regions in June 2017 and worldwide in August 2017.

<i>Homescapes</i> 2017 video game

Homescapes is a casual free-to-play puzzle game. It was developed and launched by Playrix in 2017 as a spiritual successor to their 2016 match-3 game, Gardenscapes. The storyline narrates attempts by the game's protagonist, Austin the Butler, to restore his childhood home. The game is available on Apple's App Store for iOS and macOS, and also on Android via Google Play, Amazon Appstore, or Huawei AppGallery. It is also available for Windows on the Microsoft Store.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TikTok</span> Video-focused social media platform

TikTok, whose mainland Chinese and Hong Kong counterpart is Douyin, is a short-form video hosting service owned by Chinese internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from three seconds to 60 minutes. It can be accessed with a smart phone app.

<i>The Elder Scrolls: Blades</i> 2020 action role-playing video game

The Elder Scrolls: Blades is a free-to-play action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is a spin-off of The Elder Scrolls series, set following The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and preceding The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Following over a year of early access on Android and iOS devices, the full version of Blades was released for Android, iOS and Nintendo Switch in May 2020. The game received generally negative reviews from critics.

<i>Ludo King</i> Free-to-play video game application

Ludo King is a free-to-play mobile game application developed by Gametion Technologies Pvt Ltd, a game studio based in Navi Mumbai, India. Gametion is owned by Vikash Jaiswal. The game is developed on the Unity game engine and is available on Android, iOS, Kindle, Windows Phone and Microsoft Windows platforms. The game is a modernization of the board game Ludo, which is based on the ancient Indian game of Pachisi.

<i>Crash Bandicoot: On the Run!</i> 2021 video game

Crash Bandicoot: On the Run! was a mobile endless runner game developed and published by King, that was initially soft launched in Malaysia in 2020 and was released worldwide in 2021. The game showcased the Crash Bandicoot series' characters and fictional universe in the context of a runner game. Players controlled Crash or his sister Coco, running through levels and defeating enemies using weaponry crafted from collectible ingredients. Players could use cosmetic skins to increase their amount of gathered resources and could engage in asynchronous multiplayer gameplay by competing for survival in procedurally generated levels. Several updates were installed throughout 2021, often in the form of new levels, bosses, and cosmetic skins.

Endless runner or infinite runner is a subgenre of platform game in which the player character runs for an infinite amount of time while avoiding obstacles. The player's objective is to reach a high score by surviving for as long as possible. The method by which the game level or environment appears to continuously spawn before the player is an example of procedural generation. The genre exploded on mobile platforms following the success of Doodle Jump, Canabalt, and Temple Run being other popular examples. Its popularity is attributed to its simple gameplay that works well on touchscreen devices.

Sludge content is a genre of split-screen video on the social media platform TikTok.

References

  1. ↑ "Miniclip will acquire Subway Surfers maker Sybo". VentureBeat. 24 June 2022. In 2020, Sybo took over the publishing role itself.
  2. ↑ "Lords of the Underground - Subway Surfers by Sybo and Kiloo". Unity. 19 September 2012. Archived from the original on 24 March 2019. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
  3. ↑ "UrGameTips: Subway Surfers: How to Complete Daily Challenges or Missions". Urgametips.com. Archived from the original on 17 July 2022. Retrieved 28 March 2022.
  4. ↑ "My Word Hunt progress has reset. Why? - Subway Surfers FAQ". Faq-subway.kiloogames.com. Archived from the original on 24 January 2022. Retrieved 28 March 2022.
  5. ↑ "Subway Surfers". IGN. Archived from the original on 24 August 2020. Retrieved 23 January 2015.
  6. ↑ "Subway Surfers gets record 1 billion downloads on Google Play Store". AndroidAuthority. 16 March 2018. Archived from the original on 24 August 2020. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
  7. ↑ Harris, Iain (30 May 2018). "Subway Surfers sails past the two billion download mark". Pocketgamer.biz. Archived from the original on 4 August 2022. Retrieved 29 January 2019.
  8. ↑ "Facebook tops most downloaded apps of all time". Usatoday.com. Archived from the original on 15 November 2021. Retrieved 29 January 2019.
  9. ↑ "Subway Surfers is the top mobile game of the decade by downloads". Gamesindustry.biz. 16 December 2019.
  10. 1 2 Meisenzahl, Mary. "'Subway Surfers' was the most downloaded mobile game of the decade. See the top 10 here". Business Insider . Archived from the original on 26 June 2020. Retrieved 24 June 2020.
  11. ↑ Benfell, Grace (28 June 2022). "New Subway Surfers Spin-off And Other Titles Coming To Apple Arcade In July". GameSpot. Retrieved 18 September 2024.
  12. 1 2 "Subway Surfers for iPhone/iPad Reviews". Metacritic . CBS Interactive . Retrieved 6 March 2017.
  13. 1 2 Rambo, Dant (30 May 2012). "Subway Surfers Review". Gamezebo. Archived from the original on 15 November 2021. Retrieved 6 March 2017.
  14. 1 2 Griliopoulos, Dan (1 June 2012). "Subway Surfers Review". Pocket Gamer . Retrieved 6 March 2017.
  15. 1 2 Berthelson, Talor (5 June 2012). "'Subway Surfers' Review – Endless Running Refined". TouchArcade . Retrieved 6 March 2017.
  16. 1 2 Kubba, Sinan (28 May 2012). "Subway Surfers Review". 148Apps. Retrieved 6 March 2017.
  17. ↑ "2019 Winners". The Webby Awards. 22 April 2019. Archived from the original on 21 August 2019. Retrieved 24 April 2019.
  18. ↑ Milligan, Mercedes (25 May 2018). "'Subway Surfers' Series Makes YouTube Debut June 1". Animation Magazine .
  19. ↑ "Subway Surfers | the Animated Series - YouTube". YouTube.
  20. ↑ "TikTok's Subway Surfers Videos Signal Demise of Our Attention Span". Bloomberg. 3 February 2023 – via www.bloomberg.com.
  21. ↑ Weaver, Jackson (18 January 2023). "Sludge content is consuming TikTok. Why aren't we talking about it?". CBC.ca . Canadian Broadcasting Corporation . Retrieved 1 July 2023.
  22. ↑ Castello, Jay (24 March 2023). "TikTok's sludge content isn't just for short attention spans". Polygon .
  23. ↑ "' Sludge content' is the latest form of escapism on TikTok". NBC News. 26 April 2023.
  24. ↑ "A strange new TikTok trend called 'sludge content' has Gen Z hooked". Yahoo Finance. 28 April 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.