Jetpack Joyride-inspired Dragon Runner makes 2014 seem a long way away

If sprinting up the spine of a purple dragon sounds like your idea of a perfect Sunday, then 2014 can't come quickly enough for you.

Dragon Runner is the brainchild of Rich Siegel, lead developer at Cleaversoft, who has taken core ingredients from games like Jetpack Joyride and Tiny Wings, and then added big beards and gigantic mythical lizards to the mix.

With Dragon Runner, the follow-up to Siegel's canine comparison app PuppyWars, the dev hopes to bring Mario-level depth to the endless-runner genre.

In order to achieve this lofty ambition, Siegel's focusing on crafting "meticulously designed levels", which you will be able to navigate around via a streamlined two-button control scheme.

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While charging through Dragon Runner's eight worlds, you will encounter a number of hand-drawn enemies, which you must avoid or dispatch (with a good old-fashioned head stomp).

Though Dragon Runner is far from completion, there's already plenty to be excited about. The cartoonish character designs are easy on the eye, and an abundance of handsome enemies and colourful collectibles have our fingers twitching.

Unfortunately, we're going to have to wait a full year before Dragon Runner finishes its journey to the App Store.

In the meantime, however, attendees of this week's Washington DC's 11th Annual Music and Gaming Festival will be able to get the jump on the rest of us by going hands-on with Dragon Runner in the first public demo of the game.