Rank Runner is an endless runner where climbing the leaderboards is very literal

Over on Reddit folks are getting pretty excited about a game called Rank Runner. It's a simple yet intriguing endless bullet-hell runner that has a stronger focus than most on leaderboards. It's available now on Test Flight but will get a full release on August 28th.

Rank Runner is effectively an endless runner where the aim is to get to the top of the leaderboard. The difference between this and many other competitive, score driven games is that you are actually climbing the ranks as you play. The stage where you do your endless running is the leaderboard!

This means that you don't just have to judge how well you're doing via distance indicator underneath your character. You'll also be looking for familiar usernames and ranks on the leaderboards and on particularly difficult sections probably become very familiar with those people and view them as a nemesis.

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It's a very simple idea and the controls are equally so. Your character, which is a blue triangle, will automatically move up the leaderboard. Attempting to foil your ascension to the highest rank will be red triangles that will shoot smaller triangles at you. To dodge them you tap the screen to change your flightpath downwards and then again to return to ascending.

It's very straightforward but there can be a real beauty to uncomplicated concepts, particularly when there's a competitive angle to it. The fast-paced nature of each run means that it's potentially perfect for those few spare moments you get but the addictive element of score-chasing could lead to those runs bleeding into not so spare moments.

Rank Runner is currently available to try in beta form on Test Flight. However, if you can wait just one more week it'll be available on the App Store where you can pre-order it now. It will be a free-to-play game with ads that can be removed for $1.99.