Ruins Ahead review - Crossy Road with a literal twist

There are plenty of games on the App Store that are trading on the simple mechanics of Crossy Road - most of which roll in a depressingly similar way. So it's always nice when you find one that at least tries to be different.

And that's what Ruins Ahead does. It's got that endless, chunky, isometric runner thing down, but it gives you more to think about than your average iteration. And that's definitely something to be championed.

It has its problems, and after a while the freshness wears off - like it does with most games of this ilk. But you'll still have an enjoyable time with it, and sometimes that's all you're looking for.

Walking the path

The game sees you running down a path. Tap on the screen and you'll move one step forward. The twist is, well, quite literally, a twist. You'll come up against obstacles and if you hit them you'll die. And the only way around them is to swipe the screen and flip the path.

Twirl it around and you'll run on the other side, avoiding the block or spinning circular saw that was stopping your progress.

Then you basically continue to do that until you smash your face into something or take too long making a move and the path disappears below your feet.

There's the usual coin-collecting and character unlocking going on here as well. The different characters are just aesthetic though, adding a visual shake-up to proceedings rather than changing the mechanics.

And those mechanics are pretty set throughout. There's the occasional hiccup with the randomly generated levels that leaves you without an escape route, but they're few and far between.

After a while things do start to get a little lacklustre. You'll chase your high score for a while, but it doesn't take too long for that drive to stop being quite so sparkly.

Although to be honest, by the time you reach that point you'll probably have sucked all of the fun out of Ruins Ahead anyway.

That's not the end of the world though. This is a game that was never going to set the mobile world on fire. It sets itself a task, rolls with it, and does a pretty damn good job.

There's nothing broken about Ruins Ahead, and nothing that's going to make you scream at it in disgust. It's a solid, enjoyable arcade experience.

It won't stick around on your phone for long, but you'll have a decent laugh when it's there.