Canabalt

The player controls an unnamed man fleeing from an unknown threat. As the game begins, the player character jumps from the window of an office building onto the roof of a neighboring building. He then proceeds to run forward automatically, continually accelerating as he moves. The only control the player has over the character is through a single button, which makes him jump; either from building to building or over obstacles.

Missing a jump to another building will cause him to fall to his death, while colliding with a crate or an office chair will reduce his speed. Bombs are also occasionally dropped into the player's path, causing death if not avoided.

In a 2013 interview with The New Yorker, developer Adam Saltsman said he had initially aimed for the game to be "fast, like a racing game." He also explained that the player character wears a black suit so that he would stand out from the greyscale background art. The name "Canabalt" was derived from a combination of phrases used by Saltsman's young nephew. When asked about the origins of the main character, Saltsman stated: I used to have fantasies at my old office job of running down our long, long hallway just for fun.

And to literally escape. I'd forgotten about that until months after Canabalt came out. There used to be an intro cinematic that I was designing, where the character receives an email, but it was all getting in the way of the main thing.

Canabalt has met with positive reviews. The iOS version holds aggregate scores of 77 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 8 reviews, and 86% on GameRankings, also based on 8 reviews. The PSP version holds a score of 72% on GameRankings, based on 7 reviews.

Bonnie Eisenman of 148Apps scored the iOS version 4 out of 5, writing "Canabalt is a gem that daringly mixes simple gameplay with an incredibly complex world, proving that minimalism doesn't have to equal minimal entertainment. If you're looking for a simple, quick-play game, this is one to buy." TouchGen's Torbjorn Kamblad also scored it 4 out of 5, arguing that the iOS version improved on the original Flash version; "Tighter controls, and a better overview of your surroundings make the portable version a classic." TouchArcade's Eli Hodapp scored it 5 out of 5, comparing the game to Doodle Jump; "I've probably sunk more combined hours in to Doodle Jump than any other game on my iPhone, and Canabalt has the exact same appeal.

Canabalt sparked the genre of "endless running" games; The New Yorker described Canabalt as "a video game that has sparked an entirely new genre of play for mobile phones." Game designer Scott Rogers credits side-scrolling shooters like Scramble (1981) and Moon Patrol (1982) and chase-style game play in platform games like Disney's Aladdin (1994) and Crash Bandicoot (1996) as early forerunners to the genre. Derivative titles include Robot Unicorn Attack, which Kieron Gillen described in his "2010 Game of the Year" piece for Eurogamer, as a "shameless Canabalt clone." Similarly, in Joystiq's review of Halfbrick Studios' Jetpack Joyride, Ben Gilbert argued that "Doom is to Halo, as Canabalt is to Jetpack Joyride."

The source code of Canabalt was released by Saltsman in 2010. The engine specific code was released under an MIT License and the game code under a proprietary license. One year later, Saltsman concluded that commercially, this had proved a non-harmful step.