Story behind Temple Run and its success

Well in my last post I talked about Angry birds and its success and since I am talking about the most successful mobile games there is no way I can leave Temple Run out of it. The success of this game is a rather long one, this game was released in August 2011 and was initially available only for iOS at 0.99 dollars. Though the game gained a lot of positive reviews but it didn't get the kick the developers were hoping for until after they released the game as a free to download app. Within a week the number of downloads shot up , the developers then decided to keep the game free and earn their profits through the bonus content and power packs.
iTunes store included it in the top 50 most-downloaded apps in December 2011 and eventually it became the number one free iOS app surpassing Angry Birds. When the game reached 40 million downloads on iOS, the developers at Imangi released Temple Run for Android and within a week of its release the game already crossed its million downloads. Woah! now how did that happen? Lets first look at the game for a minute and see what all the fuss is about.

This game revolves around  a wandering explorer chosen and controlled by player. In the beginning scenes it is visualized that this explorer stole an idol from an ancient temple and immediately after acquiring this ancient artifact he is chased by demonic monkeys and must run for his life, thus initiating the Temple Run.
The main objective of this game is to run while being chased by scary looking monkeys who are out to avenge the stolen idol, this is done with the help of the multitouch mechanism of the game. The path laid out for the player is a narrow one filled with obstacles, player must use his cunning wits and sharp reflexes to maneuver through-out his way. The player has to swipe his finger left, right, up, down to tackle the obstacles and tilt the phone back and forth to collect the coins. Unlike Angry Birds, this game does not follow any concept of levels or stages, all the player has to do is run and collect as many coins as he can while running and dodging obstacles laid out in his way. There are still ways the player can die including being caught by the monkeys which make the game exciting as well as challenging.

But I guess anyone who has played this game at-least once would already know all that. Now about the part that very less people might know, this game was developed by Keith Shepherd and Natalia Luckyanova, a team of husband and wife and co-founders of Imangi studios. Before the Temple Run and Imangi this then single couple worked as a software developer at a healthcare company. Unlike any office love story those two hit it off and got married a couple years later and are living happily together. Since telling about their love story is not part of my blog i'll skip to the important part.

When Apple announced that the App store was going to be open for apps Keith realizing the potential opportunity quit his job to learn the iOS SDK(Software Development Kit for all the non geeks) and made his first project as a word game which earned him 5000 dollars in a month. After that his wife also realized the potential in the application development and started building games. Their next few projects Little Red Sled, Harbor Master and Max Adventure were not very popular but they somehow survived in the market. Although the last game Max Adventure didn't sell as much as they expected it gave Keith the idea of arranging the camera angle and the concept of coins. All that and they were set for a new game but some things were still missing like the environment the player will be running in and during that process the Windows pipeline screensaver came into their mind and soon the idea of making player running on a similar pattern followed its roots. Now the only thing left missing was what will the player run away from and to save the day Tchangov came up with the idea of evil monkeys and then the idea of the temple and explorer followed.

To sum it all up, the game was built on a series of creative imagination. As much as the chances of boring programmers working at a healthcare company having creativity for making a game as successful as Temple Run seem odd, the story does have some twists as the couple was quite the opposite working a job they were not made for. It is said that it takes one to know one so I would like to point out that both Keith and Natalia love video games; They have been playing video games since their childhood. During an interview Keith confessed that he asked Natalia out because she beat him in the Mario Kart. Keith always had an affection for games but had to join a company due to lack of career opportunities.


So now we know about the game and its developers, whats still unknown is how and why the game got so famous.

It can be described with two words; challenge and excitement  This game touches that hidden ambition inside the players mind and that is of being a treasure hunter. Now I know there is hardly anyone out there who has never imagined travelling far into distant unknown lands in search of an ancient relic and all the unforeseen adventure and riddles that awaits. The thrill and excitement of unknown dangers and the dream of recovering lost artifacts is not new to any of us. As the game begins the player is put into the shoes of the explorer who got his hand on a gold statue and now is being chased by the monkeys. The theme plays a vital role as it sends an impulse that puts the player straight into his treasure hunter mode and after running and dodging a couple easy obstacles the player gets lured into the temptation of unforeseen obstacles and adventure. This being the main reason behind its success is not the only one. Another reason for its success is the impact of power packs spread in the game each of which does something different boosting the morale of the player as well as his excitement level making him feel he has acquired a superpower. Since power boosters not a new concept and have been used in games since years it was not unique but when combined with the theme and the challenge level of the game it created wonders.

Another reason for the success of this game or any other game is the social circle. If I watch a friend playing a new game and he tells me how Awesome it is, I am sure I will try it and when I see his score and then mine, I am sure I or any other social animal will spend countless hours beating that score just so we can show off the next day. This is a very big and treacherous cycle and once pulled inside it, its hard to get out.




Now there is news that Temple Run 2 came out in mid-January'13 and cause such a havoc in the marketplace that there were an estimated 6 million downloads within 24 hours of the release and estimated 50 million downloads in 2 weeks breaking all the records of the online marketplace. If you are wondering how I can tell you the reason behind it. It is not that difficult to figure out once you think about it; Temple Run was a huge hit and the game is free. I don't think any person who has played temple run even once will skip the opportunity to check out the sequel to the record breaking game and I know as anxious human beings are, some of the people just downloaded the game just to see what changes did Imangi studios made in the sequel.

The gaming world is full of possibilities, if you know your audience and you know what they want then I doubt that success will be more than a mile away.   
                                                                                                                                          -Ani