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About this game
Crowd Runner is a counting runner in the Count Masters tradition. You never control a single hero: you steer an entire crowd of chibi runners up a vertical track, and every decision is about how many of them reach the stairs. The track is lined with paired math gates. Each pair puts one blue bonus gate (x2, x3, or +N runners) beside one red penalty gate (-N or /2), and only your crowd's center decides which one fires: run through the blue panel and your headcount explodes, drift into the red one and it shrinks, slip through the middle gap and both gates fizzle to nothing. Between the gates the track fights back. Saw wheels grind away one runner per touch, spike strips take a proportional 15% toll, and trenches swallow 5 to 12 runners depending on where the crowd lands. Every level ends at the staircase finale: the enemy horde charges down, both sides cancel one for one, and your high-ground position makes their effective force 10% weaker. Finish with more runners than that effective count and the level is yours; fall short and the level restarts. There are 40 hand-tuned seeded levels where the number of gate pairs grows from 2 to 5, the enemy horde scales from 10 to a capped 400, obstacle density rises, and the gate bonus pool becomes steadily stingier. The generator is verified by an independent solver: on every level, and across hundreds of reseeded variants, a player who takes every blue gate arrives with enough runners to win the stair clash. Scoring rewards survival: points equal remaining runners times ten plus fifty per level, and stars grade your efficiency, from one star for any win up to three stars for keeping at least 40% of your peak crowd alive. Progress, per-level stars and per-level bests are saved, a level grid shows locks and the next challenge, and a Daily Challenge seeded by the UTC date picks one level per day with its own best score and an ever-growing streak. All sound is synthesized in-page with a persistent mute switch.
How to play
Drag left and right anywhere on the track (or use the arrow / A-D keys) to steer the crowd's center. Read each gate pair from top to bottom: steer into the blue bonus panel and avoid the red penalty panel; the narrow middle gap activates nothing at all. Swerve around saw wheels, spike strips and trenches - the warning markers show what is coming. At the stairs the enemy horde charges down and both crowds annihilate one for one, with your high ground making them 10% weaker; you win if more runners survive than their effective count. Pick levels from the grid, continue from the menu, or take the daily seeded level.
Tips & Tricks
- Plan your line early: the crowd steers fast, but a full-width dodge from one side to the other costs about a second, so pick a lane before the gate pair enters the screen.
- The middle gap is a trap, not a safe road - skipping a blue gate is almost always worse than any risk you take grabbing it, because the level budget assumes you collected every bonus.
- Big multipliers snowball: taking x2 or x3 early multiplies every later +N gate as well, so a level with two multiplier gates is far safer than the raw numbers suggest.
- Protect your peak. Stars are graded on survivors versus your largest headcount, so one sloppy saw touch after the last gate can drop a would-be three-star run to two.
Frequently asked questions
How do I beat the stair battle at the end?
The clash is pure arithmetic: your crowd and the enemy horde cancel one for one, and the high ground makes the horde's effective strength only 90% of its body count. The level intro shows the goal number - if your crowd is larger than that when you reach the stairs, you win. Every blue gate you grab raises your odds; every red gate or hazard eats directly into the margin.
What happens if I run through the gap between the two gates?
Nothing fires at all. Each pair holds one blue bonus and one red penalty, and the game only checks where your crowd's center crosses: left panel, right panel, or the gap in between. The gap leaves your headcount unchanged, which sounds safe but quietly throws away the growth the level was budgeted around - levels assume you collected every blue gate.
How do stars and the daily challenge work?
Stars grade survivors versus your peak headcount: 40% or more is three stars, 15% or more is two, and any win is one. Your unlocks, per-level stars and per-level best scores are saved automatically. The Daily Challenge uses the UTC date to pick one of the 40 levels - the same one for everyone that day - and finishing it grows a daily streak with its own best score; replaying the same day does not duplicate the check-in.
