Door Dash Review

The trouble with attempting to create a game within a specific genre is that a fine line has to be walked in order to avoid alienating fans as well as coming off as "more of the same." It's not easy, but Door Dash is an earnest attempt at changing things up a bit. At its core it's a fairly simple endless runner, but deserves credit for trying to do something a little different with the formula. It's just a shame that what it does isn't terribly interesting.

Door Dash is basically an endless prison break. A lone convict is hauling butt through a remarkably long corridor, grabbing keys and charging through doors along the way. Players must tap the screen to get him to jump and swipe in a pre-indicated direction in order to get doors open in time and avoid a crash. The keys gathered along the way can also be used to buy a continue once a door is stuck head-on, or to purchase permanent upgrades to the three door-avoiding power-ups that are available (Invisibility, Super Strength, and Teleport). And that's pretty much all there is to it.

I consider myself a fan of the endless runner genre, which is probably a weird thing for someone to be but it's totally true, and as such I can appreciate some of Door Dash's ideas. The typical power-up upgrades approach isn't exactly new, but having something to save up for or to strive for is always nice. I also think the need to watch for door prompts and swipe in a timely manner to avoid face-planting into a door is a nice way to compensate for the absence of any kind of platform jumping. However, after any extended amount of play its issues become more and more apparent.

The lack of platforms and the inclusion of doors is fine, but all of the keys players need to collect are floating just out of reach. What this means is that, despite the lack of bottomless pits or obstacles to leap over, players will be tapping the screen constantly to leap up and grab them. Then every so often they'll have to swipe in a direction to open a door in time. There are also locked doors that can't be opened and will cause the convict to turn around and run back when encountered, which can be bypassed with the timely use of any of the three power-ups. The problem is that there's absolutely no indication of when a locked door is coming up aside from the absence of a door indicator. So even with a full compliment of power-ups it can be very difficult to make it past one of these things.

Door Dash is a functional, inoffensive endless runner, but it's not much of a stand-out, either. Still, it's not bad for a freebie time-waster.