Surface Runner

Surface Runner

Bobby Sanders · July 19, 2023 · Adventure, Puzzle, Walking Simulator, Exploration, Emotional

Surface Runner is free to play — no purchase needed. We track it so you know if that ever changes.

PC
Mixed55% · 22 📉 Recent reviews down 47%
This game is free to play. Get it on Steam →

Screenshots

Surface Runner price

Surface Runner is free to play — there is no purchase price, on Steam or anywhere else we track. We keep watching it, so if it ever stops being free the price history on this page will show when that happened and what it changed to.

About Surface Runner

This is a game demo

The player plays as an AI experiencing sentience for the first time and all of the emotions that come with that. The player will progress through three different levels gaining more and more sentience.

-narrative driven-platformer
-team of 4 college students making it in 4 months
-Created all in Unreal
-puzzle solving and parkour gameplay accompany the story
-Controller recommended for gameplay (use mouse and keyboard for menus)
-Playtime is 15min- 1 hour+

Controls-
Mouse and Keyboard-
Mouse= Look around
Space= Jump/ jump off wall
WASD= Move
Shift= Wall Run Mode
E= Interact
S= Jump backwards from ledge
V= Toggle Target Visibility Crosshair
F= Teleport

Controller-
Left Stick= Look around
A= Jump/ jump off wall
Right Stick= Move
R2= Wall Run Mode
X= Interact
Down on D-pad= Jump backwards from ledge
Y= Toggle Target Visibility Crosshair
B= Teleport

Surface Runner — game info

Platforms
Windows
Steam Deck
Unsupported
Player modes
Single-player
PC Game Pass
Not included

What Steam players say

Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.

Not recommended Mar 28, 2026
"Surface Runner" is a low key asset flip, a bunch of other people's assets assembled badly to make a basic game. Typically this kind of thing is done by amateur developers without sufficient budget, talent and/or staff to do the job of game development professionally. It's then quickly rushed into Steam Direct. And, unsurprisingly, this never results in a product with any quality, interest, or value for gamers. This is more of an Unreal tech demo/homework assignment than what anyone would call a serious game, it feels more like someone mucking around with Unreal without knowing how to optimize the engine or anything. They made a simple rudimentary platformer with jarringly mismatched game assets, janky gameplay, and a flew of unfixed bugs that should have stopped this being published at all. Since this is basically a kitbash of other people's assets, it's visually better looking than the actual game. The thing is, when developers don't budget properly and hire real artists, and lack the skill to do the rest of the job of a game developer and the result is deplorably bad quality junkware. "Surface Runner" proves this point perfectly. The "game" here is of a pretty low technical…
1 found this helpful
Not recommended Dec 14, 2023
Awful platforming. Actually terrible. None of it feels smooth or consistent. I couldn't even bother playing this game any longer, it's terrible.
1 found this helpful
Recommended Sep 12, 2026
Surface Runner is a compact third-person platforming experience built around movement, environmental puzzles, and a science-fiction narrative involving artificial intelligence. Instead of emphasizing combat or complicated character progression, the game places traversal at the center of the experience. Players take control of an AI that is beginning to develop sentience, with each stage representing another step in its understanding of consciousness and emotion. Developed by Bobby Sanders, Rick Foster, Isaiah Harrison, and Kevin Campbell and published by Brik Studios, the game originated as a small student project, which explains both its experimental ideas and modest overall scale. The movement system provides most of the gameplay variety. Running and jumping form the foundation, but wall running, wall jumping, teleportation, object interaction, and other traversal abilities make navigating the environments more interesting than a conventional platformer. Wall running is especially important because many areas encourage players to think vertically rather than simply following a straightforward path. Teleportation further expands the possibilities by allowing certain obstacles and…
Not recommended Mar 4, 2025
right stick sensitivity is too high and can't be changed jumping back from a platform always uses stick down, regardless of where the camera is pointing. extremely unintuitive WORST OF ALL, the wallrunning mode's default button is click in left stick. unforgivable.
Recommended Feb 20, 2025
tenho esquilos nas calcas
Recommended Dec 2, 2023
hi. can i please lower the graphics quality and also know WHERE TO GO?

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