Start Running

A twenty-mile training run becomes a nightmare of stalled motivation, warped streets, and mounting inevitability in Start Running. Luis is a runner who cannot make himself leave for his final marathon practice, until an unseen force turns his ordinary day into a surreal flight through a city that no longer obeys common sense. Part visual novel, part point-and-click escape adventure, it carries the fatalistic pressure of a Greek tragedy while keeping the focus intimate: a man, his anxieties, and his dog Pistachio trying to keep moving.

Players guide Luis through shifting apartments, streets, and strange interiors, examining objects, collecting inventory items, and solving puzzles that twist familiar everyday problems into something unsettling. A phone code, a jammed printer, or an uncooperative door can become a larger obstacle once reality begins bending around the characters. Dialogue and interaction choices shape both the immediate consequences and the wider story, with seemingly small decisions carrying unexpected weight. Death is not merely a failure state here; branching outcomes and multiple endings encourage players to reconsider choices, revisit scenes, and see how far Luis can push against the path closing around him.

Its strongest idea is the way procrastination and endurance become literal forces within an unstable world, making a simple run feel as exhausting and frightening as an escape from a nightmare. The hand-drawn surrealism and compact puzzle design give it the uneasy, personal atmosphere of an indie narrative experiment rather than a conventional adventure epic. Players who enjoy the moral unease of choice-driven visual novels and the item-based problem solving of classic point-and-click games will find plenty to dissect. Start Running suits newcomers to either genre, though veterans looking for demanding action rather than narrative puzzles should expect a slower, stranger, story-led experience.