Happy Tree Friends: Run and Bun

Happy Tree Friends: Run and Bun
Date	July 4, 2013 (TreSensa) July 17, 2013 (Amazon) August 21, 2013 (MondoMedia) August 23, 2013 (Google Play, iTunes)
Developer	Mondo Studios TreSensa, Inc.
Publisher	TreSensa, Inc.
Platform	Android iOS Web
Genre	Arcade & Action

Happy Tree Friends: Run and Bun is a Happy Tree Friends video game developed by TreSensa, Inc. This game is a simple endless runner that controls more akin to Jetpack Joyride, featuring six playable characters and six playable levels.

This game was later taken down from both Google Play and iTunes and is no longer playable on TreSensa's direct site, but it is still available from Amazon. Thus, ads that were supposed to show after the game over screen are now gone.

Description

Lifty & Shifty have stolen Mole’s freshly baked buns and it’s up to the Happy Tree Friends gang to help get them back! Collect as many buns as you can while avoiding dangerous obstacles along the way.

Gameplay

Run and Bun gameplay as demonstrated by "Happy Tree Friends - Run & Bun / Buns Of Steal Teaser" video by MondoMedia, showing Lammy flying through buns.

The game utilizes the touch screen controls (mouse clicks on the web version). As the play area scrolls indefinitely, the player character will either hover or jump depending on their mode of transport by tapping the screen. For hovering characters, tapping and holding the screen will make them float up higher. Distance traveled is measured in feet, and the game will notify the player for every 100-feet milestone reached the first time. If the current session is the player's first time playing, the game will provide 500 buns for free once they have played long enough. Obstacles litter the play area alongside the collectibles. If the player hits an obstacle while not in an invulnerable state, the game ends.

Buns are the main collectible in the game and function as in-game currency to unlock more characters, levels, and powers. Typically, one bun goes to the total for every bun collected, but if a character matches their favorite level, the collected amount will double the number of buns. Powers appear in special buns that grant beneficial effects, from clearing all obstacles on-screen to pulling all nearby buns to the player for a short time. These powers gradually appear the longer the player plays the game. If the player wants to, they can choose to buy buns via the game's in-app purchases.

After getting a game over, the distance traveled and buns collected in the current session determine the final score. The player could also view the Leaderboard of the global high scorers and the player's current rank that week from the game over screen.

Characters

Playable Characters

Image	Favorite level	Buns required to purchase	Description
	City	Starter	A purple lamb who drives a small airplane with Mr. Pickels accompanying her. Because of this, she ascends slowly into the air.
	Park	200	Disco Bear rides on skates and has a fixed jumping height per tap.
	Cave	500	This daring rabbit rides a skateboard with his jumps from a ground-bound state, the jump height is higher than Disco Bear's, but his mid-air jumps are much shorter.
	Construction Site	1000	This orange beaver rides a jackhammer. When Handy jumps from a ground-bound state, the jump height is between Disco Bear's and Cuddles', but his mid-air jumps are much higher.
	Amusement Park	2000	Like Cuddles, Mime's jump from a ground-bound state is high, but his mid-air jumps are short.
	Jungle	3000	This bear rides with a jetpack. Compared to Lammy, another hovering character, Flippy, takes off into the air much faster, but he is heavier than other characters.

Other characters include:

• Lifty & Shifty (menu screens only)
• Mole (menu screens only)
• Lumpy (obstacle in all levels)
• Truffles (cameo in the Park level)
• Sniffles (obstacle in the City level)
• Cro-Marmot (obstacle in the City level)
• Cub (obstacle in the Amusement Park level)

Levels

Levels

Image	Buns required to purchase	Hazards
	Starter	Bee Bush Cut-down tree Dog Log Lumpy with a lawnmower Rake Tree branch Tree trunk with saw blades Woodchipper
	200	Cro-Marmot's ice cream truck Dumpster Flaming barrel Lumpy repairing a car Pigeon Power lines Sniffles' ambulance Steam Traffic light Trash can with a cat sleeping on top
	500	Boulder Crocodile Gorilla hand Hanging log with stakes Lumpy trying to free himself from vines Man-eating plant Snake Spiky vines Stake trap Tiger
	1000	Claw Concrete block Concrete mixer Hanging steel beam Lumpy hammering Pipes Road roller Saw TNT Wrecking ball
	2000	Arrows Cub carried by balloons Elephant Hot dog stand Knife Lumpy on a spiky mattress Popcorn stand Roller coaster carts Seagull Target board Trapeze swing
	3000	Bat Collapsed mine cart with crystals Lava Lumpy mining Mine cart Rock Spider Stalactite Stalagmite T-rex skull

Powers

The player can find Powers in levels Powers as random pick-ups, but they have the choice to equip up to three from the "Powers" tab before starting a game to begin the level with said power(s).

Powers

Image
Price	100 buns	200 buns	300 buns	400 buns	400 buns	500 buns

Fates

Deaths

• The player character dies upon colliding with an obstacle. The player character can also end up either splattered, clobbered, or vaporized depending on the obstacle. There are certain obstacles that play unique death animations:
  • Stung by bees. (Park)
  • Smacked by a rake. (Park)
  • Shredded by a woodchipper. (Park)
  • Crushed by a gorilla's hand. (Jungle)
  • Eaten by a man-eating plant. (Jungle)
  • Eaten by a snake. (Jungle)
  • Clamped down by a claw. (Construction Site)
  • Cut up by a saw. (Construction Site)
  • Clamped down by the jaws of the T-rex skull. (Cave)
• Lumpy dies depending on where he is collided against:
  • Lumpy is cut in half by the car hood. (City)
  • Lumpy explodes. (Amusement Park)

Buy Buns

The mobile version of the game features in-app purchases, allowing the player to bypass much of the bun collecting to unlock more in-game content since all unlockables require buns quickly.

Image
Buns	1000	2000	4000
Price (in US dollars)	0.99	1.99	2.99

Development

Happy Tree Friends: Run and Bun's older logo on the Sneak Peek blog.

Happy Tree Friends: Run and Bun was first teased on a blog post on the official Happy Tree Friends website on March 29, 2013. On April 29, 2013, "Buns of Steal", an episode that happens to feature Mole, Lifty, and Shifty, was teased with vague explanation despite sharing the word "bun" on the title.

Screenshot of the gameplay as teased on the Sneak Peek blog, featuring early UI.

On May 6, 2013, the teaser trailer promoting both the game and the episode was launched on the Mondo website (August 20, 2013, on YouTube), confirming the tie-in aspect between the two. A day later, the beta version of the game was launched. This version was playable only on the web and required logging in to the Mondo website. Lammy and Disco Bear were the only characters accessible, while the only accessible levels were the Park and the City. Equipping Powers and purchasing buns were not possible. Until May 17, 2013, players could not save their progress when trying out the beta version, meaning that they had to start over every time they left the game.

The full game (web version) went live on August 21, 2013, the same release date as the "Buns of Steal" episode. The mobile versions got releases on August 23, 2013.

Reception

The game was rated 3.9 out of 5 on Amazon, with reception among customer reviews divided between the game being fun and the game being boring. The game managed to rank 17,936 as a best-selling Free game in the Apps & Games category on the same site. It was also ranked 1,096 as a best-selling Arcade Game.

Bugs and glitches

• The Android version of this game was made for an earlier version number (minimum operating system of Android 2.3.3). The game can still be run normally on newer versions but will have missing audio and idle animation for the player character.
• It is possible for a bun formation to be drawn in such a way that some end up being located out-of-bounds below the ground the player character is on, making these buns impossible to collect.

Gallery

• 

  Game icon.

• 

  Promotional banner for Run and Bun's beta version.

Trivia

Rocket Cat Adventures, another HTML5 game developed by TreSensa, Inc. in collaboration with Mondo Studios. Note the similar UI placement and gameplay.

A screenshot of a Leaderboard listing example hidden among the game files. (without ad space)

• Run and Bun shares similar gameplay and UI placement as another Mondo Studios collaboration game, Rocket Cat Adventures (developed as part of a Progressive Insurance commercial campaign), a game released on July 5, 2012, the same day as Happy Tree Friends: Strandead, on the TreSensa platform. Other comparisons include:
  • The titular Rocket Cat controls similarly to Lammy, where clicking and holding the screen will make the Rocket Cat ascend gradually instead of jumping a certain height.
  • The following powers from Rocket Cat Adventures are reused in Run and Bun, even if modified:
    • The helmet, which allows the player character to tank one hit from obstacles after which it wears off, becomes Bun of Steel.
    • The Home Insurance and Auto Insurance items, which enlarge the collectibles and double the amount per collected, become one item instead, the Bonus Bun. In Rocket Cat Adventures, the former two items have to be collected in a complete bundle to activate the bonus effect.
    • The Progressive Bundler 2000, which speeds up the player character, becomes Turbo Bun minus the level transition since Run and Bun levels aside from the first need to be unlocked and the player only decides one of them for a single play session.
  • The scoring mechanic is also similar, as it determines the score by multiplying the distance traveled with the collectibles collected.
  • Certain item/obstacle placements from Rocket Cat Adventures are reused in Run and Bun, like the formation consisting of a long line of collectibles with the bonus multiplier item slipped in, for example.
• The Construction Site level's backdrop is similar to said site as shown in "False Alarm".
• Two screenshots of a Leaderboard listing example can be found among Run and Bun's game files, one with ad space and one without. Both share the same photoless list featuring the names Sarah Braithwaite, John Evershed, Sarah Bogen, Zdravomir Staycozy, Noah Bookinghamber, and Shawn O thedead.