Running Fred — Play Free Online

What Running Fred is

Running Fred is a 3D runner from Dedalord, a studio in Argentina best known for its Fred series, which also includes Falling Fred, Skiing Fred and Clicker Fred. Fred is a nervous little man with Death himself on his heels. He sprints through castle halls packed with traps, and your job is to keep him in one piece for as long as possible. The series is known for its cartoon gore, so a mistimed move ends with Fred in pieces rather than a polite fade to black. Dedalord moved the older Running Fred games to an HTML5 build, which is the version that runs in the browser, and it arrived on Poki in April 2019.

Controls

The whole game is played with the arrow keys. Fred runs forward on his own, and the arrows are how you steer him around blades, hop over pits and slide beneath traps. The build also includes double jumps and wall jumps for the trickier sections. This version is meant for a computer keyboard rather than a touch screen.

Game modes

• Adventure – hand-built levels grouped into chapters. Clear one to unlock the next, with harder Normal, Hard and Nightmare difficulties to open later.
• Challenge – separate tasks with their own goals that unlock as you go.
• Endless survival – one long run with no finish line. Your distance and coin pickups count, and the run keeps escalating until Fred finally slips up.

Both Adventure and Endless include a resurrect option, so a single mistake does not always mean starting over.

What tries to kill Fred

The castle levels are built from a small set of nasty pieces that you learn to read at speed: saws that sweep across the hall, fixed blades and long axe blades on pendulums, spinning blades in the vents, spike pits and bottomless drops with spikes at the bottom. Behind all of it is the Reaper, and the game keeps track of how close he is to catching Fred.

Coins, idols and the shop

Gold and silver coins are scattered along the track, and treasure piles hold more. Small Grimmy idols are hidden in levels as extra collectibles. Coins are spent in the shop on new looks for Fred, and one of the unlockable versions is called Iron Fred.

Tips

• Watch the rhythm of swinging blades for a second before committing; they move on a fixed beat.
• Do not jump just because something is coming. Many traps are meant to be slid under, and a jump drops you straight into them.
• In Endless, picking a safe line matters more than grabbing every coin.
• Learn each Adventure level on Normal before trying Hard or Nightmare.