Project Overview
The endless runner is one of the most popular and commercially successful mobile game genres — and also one of the best projects for learning core Unity concepts like object pooling, procedural generation, and mobile input. This free project delivers a fully functional endless runner with clean, commented source code that you can reskin and publish.
Gameplay Features
- Infinite procedural track: Tile-based track generation that continuously spawns and recycles segments ahead of the player.
- Dynamic obstacles: Multiple obstacle types with weighted random spawning that increases in frequency as speed ramps up.
- Three-lane system: Classic left/center/right lane switching with swipe gesture support.
- Collectibles: Coin system with magnet power-up, shield, and speed boost pickups.
- High score persistence: Local high score saved with PlayerPrefs, displayed on game over screen.
- Character animations: Run, jump, slide, and death animations using Unity's Animator with blend trees.
Technical Highlights
Object Pooling
Rather than instantiating and destroying GameObjects at runtime (which causes garbage collection spikes), this project uses a robust object pool system. Track segments, obstacles, and coins are pre-instantiated at startup and recycled from the pool. This keeps frame rate smooth even on lower-end mobile devices.
Procedural Difficulty Scaling
Difficulty is driven by a single GameSpeed float that increases over time using an animation curve in the Inspector. Obstacle spawn rates, coin density, and gap lengths all read from this value, making it easy to tune the difficulty curve visually without touching code.
Mobile Input
Swipe detection is handled by a dedicated SwipeDetector class that calculates swipe direction and minimum distance threshold. The same controls map to keyboard arrows for editor testing — no separate code paths needed.
Project Structure
| Folder | Contents |
|---|---|
Scripts/Core | GameManager, ScoreManager, DifficultyController |
Scripts/Player | PlayerController, AnimationController, SwipeDetector |
Scripts/Track | TrackGenerator, TrackSegment, ObjectPool |
Scripts/Obstacles | ObstacleSpawner, ObstacleBase, individual obstacle types |
Scripts/UI | HUDController, GameOverScreen, MainMenuController |
Scenes | MainMenu, Game, GameOver |
Publishing to Mobile
This project is pre-configured for Android and iOS builds. Before publishing:
- Replace placeholder art with your own character and environment assets.
- Update the Bundle Identifier in Project Settings → Player.
- Configure your Splash Screen and app icons.
- Test on a real device — use Unity's Device Simulator in the Game view for initial testing.
- Consider integrating Unity Ads or AdMob after verifying the game plays well.
Requirements
- Unity 2022.3 LTS or newer
- Universal Render Pipeline (URP)
- Android Build Support or iOS Build Support module (for mobile builds)
This is an excellent project for developers wanting to publish their first mobile game. The architecture is clean, the systems are modular, and everything is built with performance and extensibility in mind.