''Meme Run'' is an endless running video game created by American indie developer Ninja Pig Studios for the

Wii U The Wii U ( ) is a home video game console developed by Nintendo as the successor to the Wii. Released in late 2012, it is the first eighth-generation video game console and competed with Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's PlayStation 4. The W ...

console's

eShop The is a digital distribution service for the Nintendo Switch and the Nintendo Switch 2, and formerly available via the Nintendo Network for the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. Launched in June 2011 on the Nintendo 3DS, the Nintendo eShop served as t ...

service. The game and its

Miiverse Miiverse was a social network for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U that operated from 2012 to 2017. The service was created by Nintendo System Development and Hatena, and powered by the Nintendo Network. Miiverse was integrated into many video games ...

community features extensive use of

Internet memes An Internet meme, or meme (, ''MEEM''), is a cultural item (such as an idea, behavior, or style) that spreads across the Internet, primarily through social media platforms. Internet memes manifest in a variety of formats, including images, v ...

; for example, the

player character A player character (also known as a playable character or PC) is a fictional Character (arts), character in a video game or tabletop role-playing game whose actions are controlled by a player rather than the rules of the game. The characters tha ...

is a

stick figure Stick Figure is an American reggae and dub band founded in 2005. The group has released eight full-length albums and one instrumental album (Prince Fatty Presents), all of which were written and produced by frontman and self-taught multi-instr ...

with a

trollface Trollface or Troll Face is a rage comic meme image of a character donning a mischievous smile, used to symbolize internet trolls and trolling. It is one of the oldest and most widely known rage comic faces. History Trollface was drawn in M ...

for a head, and the

level Level or levels may refer to: Engineering *Level (optical instrument), a device used to measure true horizontal or relative heights * Spirit level or bubble level, an instrument designed to indicate whether a surface is horizontal or vertical *C ...

s are made up of

Lenny face This is a list of emoticons or textual portrayals of a writer's moods or facial expressions in the form of icons. Originally, these icons consisted of ASCII art, and later, Shift JIS art and Unicode art. In recent times, graphical icons, bo ...

s. The game was designed to appeal to meme fans, hardcore, and casual audiences, but was widely criticized both before and after its release for its perceived low quality. The game was removed from the

Nintendo eShop The is a digital distribution service for the Nintendo Switch and the Nintendo Switch 2, and formerly available via the Nintendo Network for the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. Launched in June 2011 on the Nintendo 3DS, the Nintendo eShop served ...

and the

community for the game was deleted on March 3, 2015, after a copyright claim by artist Carlos "Whynne" Ramirez due to unlicensed use of the

by the developers.

Gameplay

In ''Meme Run'', the player controls a

with a

for a head. The character runs through

procedurally generated In computing, procedural generation is a method of creating data algorithmically as opposed to manually, typically through a combination of human-generated content and algorithms coupled with computer-generated randomness and processing power. I ...

2D levels, jumping over and sliding under obstacles, until it is trapped between the continually sliding screen and an obstacle or falls into a bottomless pit. The player's total of " swag points" continually increases, and after a run, the player can post their high

score SCORE may refer to: *SCORE (software), a music scorewriter program * SCORE (television), a weekend sports service of the defunct Financial News Network *SCORE! Educational Centers *SCORE International, an offroad racing organization *Sarawak Corrido ...

. The levels are made up of the repeated "Lenny face"

Internet meme An Internet meme, or meme (, Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''MEEM''), is a cultural item (such as an idea, behavior, or style) that spreads across the Internet, primarily through Social media, social media platforms. Internet memes manif ...

, and other memes appear throughout the game, such as a " wombo combo!" scream when the player collects an item—a reference to a '' Super Smash Bros. Melee'' match recording on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

Development and release

''Meme Run'' was developed by Ninja Pig Studios, a small indie outfit consisting of 20 year old developer Jordan Schuetz and his brother. The game contains copious use of memes, described as an "Internet meme-infused infinite runner (Yes, really)" by

Joystiq ''Joystiq'' was a video gaming blog which was part of the Weblogs, Inc. family later owned by AOL. It was active from 2004 to 2015, acting as the primary video game blog for the group, and operating alongside ''Engadget'' and sister blogs such ...

. It was intended to appeal to both hardcore and casual gaming audiences by featuring both simple, intuitive controls and substantial difficulty once the character has run far enough. The game was widely criticized before its release; in response, Schuetz responded that it was a parody intended to "

troll A troll is a being in Nordic folklore, including Norse mythology. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated areas of rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units, and are rarely helpful to human bei ...

" users and called it "Game of the Year 2014". However, Schuetz's friends in college enjoyed the game, and its description contains the quote "Tyrone rated this game 8/8 which means it's not b8 so come play m8." It was released on December 18, 2014, for the

online service, their second eShop release after the poorly received

puzzle A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together ( or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to find the solution of the puzzle. There are differe ...

game ''IQ Test''. Schuetz has stated that Ninja Pig's future plans are "a secret". On January 5, 2015, Meme Run was put on

Steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...

Greenlight in an attempt to release the game on Steam, which never came to fruition due to the shutdown of Steam Greenlight on June 6, 2017. On January 19, 2015, "Bigley Mode" was added. By pressing B on the main menu, the user would be able to play as a character known as Bigley, an in-joke within the Miiverse community referencing a drawing within that community relating to the ''

Metroid is an action-adventure game franchise created by Nintendo. The player controls the bounty hunter Samus Aran, who protects the galaxy from Space Pirates and other malevolent forces and their attempts to harness the power of the parasitic M ...

'' character

Ridley Ridley may refer to: Education * Ridley College (Ontario), a university preparatory boarding and day school located in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada * Ridley College (Melbourne), an evangelical theological college in Melbourne, Australia * Rid ...

and the reasons given for his absence from the video games ''

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and , both commonly referred to together as ''Super Smash Bros. 4'' or ''Smash 4'', are 2014 crossover fighting games developed by Bandai Namco Studios and Sora Ltd. and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U video game cons ...

''. On March 3, 2015, 'Meme Run' was pulled from the Wii U eShop with no public announcement. Its Miiverse community page was also taken down. A

Reddit Reddit ( ) is an American Proprietary software, proprietary social news news aggregator, aggregation and Internet forum, forum Social media, social media platform. Registered users (commonly referred to as "redditors") submit content to the ...

post purporting to be the copyright holder of the "trollface" meme claimed he sent a

DMCA The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or ...

notice to Nintendo to take down Meme Run. According to Schuetz, ''Meme Run'' failed Nintendo's legal tests at least three times.

Reception

Prior to release, Mark Serrels of

Kotaku ''Kotaku'' is a video game website and blog that was originally launched in 2004 as part of the Gawker Media network. Notable former contributors to the site include Luke Smith, Cecilia D'Anastasio, Tim Rogers, and Jason Schreier. History ...

called the game "terrifying" and opined that "just watching this video game being played is a genuine insight into what it is to be insane." The game was hated upon release, Nintendo Life staff writer Lee Meyer gave ''Meme Run'' an extremely negative review, calling it possibly "one of the worst releases on any gaming platform this year" and stating that it was certainly not worth its price of

US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

4.99. Meyer found the copious use of memes to be unpleasant and jarring and also criticized the finicky controls. He suggested that its intention may have been to lampoon the proliferation of banal Internet memes, but felt that it had not succeeded.

Legacy

On July 23, 2020, a sequel was released for

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

, and

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013, in ...

titled ''Meme Run 2''. It has similar gameplay to the original but with non-copyrighted content.

References

External links

{{Portal, Video games
Official page
at Nintendo.com (archived page)
Ninja Pig Studios' website
2014 video games Indie games Internet memes Platformers Side-scrolling video games Video games using procedural generation Wii U eShop games Wii U games Endless runner games Single-player video games Wii U-only games North America-exclusive video games Video games developed in the United States Delisted digital-only games Video games involved in plagiarism controversies Works about Internet memes