Despite All is Lost’s dark title, the game is very fun and has a lot of effort put into creating the proper atmosphere for its setting. The game plays similarly to the well known Temple Run games, but has players control a runner escaping a space facility that is falling apart while also clearing obstacles for the runner. Swiping on the left side of the screen causes the escapee on screen to jump or duck, while swiping on the right side in various directions will clear obstacles the escapee cannot get through otherwise.
The visual style of the game is more realistic than most mobile titles and due to the atmospheric direction some obstacles can be hard to clearly see, but the game has an indicator set up for all obstacles clearly directing players on what combination of swipes will lead their escapee to freedom and safety. The initial mode of play provided is a campaign style mode that has players assist several survivors of specific space stations escape, providing names and a certain number of attempts of escape for each survivor.
After running through all the survivors of a station players will be provided a new station to assist that increases the difficulty further. Just as well, depending on a survivor’s position on the station they will have more or less attempts of escape, the most difficult challenge being that captains only have one attempt to leave. While players can endlessly run through stations of different types that contain different types of survivors, the actual goals for the player are found in the mission section of the game. Missions work similarly to achievements in many current generation console games, but they provide the main focus for players in All is Lost. Missions are not all specific to one particular station a player might interact with, but will mostly track the players efforts and be completed whenever the player meets the proper criteria. Mission goals range from saving a certain number of survivors or a certain number of a specific type of survivor. There are also missions for saving a certain amount or all of the survivors on the various types of space stations found in the game.
For players looking to hone their skills before jumping into high stakes missions, there is simulation mode. Simulation mode allows players to control a hologram running until the player fails to provide a safe route instead of a foreseeable end to the level. There are missions tied to getting survivors a certain distance from their starting point, but the endless amount of tries and easy access to the specific prerequisites of the mission make it much more relaxed than some other missions.
In its entirety, All is Lost is one of the more atmospheric mobile titles in recent memory, and while it may not be as content heavy as some free titles it does offer its unique appeal. The game flows very smoothly with very well done visuals and sound effects and offers a good amount of challenge for fans of games like Temple Run and similar titles.