People forget their history. Despite what you might occasionally hear, Cannabalt was not the first forced runner game. Not by a long shot. I trace the genre back to “B.C.’s Quest for Tires”, a game that not only started a genre, but was an early effort at a licenced game (being based on the “B.C.” newspaper comic strip), and one that didn’t suck. Here’s B.C.’s Quest for Tires for reference:
So, to my mind, the genre has long since passed into the public domain, making “Marathon Monk” exploring it fair game. And I like the visual aesthetic, the level design, the audio, and the enemies. The game even has a nifty boost that lets you gap across a chasm without jumping (which has probably been done before, but I don’t happen to recall it in another game at the moment). It’s well worth a dollar (or whatever 80 points used to net you).
Here’s what the developer (Jesse Crafts Finch) has to say about the game:
“Marathon Monk is a classic running platformer – run for your health, run for fun, run because THEY ARE AFTER YOU!”
Writings of Mass Deduction 