The catalogue

Hue Run

iOS & Android · announced 14 July 2016 · App Store id 1140381658

HUE RUN is an endless casual action game. Run fast, change color, get invisible and use your instinct!

Hue Run is the earliest title that can be tied to Tembo Entertainment, and it is the release that sets the shape of everything after it: a one-tap endless game, built in Buildbox, shipped to the App Store and Google Play on the same day. Its announcement is the shortest in the catalogue — a banner, two store links, a trailer, three screenshots and a request for feedback — and it never spells out the company name. What ties it to the studio is the announcement's own closing line, which points at Tembo's Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts, and the fact that the same developer account posted every later release under the studio's name.

Mechanically it is a lane-switcher rather than a jumper, and colour is the whole game. The player collects colour cubes to change hue, and on a track matching their own colour they become invisible — safety and danger sharing one mechanic. Colour-changing gates teleport the run forward, spiky enemies break concentration, and pits have to be dodged. The studio's own trailer copy describes the result as a game that “will brutally challenge your reflexes”.

The studio described it in a promotion thread a day later as “Easy to play, hard to guess” — the first appearance of the difficulty-as-pitch line that ended up printed on Danger Bounce five months later.

Features as published

• Fun and addictive gameplay
• Easy to play, hard to guess
• Play with colors
• Endless play mode
• Collect coins and survive
• Explore new characters in your journey

How to play, as published

• Tap to change lane
• Don't fall on the blank space
• Avoid enemy on your journey

Store details

• Announced14 July 2016
• PlatformsiOS and Android
• App Store id1140381658
• Android packagecom.tembo.huerun
• EngineBuildbox — the studio's first
• TrailerStill online — uploaded 19 Dec 2016, 276 views
• ScreenshotsLost — the studio's own image files were never archived
• Current statusDelisted on both stores

Clone Rush

iOS · announced 6 October 2016 · App Store id 1155779251

Run, fly, dodge and clone through the world of spikes. Collect coins in your journey and unlock 21 different characters. How far can you survive?

The title the studio pushed hardest, and the only one it attached screenshots to that can still be retrieved. The pitch is a single sentence long, which is the point: the run is endless, the spikes never stop coming, and the only thing that changes between attempts is how well you have learned the rhythm the level generator is keeping.

The clone mechanic is what separated it from the endless-runner crowd. Rather than one character threading a gap, the player multiplies — each clone adding another body that has to survive the spike field, so a good run becomes a crowd-management problem rather than a reflexes problem alone.

The trailer's own description fills in the rest: gravity that can be beaten, flight “like a bird”, flying enemies to dodge, and precious diamonds collected along the way to unlock the 21 characters. The store badges on the studio's own website show the game shipped on both the App Store and Google Play, even though only the iOS identifier survives today.

The announcement ends with a line that says as much about the studio's situation as about the game: “And we are also open for buyers and publishers/partnership.”

Features as published

• One Tap Control
• Endless Mode Through World of Spikes
• Collect Coins to Unlock 21 New Characters
• Game Center Leaderboard

Store details

• PlatformsiOS and Android — both store badges appeared on the studio's own site
• App Store id1155779251
• LeaderboardApple Game Center
• TrailerStill online — uploaded 21 Dec 2016, 111 views
• Current statusDelisted — the store record no longer resolves

Danger Bounce

iOS & Android · announced 13 December 2016 · App Store id 1161377579

He may be little but he is a ninja. Unlike most ninjas, his specialty is not sword, he masters bouncing and hopping through pillars. But he does not like to hop through just simple pillars, he prefers colorful ones.

The studio's third game, and its most confident. Where Clone Rush asked the player to survive a swarm, Danger Bounce asks for timing: the hero hops from pillar to pillar, and the gaps between them set a rhythm the player has to feel rather than read. Miss it and the ninja drops into one of the pits the studio deliberately left between the platforms.

It is also the release where the studio finally said out loud who it was. The announcement opens “developed and published by us Tembo Entertainment”, gives an iOS link and a Google Play link, and closes with the best line in the surviving record: “Warning: This game is hard.” That was a design position, not an apology. Asked in the replies about the difficulty, the developer answered: “We are fan of hard game. We find this game addicting to ourselves. But others complained, so made a comment of being it hard.”

Features as published

• One-tap control, endless game play
• Rhythm-based jumping and bouncing
• Multiple unlockable cute ninja characters
• Minimalistic graphics
• Free the hero's other eight brothers

Store details

• PlatformsiOS and Android
• App Store id1161377579
• Android packagecom.tembo.dangerbounce
• PromotionFeatured in “More Games You Might Like”, UK, March 2017
• TrailerStill online — uploaded 13 Dec 2016, 415 views
• Press kitPublished, and still archived as a page
• Current statusDelisted on both stores

Wire Switch

iOS · announced 27 December 2016 · App Store id 1178591004

Run as an electron through circuits. There are cloning chips and resistances. You have to tap to switch between wires and avoid the resistances.

Two weeks after Danger Bounce, and built on what the studio learned from it. The announcement is unusually direct about the process: “with a moderate success with Danger Bounce, we decided to finish an untouched game, real quick and came up with Wire Switch. Finished and published it under a week and also got some nice reviews.”

That sentence is the clearest statement of the studio's method anywhere in the record. There was a shelf of unfinished games. A release that performed “moderately” was a reason to reach for one of them, finish it in under a week, and ship it — not a reason to retreat into a longer production cycle.

Its trailer leans into the same joke harder — “Ever imagined yourself as an electron running trough circuits? Guess what. The wait is over!” — and confirms the reward loop: light as many LEDs as you can with your electronic charge, then spend the LEDs on “beautiful geometric electrons”.

The design follows the same logic as the three games before it, with a twist: progress is measured in LEDs lit rather than coins collected, and new electron characters unlock according to how many you have lit. The studio admitted the audio was lopsided — “a nice background sound track but no other sounds” — and after a review suggested otherwise, said it would add destruction and LED-collecting audio in an update.

Features as published

• Tap to switch between wires
• Cloning chips and resistances to avoid
• New electron characters unlocked by lighting LEDs
• Background soundtrack
• Minimal design, per the replies it drew

Store details

• PlatformiOS — a Google Play banner was made for it
• App Store id1178591004
• Time to buildUnder a week, from an unfinished project
• TrailerStill online — uploaded 19 Dec 2016, 520 views
• Current statusDelisted