Research: Endless Runners - Sonic Dash
Sonic Dash is a 3D endless runner released in 2013 as part of the Sonic franchise. As the player, you play as Sonic or one of the other unlockable characters from the Sonic universe.
The core gameplay loop consists of the player completing runs in order to collect gold rings, red rings and character cards. Gold rings are both used during runs as a form of safety where the player loses rings instead of dying to certain obstacles while red rings are used to revive the player if they die, allowing them to continue a run if they're close to a high score. Character cards are the way to unlock characters in this game where the player needs to collect a certain amount (50 or 100 mostly) in order to unlock a character. These cards are also used to upgrade characters stats.
In terms of unique selling points, the use of the Sonic IP itself helps to bring in a wider audience since Sonic is a very well known series.
Another unique aspect is the boss fights that you can come across. In the standard game there are only 2 bosses: Dr. Eggman who is the overarching protagonist of the franchise and Zazz from Sonic: Lost World. There are also 3 other bosses that were either from past events or from special versions on the game. Dr Robotnik from the Sonic films was added for an event linked to the release of the film and has been removed. Similarly, the boss Bash was from the Pac Man event and was removed after. All of these bosses act the same; shoot projectiles down each lane from behind before moving in front of the player and placing obstacles down.
