Running With Scissors (Again)

As a lifetime weirdo, back when smartphones were picking up steam, I decided to go the unpopular route and wait for Microsoft to release its Windows Phone line of devices before jumping in. Although really not significantly different from iOS and Android at the time, Windows Phone was unique in a lot of ways that I liked. It was also unique in some pretty awful ways, like no app or game support from developers.

My first smartphone! Image courtesy of archived Microsoft site

The lack of software on the platform was a constant issue for Microsoft until they ultimately discontinued the entire line after a few years. It got to where it wasn’t too bad, though, with many of the top apps and games getting big payouts from Microsoft to port and support the platform. That didn’t take hold until a bit later. In the beginning, it seemed like Microsoft just assumed developers would come running to the company that had dominated the home computer market for decades.

This never happened.

There were, however, a few apps and games that were only ever seen on Windows Phone in its early days. When a good game would show up, especially for free, you better believe it saw significant playtime. The first game I remember downloading that was actually a fun and good game was called “Running with Scissors”. The game’s name is apparently not unique enough since there is a game studio and several other similar games catalogued on the internet, but this Windows Phone version seems elusive online. 

Fate was funny, though, and I stumbled into the developer of Running with Scissors on the Discord server for the Society of Play (formerly known as Dallas Society of Play). After chatting with the dev, Daniel Fairley, he put all of his previous game projects up on BitBucket and available for public use! So, I knew that I should get Running With Scissors up and running for any other weirdos like me that might be looking for it.

Then, I didn’t do anything about it for several years.

Then I got laid off!

So, I had some time to noodle around with things that had been tickling the back of my brain, and I got after it one evening. Bringing Running With Scissors up to a modern version of Unity turned out to be a fairly smooth process. A few dusty plugins could be removed, a few services used for mobile ads could be gutted, and a few Unity-recommended techniques from a decade ago had to be refactored. Nothing too difficult, though, and soon enough the game was running just fine on a web page.

You can go try it out for yourself now on my itch.io page. If you visit the site on a mobile device, it works great in landscape mode, so you can try to recreate those classic vibes if you would like.

The title screen before anything gory happens

I tried to give credit to Fairley everywhere I could, and appreciate him letting me (or anyone) update his projects in this way. Consider this some light preservation of an era that isn’t yet interesting to historians or nostalgia seekers, but probably will be soon.