I’m a sucker for clever one-button mechanics, and for years some of the games that have fit the mobile platform the best have been those that can boil their essence down to the use of a single touch. Games like Canabalt, Jetpack Joyride, and yeah, even Flappy Bird all showed that you can have a competitive and engaging game with just a single button. That seems to be the inspiration for a new one-button game called Rank Runner from solo developer Dian Yang aka Iterative Interactive. The goal of the game is to literally climb the leaderboards as you change directions on a dime in order to avoid a bullet hell-style deluge of killer triangles. It’s a tricky one to explain, but makes perfect sense if you check out the trailer from the Steam version which launched a couple of weeks back.

Pretty clever, no? Rank Runner is designed to be played in either landscape or portrait, and I’m guessing it’ll fit real nicely into my “One Handed Games" folder. The game is set to launch next week on August 28th, and is available for pre-order in the App Store right now. It’s free with ads and a one-time $1.99 IAP to remove them. And that’s all well and good, but ahead of that launch, Iterative Interactive is looking to get even more people loaded up on the leaderboard in preparation for the full release. One of the cleverest parts of Rank Runner is how you’re literally playing right next to the leaderboard of other players you’re trying to beat. If you want to get in on the fun early, head over to our forums to find a public link to the Testflight version of the game, and start playing right this instant. If playing games early ain’t your thing, then be sure to check out the full launch of Rank Runner next week.