Last updated on October 9th, 2025 at 09:20 pm
Hack RUN – Puzzle Game Review
Hack RUN is a Puzzle/Entertainment/Strategy game from i273, LLC, first launched in 7th April 2011.
It’s rated 12+ and currently has 406+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Hack RUN Stand Out
Play Hack RUN! Hack your way into the heart of a mysterious organization to uncover their secrets. Hack RUN® is a game which uses ‘old school’ command prompts (like DOS or UNIX) that simulate a real operating system. Learn the commands of each system to help you navigate through your adventure.
As you hack into their systems, you will learn about the organization and the people who work there. Read files and emails to find clues and riddles which will give you access to more accounts. Data found on their systems will help you learn about the motives of the organization, and how dark their plans can get. You may also discover dirty little secrets about the employees as well.
Hacking into new accounts or discovering key information will increase your skill level. As you achieve your goals, you will move closer and closer to the final achievement; over 60 levels deep!
It’s time for a Hack RUN!
Use the Apple TV companion app to enhance your game on the big screen!
Apple Watch support! Now you can display the recent contents of the terminal on your watch, view your achievements and view tips and help.
GAME CENTER SUPPORT: Earn achievements and compare your leaderboard score against other players.
Stuck on a level? Just use the ‘hint’ or ‘answer’ commands to help you along.
Make sure to play all FIVE games in this series! Play ‘Hack RUN 2 – Hack ZERO’, ‘Hack Time’, ‘Hack NET’ and ‘Hack WATCH’ after you complete this game!
Great news! Hack RUN® has been featured in the App Store! We are thrilled Apple has given us this honor, and we hope you enjoy it as much as they do!
"Great fun! – I just finished Hack RUN, what a great game! I’m a big fan of interactive fiction and this is a wonderful example of how the genre can be expanded and still be current."
"BRILLIANT – This game is innovative, clever and a HUGE breath of fresh air…"
"This is AWESOME!!! – This game us so cool that I stopped texting my girlfriend to play it haha :P"
Hack RUN® is a game. It is not a tool or aid for learning how to hack into real computer systems. i273, LLC does not endorse hacking.
This Puzzle game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Hack RUN is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 7th November 2019
Recent improvements include:
> Minor bug fixes
Download & Availability
Hack RUN is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
We don’t write reviews often, but we had to for this game. We found it extremely fun and engaging and really enjoyed the challenge and twists the story and puzzles take you through. Overall very worth getting.
This was an interesting game. You gather clues from every scrap of data you can access to advance to the next task. If you don’t like reading or computer operating systems, this game is not for you. If you come from a programmer background and speak unix, you may laugh at the simplicity but it is still fun to play.
The story felt a bit… All over the place if we’re being honest, but it was stil cohesive enough with some interesting twists here and there. Being an IT guy, the gameplay loop of having to type commands to progress was obviously what hooked us in, and the way you discover the exact parameters you need in a specific case made for some pretty interesting puzzles. Overall, we’d recommend it if you know your way around a terminal and are looking for a fun way to pass the time.
We loved the game… It was too fun, we especially likes the looks we got when people asked what we were doing… It also taught us some things.
Very fun but VERY difficult in some sections.
After playing games like Hacknet on STEAM we were looking for a cool terminal sim to play on our phone. Hack Run fills the void perfectly. With an interesting story and gameplay that requires you to keeps pushing you to think outside the box, players have no shortage of things to uncover and learn. Our only complaint is that the game doesn’t have ANY music or sound effects, so its not fully immersive and doesn’t create any tension or sense of urgency. But, since its a mobile game you can throw on whatever music you want and just get into it. Really excited to play all the sequels! Must play if you’re looking for a fun mobile hacking game.
We highly recommend this game to anyone who likes "cloak & dagger" types games.
We really enjoyed this game. It brought us back to our ‘hacker’ days.
Fun game…gets tricky towards the end. Love it.
We enjoyed the puzzles and simple hacking experience. We agree with the others that the story goes on a bad direction once it hits the alien phase of the game.
Good game. Not for kids. Very hard to figure out :/.
We won’t spoil anything but we can just say that the story for this turned really cheesy really quickly. After a certain point in the game, we just rolled our eyes and sighed. Don’t get us wrong, it’s a decent puzzle game. The story though? What the… Just… Why.
We’d have given 4 stars were not for the aliens part of the story. It’s a good puzzle game. Difficulty of levels are moderate, the console and command feel real, love the first half of the play, we almost started to feel like we’re really hacking sth, until the aliens shows up. It seems like a joke to us, we mean, any hollywood no brainer like corrupt CIA and stuff is better than aliensApparently the play writer wasn’t paid well so s/he gave up halfway.
Good game idea, but really we feel like it could have been done better. There’s no real way to explain it but we feel like another designer could have made this game so much better. Also we found it very hard to pick back up where we left off after a while. We personally want our money back but other people do like it.
SPOILERS we though it was great. A very authentic experience with a cool system. The system seemed real, and the hacking commands are as close to the real thing as some can get. It seemed real. The story was good, but started heading down hill. Loved it, then they made it, Aliens. They had what could have been a great hacking story with what could have been great twist. But a cheap alien backstory took the front seat. It ruined it for us. It seemed like it could have been a realistic hacking experience, now we’re hesitant on getting the others.
We don’t even know what to do. It definitely wasn’t worth the 3 bucks.
When attempting to use the notes in the latest build the game freezes and forces the user to fully close the program and restart. Other than that this game has always been on our top five, amazing and fun game!! IPhone 6s Running iOS 9.
We loved this game. We thought it was broken because the "notes" command always crashes the app, but that was literally the only issue and it really isn’t necessary to use the in-app notes when you can just use your own notes app or take screen shots, etc. The game is super original and really fun. Five stars.
This game is perfect if you find pleasure in"hacking". We bought the whole series and in our mind, it’s a worthy investment. There are some hard levels so be prepared for some puzzles.
Absolutely love this game, but there is a bug. When we try to open notes, it freezes. Every. Single. Time. We actually have no clue what notes does, because when we try to use it, it forces us to quit. Please fix.
We agree with other people, it could have ended "better". However that doesn’t stop us from giving it 5 stars because it was surprising and the whole game play kept us on our toes.
Literally you get some laughs from this, such as Alice. Her password was literally password XD.
It’s an amazing app. And really fun but we really need help on level 24. It keeps saying read the urgent message but we don’t know where to find it.
Great game so far, it’s just when we get to frank, no matter what combo we put his DOB in as, the password doesn’t seem to work anymore.
The game concept is great, and well executed! The problem is that the puzzles are too simple and intuitive, making the game time too short ( only 2 or 3 hours ).
Its hard to pick up where we left off without taking notes. We don’t feel like taking a paper and pad with us for notes or closing the game to use our iPhone notes app. Just going to stop playing till its fixed.
We thoroughly enjoyed this game, one of the better games we’ve played in a while. A few of the answers here a little cheap, necessitating the use of in-game hints and answers, but we were able to beat the game without buying anything. It also has a great story, which kept us captivated until we finished.
Ok Frank’s password we know but it’s not working on our iPhone 6 with iOS 9.
Love the game, played it a few years ago, got it again and it’s still as fun as we remember, but every time we try to open the [notes] command it freezes the game. Very hard to continue through the game without the notes program.
Not quite worth its price… Not that anyone needs to show the answers, but they make you pay for it. Pesky when trying to catch up to your other phone’s progress. This would be four stars without the IAPs.
The password for Elise won’t work anymore nor the one for Frank. It worked when we first input it but now it keeps telling us invalid… Besides that it was very fun and addicting just glitchy.
When it gets where you have to jump brain the password is not correct PLZ FIX IT.
It freezes on us when we type "notes".
Was a great game but after update 6 months ago our game freezes when entering the "notes" command. We are on level 47 and cannot continue because we cannot access our notes. Developer said 6 mnths ago they were aware and fixing it. Now they say there isnt a fix and we have to contact apple for refund. When this issue gets fixed we will change our rating to 5 stars! Great game please fix.
Such an attention grabber, we could not put it down this game is pure genius.
Challenging and fun. Great story, it’s honestly up there with Uplink and Hacknet.
Us recuerda un poco a los juegos que solo eran textos y nada de grficos, igual us gusta mucho :3.
Amazing game. Easy to learn although very tricky. Definitely worth the time though.
Very tricky at times, but overall a great game! Looking into the other installments now! :).
This is possibly one of the best mobile games we’ve played on any platform. We’re a techie so ymmv, but it felt like we were simply "in-tune" with this game; it really comes off as a modern MUD, which gave us slight flashbacks to our 80s childhood. The story arc was great, and the mystery kept us playing until we finished it, which to its addictive credit only took us 2 days. We were looking for the bundle but it seems they broke it to make this free for SysAdmin day. We still want to buy the bundle but the game was so good we want to keep going with the sequels.
It has nice ending and story but we wasn’t expecting the ‘Alien’ thing, we really like how we feel like we’re a real hacker.
Pretty good and definitely is fun.
The sexual references in the game really added to the story we hope the others continue the trend.
This game has us from the start and we were hooked from the start! It is VERY challenging and has awesome gameplay. This is must for the smart people.
Very interesting gameplay based on actual computer languages. No experience with any of them is required, but it can teach you about them. Story is kinda wacky, especially at the end, but intriguing nonetheless. We’d even pay for it if it wasn’t free.
Amazing text based adventure. Makes you feel like a true computer genius.
This is a great game. We beat it in a day which is short, but the game is fun and keeps you interested the whole time.
Oh our gosh we love this game so much! For most mobile games that have levels in them, we get about halfway, and then delete it out of boredom. Well, we have beaten this game twice now and am still way into it. Totally tests your brain to the limits. Just wish the others weren’t 3 bucks (we have no iTunes cash currently).
Clever and well written little text adventure/puzzle game. The answers are not obscure, as they can be in some adventure games. There were a couple of spots were we got stuck and it seemed like we missed something, but the hint system is quite good at pointing you in the right direction without giving the answer away.
This game was very awesome! We like how you have to think carefully and solve every mystery! We also like the background! You’ll guys did an amazing job.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 13.1.0
- Size: 49.73 MB
- iOS: 9.0 or later
- Languages: EN, DE
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Profanity or Crude Humor, Infrequent/Mild Horror/Fear Themes, Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence, Infrequent/Mild Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References, Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes
- Developer: i273, LLC
Last updated: 7th November 2019 | Genre: Puzzle, Entertainment | Developer: i273, LLC