Temple Run has gone idle. The iconic franchise, developed by Imangi Studios, is now more than just a series of endless running games. With Temple Run: Idle Explorers (TR Idle), you can collect familiar characters, manage excavation sites, accumulate treasure, and, of course, run away from demon monkeys.
The game has been around for some time, but now, it has a fresh look and feature adjustments. To help players with this new experience, here’s a walkthrough, guide, and tips for Temple Run: Idle Explorers.
Photo: Imangi Studios
Starting Out
One thing that makes TR Idle stand out from other products of Imangi Studios is its use of character dialogue and plot. It’s not much, but it’s enough to contribute to the snappy vibe of the game.
The story starts with you, the player, being sucked into a world of treasure hunters. The first character you will see is a cartoonishly suspicious man named Clifton who will give you tasks at the top of your screen.
Photo: Imangi Studios
Completing all tasks will get you through an expedition, and it will reward you with artifacts, one of the most significant commodities in the game.
Collecting Artifacts
Artifacts will give you permanent bonuses. You can review what each artifact does on the leftmost option of the icon menu at the bottom of the screen.
In that panel, you will see clusters of four artifacts. Getting all the artifacts in a set will give you loads of scrolls, which are resources you can use for leveling up.
Photo: Imangi Studios
Unlocking Sites
On every expedition or level, there are several dig sites that are your primary source of gold. To open a site, you can pay with coins or make your characters run through obstacles.
Photo: Imangi Studios
The running in Idle Explorers is vastly different from other Temple Run games because, here, you can have multiple runners. At least one must survive the run for you to start excavating.
Each runner also has a unique skill that will be activated during the run. However, you can’t control them. What you can do instead is prepare your avatars for each run by choosing your team members wisely and positioning them properly.
Preparing Runners
At the start, you only have one runner, Guy Dangerous, to break into sites. Later on, you will find more heroes, so you have to choose which ones should take the job.
Photo: Imangi Studios
Up to five characters can make up a squad of runners. To ensure a successful run, here are some things you must consider.
Character Types
There are three character types: brave, heroic, and clever. You will know what type a runner is by looking at the figure on the top left side of their character card.
Photo: Imangi Studios
A red fire represents brave runners, a blue first is for the heroic ones, and a green book suggests a character is clever. These icons are also seen in a bar above the Run panel before you attempt to access a site.
The bar icons represent the types of obstacles you will encounter. It’s best to choose characters with specialties that match the obstacle type to reduce damage intake.
Photo: Imangi Studios
Stamina
Just below the obstacle bar is a numeric comparison of your team’s stamina and the damage they could receive during the run. If your crew’s number and the image beside it are red, your chances of winning are low.
Pick runners with high stamina to increase your odds in Temple Run: Idle Explorers. This is the stat beside the green running symbol below each champion.
Photo: Imangi Studios
But if the difference is truly massive, you can still resort to buying the site. If you don’t want that, sometimes changing your runners’ positions can turn the tables around.
Placement
After considering the obstacles ahead and picking your characters, do not forget to place your runners in the right order.
Choose your first and second runners based on what type of obstacles you will bump into in the initial part of the run. You should also note that the demon monkey chasing your team also has a character type.
Thus, the rear runner must match the menace’s attribute to protect the guys in front until they reach the finish line.
Photo: Imangi Studios
Operating Sites
After seizing a site, it will start generating gold coins. To improve your income, tap on the building and select the Hire button.
You can hire one worker at a time or shift the slider beside the Hire button to employ as many as you can afford.
Manually amass the profits of one site by tapping on a big coin sack icon above buildings or obtain the earnings of all structures by clicking a smaller sack icon on the bottom right side of the screen.
Photo: Imangi Studios
Automating Production
Like the shafts in Gold and Goblins, the sites in Temple Run: Idle Explorers can be automated, so you can still produce even while away from the game.
Just tap on any structure, and click the plus button in the panel below. Choose any character whose attribute fits the site. After that, check below their image and see if automation is on.
Photo: Imangi Studios
Your assigned character must meet the level requirement first to activate automation. If they don’t, it’s time for an upgrade.
Upgrading Runners
Leveling up runners will not only enable automation; it will also multiply their coin output and boost stamina.
Tap on the Runners panel next to the Expedition icon at the bottom. There, you will see different methods of enhancing and managing characters.
Level Up
In the Runners panel, select the hero of your choice. Then, you will see an option to level up. It will require scrolls, which can be acquired in different ways.
Photo: Imangi Studios
Some tasks will reward you with scrolls. You can also get some from floating treasure chests that will randomly appear. However, the most reliable way to gather scrolls is through Challenges, which will be discussed later.
Tier Up
There is a limit to how much a runner can level up. It is determined by their rarity and star tier. You can’t change a character’s rarity, but you can improve their star tier with tokens.
Photo: Imangi Studios
Tokens are character fragments that can be obtained from treasure chests. Apart from progressing through the star tier, tokens can be exchanged later to get better runners.
Token Exchange
As you advance in the game, you will unlock the Exchange feature in the Runners section. Here, you can pick at least five tokens of a lesser rarity to exchange for one fragment of a superior character.
Photo: Imangi Studios
In case you’re wondering, the order of rarity in Temple Run: Idle Explorers is common, rare, epic, and legendary.
Collections
This subsection actually comes before the token exchange. It’s the second option in the Runners panel, and it shows you all the characters you have collected and how many of them have reached a certain star tier.
Photo: Imangi Studios
Getting various runners to a specific tier will let you activate a bonus for the coffee coin multiplier present in every expedition.
Challenges
The other icon next to the Expedition button lets you access challenges. These are just like runs but with a twist.
Each level has a different twist. It could be that you can only play with three runners, or you can’t choose a character type. These may not be as challenging as Lara Croft: Relic Run, but they are challenges nonetheless.
Photo: Imangi Studios
Unlike normal site runs, challenges are ranked with stars, rewarding you with scrolls. Moreover, the Run Challenges feature comes with an idle scroll generator. The more stars you rack up, the more scrolls you will receive per hour.
Dungeon
The Dungeon of Temple Run: Idle Explorers is in the same section as the challenges. Its levels are called rooms, and you have to complete 20 of them before the Dungeon resets every 24 hours.
There’s another catch. Your runners’ stamina won’t recover after runs, and dead characters can’t be reused until the clock refreshes. Fortunately, there are power-ups after every room, and some of them are for healing.
Completing a room will reward you with dungeon coins that can be exchanged for scrolls or tokens in the dungeon shop.
Photo: Imangi Studios
Events
Temple Run: Idle Explorers has no shortage of limited-time events, which is perhaps the best thing to come out of the latest updates. Each event has a different title and theme, but the rules are generally the same as the main game.
You have to finish a map with a number of expeditions by executing all the tasks in each stage. However, you can only level up, tier up, and exchange tokens in the Runners panel.
Events can be accessed via the top icon on the right side of the screen.
Photo: Imangi Studios
Side Quests
Side quests are another thing that got better since the game was first released. They are now more tied to the main narrative. The first quest comes as no surprise. It’s Clifton revealing his true intentions of devouring the world as a demon monkey.
Photo: Imangi Studios
The story progresses from there, requiring you to pick up various items as side quests. You can find them in treasure chests after completing tasks.
Quests don’t necessarily add or take away anything from the idle gameplay. But it lets you take a closer look into the world and lore of Temple Run.
Tips and Tricks
TR Idle offers a lot to keep you entertained. We’ve talked about the basics, so let’s move on to some tips that will further add to your experience.
Have One High-Level Runner of Each Type
Similar to Hype City, automating sites in this game is critical for stacking up coins and, most importantly, finishing tasks. However, excavation sites can only accommodate one character class.
Photo: Imangi Studios
If you don’t want to get stuck on a task, you should have at least one high-level runner of each type. And don’t just upgrade any character. Choose those that can give you more value. This brings us to the next tip.
Use Higher Rarity Characters
While common characters are easier to come by, don’t go around spending all your scrolls on inferior runners. The scroll cost of a level one common character and a level one epic hero are the same, but their stamina and coin multiplier are not.
Spend your scrolls wisely. By doing so, you can also save up common tokens to exchange for better ones later. This logic can be applied to events as well.
Exploit the Token Exchange in Events
You can rush events by focusing on exchanging runner tokens. Unlike in the main game, events let you trade for legendary tokens from the start, so aim for that.
Prioritize earning chests because that’s where character tokens are. It doesn’t matter what rarity you get. Just swap lesser fragments to eventually obtain first-rate characters.
Photo: Imangi Studios
Don’t Leave without an Automated Site
It’s easy to automate all sites in the initial expeditions. But as you get to higher levels, this task becomes more and more difficult.
Do not leave the game without at least one automated site. This ensures you’ll have heaps of coins in the vault when you return. This tip is easier to apply if you implement the previously mentioned suggestions.
Have Healing Power-ups in the Dungeon
After getting over a room in the Dungeon, you have to choose between three power-ups. Pick the one that heals all runners after the run finishes if it’s among the choices.
Photo: Imangi Studios
Your team’s stamina won’t be restored after each stage, so this is an efficient alternative. If the same power-up reappears, choose it again to heighten its effects. With this, you eventually won’t have to worry about stamina recovery.
Use Runners with Protection Skills
The thing that makes a character’s ability different from others is mostly their way of activating. However, skills typically fall under three categories: warning, cheering, and protecting.
Photo: Imangi Studios
Each has its own perks, but a runner with protection skills, especially if it affects the entire running team, can save you a great deal of trouble.
Final Words
Imangi Studios took a very different direction with Temple Run: Idle Explorers. The game is set in the same universe as the original Temple Run, but its gameplay is entirely different. Still, it’s a must-try for fans of the idle genre.
