You’re perched on a ledge, thirty stories high, eyeing a gap that looks way too wide to clear. The wind howls, synth beats pump in your ears, and you know you only get one shot. You sprint, wall-run, spin into a 720 Kong vault, dive-roll, then stick the landing like it was nothing. Welcome to Rooftops & Alleys: The Parkour Game, a high-flying urban freestyle experience where your only opponent is gravity.
Released on June 16, 2025, and developed by solo creator MLMEDIA (with publishing support from Radical Theory and Shine Group), Rooftops & Alleys isn’t just a love letter to parkour—it’s an all-out mixtape. Think Mirror’s Edge meets Tony Hawk’s Underground, except instead of rails and half-pipes, you’ve got AC units, billboards, ledges, and faith in your legs.
This Isn’t About Missions. It’s About Movement.
Forget about stories, missions, or saving the world. This game isn’t here to distract you with cutscenes or voiceovers. It’s here to say: here’s a playground. Climb it. Break it. Master it.
The game drops you into massive, vertical urban maps built for speed, flow, and finesse. Alone or with up to three friends, you’re given total freedom to explore every rooftop, alley, and secret corner. There are challenges—time trials, trick chains, tag modes—but nothing pulls you out of the momentum loop. You choose your route, your style, your pace.
If you played early demos, you might already know the feel: fluid movement built on precision inputs. Sprinting, wall-running, vaulting, and flipping are your verbs. There’s a trick system here that rewards creativity, not just execution. The goal isn’t to survive. It’s to move beautifully.
And yes, there’s a pigeon. More on that later.
A Movement System Worth Obsessing Over
The core parkour mechanics are the heart of the game, and they’re incredible. Every movement is physics-based. You feel the weight of your momentum, the angle of your vault, the slippage of a mis-timed wall run. The difference between a clean flip and a faceplant can be milliseconds, but when you stick it? Pure dopamine.
Controls are responsive but have a learning curve. You won’t be chaining parkour lines right out the gate. But give it an hour and it starts clicking. Soon, you’ll be making your own lines across rooftops like it’s second nature.
There’s even a dedicated “ragdoll” bail-out button, and it never gets old watching your character tumble off a roof when you miss a grab. The realism is tuned just right: exaggerated for fun, grounded enough to feel tactile.
Solo, Squad, or Chaos Mode
In single-player, the experience is chill and exploratory. You’re dropped into environments that beg to be dissected. Use your pigeon (yes, pigeon) to scout locations and mark pins. The bird also serves as your fast-travel buddy. Strange, but weirdly charming.
Multiplayer, though, is where the game opens up. Up to four players can join sessions to free-roam, race in time trials, or battle it out in competitive modes:
- TAG: One player chases, the rest run. It gets chaotic fast.
- Capture the Flag: Now imagine CTF where the only rule is: no ground allowed.
- Trick Battles: Who can pull off the wildest, most stylish sequence in a set zone?
It’s not just parkour for parkour’s sake. It’s a full-on social flow arena.
Looks, Vibes, and Visual Identity
Visually, Rooftops & Alleys doesn’t aim for hyperrealism. Instead, it embraces bold, stylized design. Neon signs, glossy metal surfaces, graffiti-tagged rooftops—it all looks like the dreamscape of an adrenaline junkie YouTuber.
Time of day and dynamic weather help shake things up, and when the rain pours as you slide across slick rooftops during a thunderstorm, it’s downright cinematic.
The music? An original mix of lo-fi electronica, synth-funk, and ambient beats that make the perfect backdrop for urban gymnastics. Think Nujabes meets a Red Bull commercial.
The Good, the Great, and the Gravity-Defying
✅ What Works
- Movement Mastery: Deep, satisfying, skill-based control system
- Multiplayer Modes: Surprisingly robust for an indie title
- Customization: Over 100 options to trick out your runner (and pigeon)
- Freedom to Roam: True sandbox gameplay with no walls and no hand-holding
- Vibe: Soundtrack, atmosphere, and pacing all align beautifully
❌ What Needs Work
- Learning Curve: Beginners might bounce off before it clicks
- No Story or Campaign: It’s not trying to tell a narrative
- Some Technical Roughness: Occasional animation bugs and hiccups
- Repetition Risk: Without mission variety, gameplay can feel samey in long sessions
Should You Play It?
Absolutely—if you like to move. If you’re the kind of player who spent more time freerunning in Assassin’s Creed than doing missions, this is your game. If you loved Skate or Tony Hawk and always wanted a parkour version? This is that.
But if you’re looking for a story-driven experience, character development, or combat mechanics, Rooftops & Alleys won’t have what you want. It doesn’t try to be anything but a movement playground—and that’s its strength.
Should You Buy It?
If you’re the kind of player who replays time trials to shave milliseconds off your score, or who gets a thrill from discovering new routes no one else has thought of, this is an easy buy.
For casual players, it might be worth watching a few runs first. But once you see someone link a clean triple vault combo across three rooftops and into a 1080 twist off a billboard? You’ll probably be sold.
And with the dev promising continued updates and player-inspired tweaks, there’s reason to believe this movement sandbox will only get better.
Rooftops & Alleys: The Parkour Game: Rooftops & Alleys is what happens when a developer builds a game with a single mission: honor the joy of movement. It’s not trying to compete with AAA action titles or narrative-driven indies. It just wants you to feel free, fluid, and occasionally like a parkour god. And in that mission? It succeeds. – Obsidian