Indie Review: Bit Trip Runner

[Occulus]

What if you played Pitfall on acid? Play Bit.Trip Runner and find out


One of Bit.Trip Runner's bonus levels, accessed by getting all the gold bars in any given level

Bit.Trip Runner, created by Gaijin Games, inc., is one of the latest in a steady golden stream of retro games infesting- one might say, showering down upon- the glitzy 3D Visual Setpiece video game market at the moment. All these games are just great (I'm totally addicted to Pac-Man Championship Edition DX, for example, and I don't even own a PS3) and I'm really glad they're on the market, but this one takes the cake. From the makers of Bit.Trip Beat, Bit.Trip Runner is a fun mishmash of Super Mario Bros., Pitfall, and a couple other platformers.

The retro graphics are certainly not novel. Many games today- most of them being created by independent developers- contain graphics throwbacks to a bygone era that invoke a certain fond nostalgia among older gamers; certainly games like the PS3 Pac-Man game mentioned above, VVVVVV, and others have the look of early games, but play in a modern way (VVVVVV is just silly difficult, and I wish it could have been made for the C-64 back in the day; it would have been a huge hit).


AAaaaahhh, pixels.

What is novel about Bit-Trip Runner is the gameplay. It's one of those forced-scrolling games, wherein the screen constantly moves, you can't stop it, and hitting something you shouldn't "kills" you; in the case of Runner, your character goes back to the very beginning of the level and you have to do it all again. All the jumps and slides and other abilities are timed exactly to the beat of the game's music, though; if you have experience with an instrument (especially percussion) you'll have an edge in playing, but that's not necessary to play well. The music, by the way, is great. It's exactly the sort of soundtrack a game like this one should have, it's well-written, and really sets the tone for the game.

With all the jumps a set height no matter how long you hold the jump button, your only defense is to time your jumps. Well, okay- but this game scrolls quickly. Moreover, there are a lot of very interesting visual things going on both in your path and in the background; they all fly by so fast that it's very easy to be distracted (which is sort of the point, I suppose). Timing what you do is very important, to the level of being a good measure for whether or not you should drive yourself home after the party. Being even the slightest fraction of a second off your jump means the difference between getting the last gold bar in the level, and playing the whole thing over again by way of punishment for your miserable failure.

Bit.Trip Runner is available on Steam and is as of this writing a deceptive $10. It's fun, it's challenging, and for about the price of a burger, fries, and a shake, Bit.Trip Runner is nothing to sneeze at.