ONE SHOT: BROWN BOX CREATOR BAER’S BIT.TRIP

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5.11.2009

Brandon Boyer

3 Replies

How confident is Odyssey/’ping-pong’/videogame grandfather Ralph Baer at his own game? When he recently took on ‘pong’s neo-retro WiiWare remake Bit.Trip:Beat, he did it (and quite well, by the looks of the screen) holding the controller upside down. [via GaiijnGames]

So what’s Bit.Trip: Core? A much less action-oriented and more dedicated rhythm game compared to the original Beat, but still no less of a low-bit audiovisual feast. Core loses all of its movement and keeps your control limited to a mid-screen cross hair, which can stretch laser lines in any of the four d-pad directions, used to fire at travelling pixels when they come into your range on musical cue.

More than anything else, what Core retains from Beat — and might probably rightly be called the bond that ties the series together (apart from the obvious graphic design and progression up and down from monochrome to hyper-color 3D — is the necessary tactic of unfocusing your eyes and taking in the screen as a whole.

At least with the first, and by the looks of this second, it’s a game of hoping your periphery is up to the task of tracking motion, rather than trying to stare down any single pixel, especially in later, more challenging sections, where they start to pump fake and feint.

GameSpot have two additional videos alongside the one above: see their coverage for more hands-on details.

Bit.Trip Core Hands-On [GameSpot]

CORE RUSH: GAIJIN TEASE NEXT WIIWARE BIT.TRIP GAME

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4.30.2009

Brandon Boyer

2 Replies

A low-bit rainbow-pixellated bird — the same one, obviously, as flew in to alert me to hidden envelopes being discovered around San Fransisco during GDC — has again dropped in with this new image, whispered something unintelligible about the next volume in Gaijin Games’ Bit.Trip series, touched a single wing-feather to the side of its beak, and flown off without a trace.

His appearance has reminded me, too, that I’ve still yet to make it through even the first challenge of the original Beat — so much for worries that the game would be all-show and no-play — though I did watch with no small amount of stupefied wonder as Flashbang’s Ben Ruiz quietly showed the rest of a small GDC party up by making his way through on his first attempt.

He remained stoic throughout: the only sign of weakness was a single bead of sweat slowly tracing a line down his forehead.

Bit.Trip: Beat [Aksys, Gaijin]

GDC09 TAKEN ON A BIT.TRIP

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3.24.2009

Brandon Boyer

3 Replies

A low-bit rainbow-pixellated bird has alerted me that the above envelopes may be making several hidden appearances stashed furtively around the Moscone Center Wednesday through Friday during GDC, and that retrieving one of the envelopes could net you a free download of Gaijin Games’ just-released WiiWare game Bit.Trip: Beat. I have no reason to doubt the bird on his word.

Win a free copy of BIT.TRIP BEAT! [Gaijin]

Previously:
Gaijin Games taking the Wii on a Bit.Trip – Offworld
Beat: My god, it's full of bits – Offworld
Beat connection: Gaijin send us on a second video Bit.Trip – Offworld
Bit.Trip: Beat prepped for March 16th WiiWare launch – Offworld

Gaijin Games’ downloadable WiiWare debut Bit.Trip: Beat has been one of my most anticipated games since its early January unveiling, and now it looks like the wait’s just days away from being over, as viral outlet ‘CommanderVideo’ broadcasts this new encoded missive:

USER:00COMMANDERVIDEO11 PASS:00************11 11 11MISSIONENGANGE1–BTB1–MARCHSIXTEENTH1–COMMANDERVIDEO11

My Wii-mote stands at the ready.

Bit.Trip: Beat [Aksys]

Previously:
Gaijin Games taking the Wii on a Bit.Trip – Offworld
Beat: My god, it's full of bits – Offworld
Beat connection: Gaijin send us on a second video Bit.Trip – Offworld

Games blog Joystiq got their hands on a new trailer for Gaijin Games’ upcoming WiiWare game Bit.Trip: Beat, and this one does a fantastic job of allaying any fears that the Beat would be a walk through the 4-bit park.

It also gives an even stronger sensation of how tightly integrated the music will be with the gameplay: the first used its dot-reflections as flourishes over the underlying melody, but this better conjures a feeling of making the music with skilled play.

Also, Gaijin, if you’re listening (and if you are, can you drop me a note via the upper right link?), this is a long shot, but I promise to gift the game to each and every one of my Wii-owning friends if you can manage to shoehorn in DS connectivity that lets me use Taito’s add-on paddle controller.

Bit.Trip: Beat Joystiq

Previously:
Beat: My god, it's full of bits – Offworld
Gaijin Games taking the Wii on a Bit.Trip – Offworld

Today’s biggest treat: following yesterday’s scraps on forthcoming WiiWare series Bit.Trip and its initial block bouncer Beat, publisher Aksys has lifted the veil and let loose full gameplay video, which is even more wonderful than I had imagined.

Less a tennis-for-two and perhaps a bit more Breakout 2600: The Musical (well, minus the actual block-smashing, and then filtered through Stephen Malinowski’s fantastic Music Animation Machine), Gaijin seem to have beat Taito at their own game and given us the Space Invaders Extreme-esque retro-futurist version of Arkanoid we’d hoped their DS port might be.

Even better, Aksys have uploaded Desention, the video clip’s phoned-home chiptune, as an mp3 [direct link]: every part of this Bit.Trip seems custom built specifically to tickle Offworld’s fancy.

BIT.TRIP BEAT [Aksys Games]

Previously:
Gaijin Games taking the Wii on a Bit.Trip – Offworld

Several weeks back this suitably ridiculous viral video made the rounds, along with speculation that it related to an announcement for a forthcoming Wii exclusive, and it seems Nintendo Power (via a spy-cam shot supplied to GoNintendo) has prematurely solved the riddle.

Upstart developer Gaijin Games, it turns out, has been quietly at work on the WiiWare’s answer to Q-Games’s PixelJunk series (or Skip/Nintendo’s own ArtStyle/bit Generations franchise): a set of six games under the “Bit.Trip” label, starting with Beat, a retro-futurist rhythm-based Pong-alike that you can catch a momentary glimpse of during the flickering montage above, or via Gaijin’s official CommanderVideo site.

Beat‘s twist, the magazine revealed, is its evolution based on how well you play: get yourself on a winning streak and the game responds with increasingly complex synced up color and sound, but falter and it returns to its original monochrome form.

The series is due for a release later this year, published by traditionally niche RPG house Aksys, and is a very welcome surprise for 2009’s WiiWare outlook.

Where’s the Cat? [Gaijin Games]