[Review] BIT.Trip Runner

[Cyber Rat]

Maturity and invoking an emotional response out of the player is something games rarely manage to achieve. I do not know who to blame for this: the publishers, the developers or the lack of any sufficient empathy in gamers? I have seen games try too hard (Heavy Rain) and games not try enough (any gorefest with a space marine in "that time of the month"). And where do we find maturity with a deep story and fun gameplay? An indie platformer.

 

Commander's life as a toddler. An "alien" world not yet explored. Notice the twisted perception of a human face to the right.

 

BIT.Trip Runner shows us the life of the Commander, from his birth to his possible death. The Commander lost his whole squad in the Vietnam war and is now haunted by the trauma of death and survivor's guilt in flashbacks that occur after each level if you meet the requirements. Our "hero" now finds escape in hallucinogens as he reviews his whole life and decides what his next (or final) step will be.

 

The colourful childhood with the Commander's family in the background watching over him (or possibly judging him).

 

The game is set in four periods of the Commander's life. His birth, gray, alien and empty; his childhood, colourful, energetic, but overlooked by his ever-judging parents; Vietnam, blurry flashbacks set after each "memory" of his life as bonus levels and the Present, where the Commander roams the cold city coping with the loss of his squad and questioning his own life.

 

One of many flashbacks from the war.

 

The gameplay is pretty simple. You jump and slide to avoid hazards while collecting gold and drugs. Whenever you take a drug, you get to the next "TRIP" level. Whenever you avoid a hazard, the game plays a tune which contributes to the background track, becoming more vivid as your TRIP level increases. The only way to actually end the game is the last step where you decide whether the Commander goes on living or jumps down to end it all.

 

The rooftops: the final stage. Commander questions whether every jump should be his last, but the memory of his brothers-in-arms (in this case the "giant robot" with the bounce-pad on his head) gives him the strength to make another push forward.

 

The whole story is told with zero dialogue and relies on symbolism to tell you its tale. The top layer of the narrative tries to mask its true meaning with vivid colours and happy tunes, but the moment you see behind it, you realize it's one of the most inspiring tales in gaming recently.

 

This post has been promoted to an article

[Mercurial]

Lolwut.

Oh right literary section...bit of a stretch there though.