Bit.Trip Beat, marketed as BIT.TRIP BEAT, is an arcade-style music video game developed by Gaijin Games and published by Aksys Games for the Wii's WiiWare download service. It was released in 2009 in North America, and released in Japan and PAL regions in the same year. It was later released for the Windows and Mac OS X through the download service Steam in 2010, while Namco Bandai published it for iOS on iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad in both Bit.Trip Beat and Bit.Trip Beat HD versions. Android and Linux versions debuted in the Humble Android Bundle 3.
The WiiWare version is controlled by tilting the Wii Remote while holding it on its side. Players are placed in control of a paddle on the left side of the screen which, much like Pong, is tasked with deflecting squares that are coming from the right side. Each successful hit creates a sound effect that contributes to the background music, which was composed by an anonymous composer at Petrified Productions. A soundtrack was eventually released for the game's music, including some songs by micromusican Bit Shifter who composed the Title Screen and Credits music.
Since its release, Bit.Trip Beat received generally positive reception, holding an 80 and 80.15% from Metacritic and GameRankings, respectively. Wired named it the fifth best Wii game of 2009, while IGN named it the eighth best WiiWare game. The most common praise for it was what multiple reviewers describe as addictive gameplay, stylish visuals, and a great soundtrack. However, certain reviewers criticized its short game length and high level of difficulty. It has spawned five sequels since, including Bit.Trip Core, Bit.Trip Void, Bit.Trip Runner, Bit.Trip Fate, and Bit.Trip Flux; with the exception of Flux, which plays as a reversed version of Beat, each game has a unique gameplay style to the last.
Gameplay
Bit.Trip Beat puts players in control of a paddle that reflects differently sized and coloured beats, similar to Pong, as they come from the right side of the screen toward the left. It is controlled by holding the Wii Remote sideways and tilting it toward and away from the player to make the paddle go up and down. Gameplay takes place in one of three different phases: Transition, Descent, and Growth, with each phase more difficult than the last. Before each phase a cutscene of the character Commander Video is shown. Phases are split into several parts, with each part ending with multiple rainbow-coloured beats. At the end of each phase is a boss. Either through getting a game over or beating the phase, players will then have their final scores tallied.
When the beats collide with the paddle, they make a noise, contributing to the background music. Each successful deflection earns players a set score. Beats may also move in strange patterns, such as beats that bounce back after being deflected or beats that pause for a moment. If the paddle misses a beat, it will deplete a meter on the lower screen slightly; if the meter is completely depleted, the background will change to black and the beats and paddle white. If the meter depletes again, players will lose and have to start the phase over. In order to get out of this, players must fill up a meter at the top of the screen before the lower meter empties again, bringing them to normal. If players fill it up again, it will bring them into a new style, where the music, graphics, and sound effects are changed, with the score per each successful deflection doubled. Each time the meter is filled up at this point, the score multiplier increases.
Special beats will, if hit, modify players' paddle temporarily in some way; some will make the paddle tiny, rewarding players for meeting a threshold of beats hit while in this form, or doubling paddles to prepare players for a sequence of beats that cannot be hit without two paddles. If the lower meter empties on this screen, players will return to the normal mode. Bit.Trip Beat also features a multi-player mode, allowing anywhere from two to four players to play cooperatively, all paddles working together to deflect the beats. The four player mode modifies the paddles to make them smaller to prevent the game from becoming too easy.
The iOS release of Bit.Trip Beat has several new features. This includes leaderboards, downloadable levels based on other titles in the Bit.Trip series, achievements, and the ability to either use the built-in accelerometer or the iOS series' touch screens. Its multi-player mode allows for both off and online multi-player. Similar to the iOS version, the Windows and Mac OS X versions feature leaderboards and achievements. This version adds an easy mode and the ability to post high score data to either Facebook or Twitter.
Story The first cutscene in BIT.TRIP BEAT introduces us to Commander Video, the protagonist of the BIT.TRIP series. He is seen coming to life after absorbing some colorful pixels known as "beats." The first level, TRANSITION, begins next to a giant, pulsing blue planet. A meteor emerges from the planet, travels across the vast emptiness of space, and eventually enters another planet. The second level, DESCENT, begins here. DESCENT is a roller coaster ride down into the lava-filled depths of the world, ending with the camera diving down into the lava to finish the stage.
As all this is happening in the background, the player is bouncing beats (the game's form of Pong balls) off of a paddle in a Pong-style rhythm game. The gameplay flows in perfect timing to the beat of the music- the player (and Commander Video) both rely on the music and help create it.
The backgrounds can be interpreted in 2 different ways; Commander Video's soul has emerged from the Ether and transitioning from the ethereal world to the physical world, or Commander Video's conception, with the journey from the blue planet to the lava-filled depths of the other planet representing the sperm's journey to the egg.
The third level, GROWTH, is a bit easier to understand. In the background, a brain is slowly coming together. About halfway through the level, after developing a pair of eyes, it begins to fly around and look at all sorts of Earthly objects: houses, trees, owls, pyramids, trains, and more. This is Commander Video entering the physical world and perceiving reality for the first time.
After the credits in BEAT, Commander Video is in complete darkness. He sees a light-filled room in the distance with other Commander Videos in it. He approaches the room, is overcome by light, and declares, "I AM ONLY A MAN!". Commander Video is born.
Development and release
Bit.Trip Beat was developed by Gaijin Games and initially published by Aksys Games. It was designed by Alex Neuse, its art by Mike Roush, and its programming by Chris Osborn. Their publishing agreement with Aksys was formed due to Neuse's personal relationship with its president, Akibo Shieh, with whom the two of them had wanted to work on a game together before. Despite the amicable relationship with Aksys, the budget and development time were less than they would have wanted, though they put up with it due to their good relationship and the challenge of developing with those limits. Because of being only three people, the developers had to do more than what they normally would have to. Before its reveal, Gaijin released a teaser on IGN. Its title was originally 8-Bit Beat, though this was changed to Bit.Trip Beat. Early on, the developers could only afford one development kit, causing them to have to interrupt each other's work to use it. One of the first ideas made for the game was to give it an Atari 2600 art style.
It was initially proposed as "Pong with music". While described as being "not a big selling point" by Roush, the enthusiasm given off by Neuse convinced him to stay and work with him on it. Roush attributes the development of Bit.Trip Beat on WiiWare over competing services Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network due to both coming off from the development of a Nintendo DS game before it and Neuse's Nintendo fanboyism. Its development time spanned three and a half months. He explains that it was easier to switch from the DS to Wii than it would be to switch to an entirely different company's platform. Neuse noted music video game Rez for inspiring Beat, calling it one of his favourite games of all time. The developers designed its controls with the intent of hearkening back to the era of "spinner controls" traditionally used in paddle games. Initially, they used several different kinds of controls, including having players control it with the d-pad, the analog stick, and by pointing the Wii Remote at the screen. However, they eventually settled on holding the controller sideways and tilting it. Boss battles were added near the end of development; while Neuse did not want to feature them despite his love for the video game trope, he felt that the game could benefit from them. However, due to the short time spent creating them, he finds them to feel rushed, even though they add to the game. Neuse explains that, while wanting the game to remain open to interpretation, Beat shows CommanderVideo's journey from the ethereal to the corporeal, ending with CommanderVideo becoming aware of himself and saying "I am only a man."
Near the end of development, the developers realized that they had mistakenly forgotten to localize the game, including error messages, such as those telling if save data has been corrupted. As such, they believe that they diminished its accessibility in other regions as a result. A bug, interpreted to be intentional, prevented the game from saving unless players achieve a high score. This only affected the North American version, as the other versions came out after it was fixed. A traditional patch was not easily accomplished on the WiiWare service, which Game Set Watch speculates drove them to their method of fixing it, which included putting up two save files that included high scores for the first two levels, thereby unlocking the third level.
Audio Originally, the audio was intended to be entirely chiptune; however, they realized that they should make the music more appealing to more people, making them change the style to simply chiptune-inspired. They outsourced the music to noted micromusician Bit Shifter. Bit.Shifter used Atari 2600 and Nintendo Entertainment System samples to compose the songs. Gaijin Games released the soundtrack for Bit.Trip Beat, which contains ten songs. While given a limited release initially, it was eventually given wide release on services such as Amazon MP3, iTunes, eMusic, and others.
Promotion and release It was published by Aksys Games for the WiiWare on March 16, 2009, in North America and May 1, 2009, in PAL regions. Arc System Works published it in Japan on April 28, 2009. It was released for iOS in North America on September 30, 2010, where it was published by Namco Bandai. The iOS release was accompanied by an HD version of it for the same platform. Aksys also published it for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X through the Steam service on November 2, 2010, in North America. Because they had no money for marketing, they launched a viral marketing campaign, which consisted of the above-mentioned teaser video, screenshots, and a CommanderVideo web site, all of which were well-received; however, according to Neuse, the hype for the game died down too far before the game's release, which he feels hurt its sales potential. While a release for the Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation 3's PlayStation Network has been mentioned as possible in the future by the creators, they noted that it was difficult to accomplish.