Bit.Trip Beat

Overview

Bit.Trip Beat is a rhythm-based game which is played similarly to Pong. You control a paddle on the left side of the screen and have it move up and down by holding the Wii remote sideways and tilting it forward and backward. As the game begins, a basic chiptune beat will start and pixel blocks, known as Beats, will fly from the right side of the screen toward the left. The goal is to repel each Beat, in doing so will cause a note to be played and repelling sequential Beats will play back music created from the notes. The game costs 600 Wii Points from the WiiWare service, and includes 3 different levels, TRANSITION, DESCENT and GROWTH, each lasting 15 or so minutes.

Gameplay

By repelling numerous Beats, you slowly fill up the Mega bar at the top of the screen. When filled, you go into Mega mode, where a huge score multiplier is added and the chiptune notes sound less retro-like. However, missing Beats will send you back to Hyper mode (which is lower than Mega and is the default state the gameplay is in). Miss more Beats while in Hyper mode and you will fill up the Nether meter at the bottom of the screen. When filled, you will enter Nether mode, where the screen becomes completely black and white, all the sound has been replaced with Pong-like sound effects coming from the Wiimote's speaker, and you do not score any points. If you repel enough Beats while in Nether mode, you will slowly fill up the top bar, which puts you back into Hyper mode. However, if you continue to miss Beats while in Nether mode, the bottom bar fills up and once it does, it's game over.

The game also supports up to four player co-op on the Wii, allowing 3 other players to jump in at any time during the game. Co-op is played just like the single player, where all players are on the left side working together. The game balances to the number of players on-screen by shrinking the players' paddles.

Subsequent Releases

At E3 2010, a mobile version of the game was announced. Gaijin teamed up with Namco Bandai to release the game on both the iPhone and iPad and was released on September 30th 2010. In addition, the game was made available on PC and Mac through Steam on November 3rd 2010.

It was also re-released as part of the Bit.Trip Saga compilation on the 3DS on September 13th, 2011.

PC System Requirements

Minimum:

• OS: Windows XP SP3
• Processor: 2.0+ GHz
• Memory: 512 MB
• Graphics: OpenGL 2.1 and shader model 3 with 128 MB of memory
• DirectX®: DirectX® 9.0c
• Hard Drive: 100 MB
• Sound: Any sound card capable of stereo output

Mac System Requirements

Minimum:

• OS: OS X version Snow Leopard 10.6.3, or later.
• Processor: 2.0+ GHz
• Memory: 512 MB
• Graphics: OpenGL 2.1 and shader model 3 with 128 MB of memory
• Hard Drive: 100 MB
• Sound: Any sound card capable of stereo output