In Bit.Trip Runner, the latest addition to Gaijin’s ongoing series of retro-inspired rhythm games, Chris Osborn and and the rest of the crew at Gaijin Games have taken one of gaming’s most heavily-trafficked memes — jumping — and put it under a super-stylized microscope to focus on what gamers value most: Fun. There are no complicated rules to learn besides ‘jump over things, slide under other things.’ You don’t even need to move left or right. And yet, Runner, like its predecessors, manages to create an intoxicating sense of simple satisfaction that few modern games can lay claim to.
Follow the link to MOTHERBOARD, where I sat down with Chris in order to hone in on the magic behind Bit.Trip, and the nature (and future) of the 8-bit retro revival that inspires it.
