Bit.Trip

Reminiscent of the classic video game Pong, Bit.Trip Beat (2009) involves players moving an onscreen paddle in order to bounce off waves of incoming blocks to the beat of the music. As the player progresses through the game, the patterns of blocks become increasingly complex, but players can judge how well they are doing through changes in the graphics and music.[4] The game is played by tilting the Wii Remote to move the paddle, via stylus or circle pad on the 3DS, via touch on iOS devices, or via keyboard or mouse on PC. Bit.Trip Beat also features up to 4-player cooperative multiplayer.[4]

In October 2009, Gaijin Games released the soundtrack to Bit.Trip Beat as a digital download, first on CDBaby and then on other major music stores. The soundtrack features over 19 minutes of chiptunes from the game.

On November 3, 2010, Bit.Trip Beat was released on the Steam platform for Windows and Mac.

The second game in the series, Bit.Trip Core (2009), continues the rhythm based gameplay of the series. The gameplay involves players taking control of a plus shape in the middle of the screen that can fire a laser beam in only four directions (up, down, left and right), with the objective being to destroy patterns of blocks that zoom across the screen. As with the first game, as the player progresses through the game the patterns of blocks become increasingly complex, with changes in the graphics and music occurring based on how well they play.[5]

In March 2010, Gaijin Games released the soundtrack to Bit.Trip Core as a digital download, first on CDBaby, and iTunes, then other major music stores. Despite featuring the same proportion of levels as Bit.Trip Beat, Core's soundtrack is substantially smaller, with less than 15 minutes of music.

Released in late 2009, Bit.Trip Void puts players in control of the "void", a black, pixelated circle, which players move around the screen with 8-directional control. The objective of the game is to grow the void by collecting black squares that appear, while also dodging white squares that reset the size of the void and cause the player to lose points. The size of the void can also be reset by the player without incurring point losses, which is often needed as the void grows to sizes making it difficult and/or impossible to dodge the white squares. Void features music by guest composer Nullsleep, and its levels are named after Sigmund Freud's three parts of the human psyche.

The soundtrack to Bit.Trip Void was announced on May, 2010, and is now available on CDBaby, as well as through iTunes and Amazon.

Bit.Trip Runner (2010) is the fourth installment of the Bit.Trip series. Runner features over 50 levels. The gameplay involves players controlling Commander Video and making him jump, slide, kick, and more through various obstacles in his path. The special guest band Anamanaguchi provides menu and credits music. Though it has over 50 levels, called Challenges, breaking the 3 level norm of the last games, these levels are divided evenly amongst 3 zones, called Levels, which each have their own distinct background and musical feel; each level houses twelve challenges, including a boss challenge. For every challenge (except boss challenges) there is a retro challenge awarded should the player collect all gold bars in the normal level. Each retro challenge is harder than the normal challenge and usually has more gold bars. The perfect completion of a retro challenge will award players with an exclamation point beside the stage and the word "PERFECT" beside the score in the scoreboard, but only if they have done everything "extra" (e.g., jumping on top of springboards that they do not need to in order to finish) in the challenge beforehand. Bit.Trip Runner won the 2011 Independent Games Festival (IGF) Excellence in Visual Arts award.[6]

On February 28, 2011 Bit.Trip Runner was released on the Steam platform for Windows and Mac.

Bit.Trip Fate (2010) is the fifth installment of the series. It is a rhythm rail shooter, or shmup. It was formally announced on September the 4th, at the Penny Arcade Expo, in the Destructoid LIVE booth. It was released on WiiWare on October 25, 2010.

The game sees Commander Video travelling across a set path, able to move anywhere along this path and shoot in any direction. By defeating enemies and collecting the items they drop, Commander Video can enhance his state, though it will drop if he is hit. Along the way, he can run into allies which temporarily give him special weapons. Among these characters are CommandGirl Video and Junior Melchkin from previous BIT.TRIP games, as well as cameo appearances by Super Meat Boy and Mr. Robotube, who are characters from other independent video games.

It is the first video game to prominently feature dubstep music.

Bit.Trip Flux (2011), the sixth game in the main series, returns to the gameplay of Bit.Trip Beat while combining elements from the other five games in the series, such as beats the player's paddle must avoid. As with the other games, changes in the graphics and music of the title reflect how well the player is doing, though there are multiple checkpoints in each level, unlike in Beat. Similar to Beat, Bit.Trip Flux also features two-player cooperative multiplayer.[7]

Bit.Trip Presents Runner2 (2013) is a spin-off and spiritual successor to Bit.Trip Runner. While having the same main character and play style, the game is only a non-canon side story in between Runner and Fate. This is the first game in the series to be released for Wii U, PS3 and Xbox 360. Unlike the previous Bit.Trip games, it is not 8 bit themed.

Runner3 is a rhythm platform game developed by Choice Provisions. A sequel to Bit.Trip Presents... Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien, Runner3 is part of the Bit.Trip series, starring the character CommanderVideo. The game was released on May 22, 2018 on Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Nintendo Switch, and it released for PlayStation 4 in November 2018, Xbox One will release later.

The entire WiiWare Bit.Trip series was released for the Nintendo 3DS and Wii in collections respectively titled Bit.Trip Saga and Bit.Trip Complete respectively on September 13, 2011 in North America and March 16, 2012 in Europe. The 3DS version of the game features new control schemes (for instance, stylus control via the touchscreen for Beat and Flux) while the Wii version has 20 extra "challenge levels" for each game, as well as bonus content related to the production of the games. Both compilations also included a CD soundtrack called "Bit.Trip Soundtrack Sampler" featuring a number of tracks from each of the individual games. The soundtrack comes with every copy of Bit.Trip Complete, and was available as a pre-order bonus when purchasing Bit.Trip Saga from GameStop.

A compilation of the first six games (up to Flux) for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita. This collection was announced at the 2015 PlayStation Experience and was released later that day, December 5, 2015. This compilation added achievements, and retained the difficulty levels from Complete.