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TIGSource ForumsCommunityJams & EventsCompetitionsOld CompetitionsGAMMA (Moderator: fish)Standard Bits
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Golds
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« on: December 03, 2007, 01:03:16 AM »



Download Gamma 256 build

CONTROLS
--------
Cursor Keys or analog joystick

Alt-Enter toggles display modes between maximized, full-screen, and windowed.




More Images

ABOUT
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Standard Bits is an abstract exploration game in an ultra-low resolution field.  The main character is a single pixel, and the left analog joystick is your only control in an environment populated with entities that actively seek to attack you, as well as creatures that follow and protect you.   You may also encounter ambivalent hazards and innocuous inhabitants going about their own pixellated business.  Based on your interaction with the world, you can create complex behavior through simple input.

Pass over the white boxes to change your starting point if you are destroyed.

The name comes from StdBits(), which was the low-level pixel blitter in classic Mac OS.

----

Let me just add that Gamma 256 was awesome.  It was great getting to meet and hang out with Ivan, Brandon, Fish, Guert, Steve, Matt, and everyone else!  Ivan (Toastie) has some pretty epic photos up on flickr.  And I will never forget the hours of Amtrak Mount&Blade BMcC, Toastie, and I shared as the Hudson passed by -- "I will drink from your skull!".







« Last Edit: October 20, 2019, 12:54:08 PM by Golds » Logged

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« Reply #1 on: December 03, 2007, 01:23:32 AM »

Lovely stuff. Really enjoyed it. Never thought I could have so much fun with a dot.
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Ivan
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alright, let's see what we can see


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« Reply #2 on: December 03, 2007, 01:44:32 AM »

Dude, is that women playing your game? Because I think it's women playing your game.
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Golds
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« Reply #3 on: December 03, 2007, 01:50:15 AM »

Dude, is that women playing your game? Because I think it's women playing your game.

Haha
« Last Edit: December 03, 2007, 01:56:08 AM by Golds » Logged

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« Reply #4 on: December 03, 2007, 07:37:14 AM »

women just love to play with mark's bits.
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« Reply #5 on: December 03, 2007, 12:07:12 PM »

women just love to play with mark's bits.

Good thing it's standard bits, not some incompatible bits he got going. Wink
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Golds
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« Reply #6 on: December 03, 2007, 01:00:30 PM »

I've written up some reflections on gamma and blip, if anyone would like to read: http://doomlaser.com/trekking-across-the-northeast-for-gamma-256-and-blip

Featuring of course some of Ivan's photos, and the TIGS crew shot above.   

Ha, and Heather announced the title to the MIGS crowd as STD Bits..  If that's what I was going for I would have gone with the much catchier VDBits Wink
« Last Edit: December 04, 2007, 02:07:22 AM by Golds » Logged

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« Reply #7 on: December 04, 2007, 09:16:46 PM »

I love this game. Muchfold. <3
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« Reply #8 on: December 07, 2007, 09:28:18 PM »

This is a very nice little game, with a lot of depth and originality. The way the various rooms are connected seems pretty illogical, but whatever. I love the environment interaction. The game as a whole is rather aimless, but I like that; there's no pressure.
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« Reply #9 on: February 16, 2008, 06:18:37 AM »

Ha, and Heather announced the title to the MIGS crowd as STD Bits.. 

Oops!  I thought it was like a pun.
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cactus
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« Reply #10 on: March 01, 2008, 06:23:00 AM »

Amazing game. The style is just so awesome. I wish I had made this. If the music would've looped I could have played it for hours Kiss
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Golds
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« Reply #11 on: June 22, 2014, 02:45:41 PM »

Just a quick update: Music Loops now, & if you'd like to play this game on a Mac, well, now you can:

http://doomlaser.com/mac-ports-for-standard-bits-shit-game/
« Last Edit: November 02, 2023, 11:19:04 PM by Golds » Logged

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Golds
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« Reply #12 on: April 28, 2018, 03:06:47 PM »


now available on itch.io: https://doomlaser.itch.io/standardbits  Gomez
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Golds
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« Reply #13 on: June 17, 2019, 10:39:24 AM »

I found a very nice contemporaneous review of the game from gamma in spanish which made me smile.

Quote
Standard Bits by Mark Johns, another exponent of the Gamma 256 competition, presents a somewhat more traditional experience. The player takes the reins of a small dot on the screen and must maneuver it along several terrains with abstract shapes: varicolored rectangles, deadly projectiles, breathable fabrics and implausible architectures. In the case of Johns, the technical limits inspired a redefinition of the foundations of video games, a sort of evolution of the old Pong, but with a certain artistic ambition: each sector is a small work of art in pixels, with colors, rhythms and patterns of movement, a mad techno machine.

Rohrer and Johns did not disguise the graphic poverty of their games, but used it to achieve their visual objectives. Standard Bits explodes all pretense of having a plot to present its symphony of pure geometry dancing in space.

-Guido Pellegrini
Gomez

Also, Jonathan Blow gave the game a nice shoutout in this piece, talking about Adventure in his blog

Quote

1. Adventure

by Warren Robinett, Atari VCS, 1979


Just about anyone who owned an Atari VCS played this game, and there were a lot of VCSs out there. Like all home games of that time, Adventure had to be pretty minimal (the VCS only had 128 bytes of RAM!) Adventure put the player into the role of a knight searching for the Holy Grail (err, the “gold chalice”) which he must return to the Gold Castle. Depending on the difficulty level, the world would change between 3 different layouts; items would be scattered around somewhat randomly so that you didn’t quite know where to go and what to do.

Something about the minimal graphics and game design helped Adventure flourish as a mini-system. As a player, I cared about the map of the world, small as it was. I wanted to experiment with the various objects. The gameplay was about searching and exploration in a very focused way. Many games were influenced by Adventure, but it seems that with all our modern riches our ability to create that simple kind of joy has mostly atrophied. (In, say, Fable 2 the world is very lushly rendered but I don’t care what’s in it because it somehow doesn’t matter; I barely see what’s being drawn on the screen as I fight guys or run on my way to the next waypoint.)

Recently I did get some of that old-style exploration-based feeling of joy from a couple of games: Mark Johns’ stdbits and Sean Barrett’s Lost in the Static.

That's cool! Many people brought up Adventure on the Atari after playing the game, but I had never heard of nor seen it until after showing the game at Gamma.`


+ now also available on GameJolt: https://gamejolt.com/games/standardbits/408249
« Last Edit: October 20, 2019, 12:52:23 PM by Golds » Logged

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Golds
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« Reply #14 on: November 22, 2020, 03:06:33 PM »





Cool deep dive on Standard Bits from RockLeeSmile

https://doomlaser.itch.io/standardbits
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