10 Years of Bit Kid
I’m not sure how this one snuck up on us, but I’m excited to announce that Bit Kid is officially 10 years old! The company was formed as Discord Games LLC 10 years ago this week for the release of Take Arms on the Xbox Live Indie Games store. My long-time friend Tim Dodd and I worked tirelessly on Take Arms during nights and weekends for two years, hoping that it would be our big break into making video games full-time. While those dreams didn’t quite pan out how we planned, it taught us a lot about making games and was a major achievement to be proud of.
We couldn’t have done it without the amazing community that sprung up around XNA, from all the tutorials and examples that were developed, to the XNA forums where someone was always willing to help, and of course the promotional events like the XBLIG Uprising organized by Dave Voyles and Kris Steele. It was a close knit community where you felt like everyone was rooting for you, and I can’t thank everyone enough for all their help and support throughout the years.
But, there is also a sadder side to this as well. Our two games before Chasm, Take Arms and 48 Chambers, were released exclusively on the Xbox 360 marketplace. Microsoft decided to take the store down a while back, meaning that it’s now impossible to experience the games as originally intended. I had tried to do PC ports back then, but XNA had less than stellar compatibility on PC and Monogame was still in its infancy. But, now we have the miracle of FNA (thanks Ethan Lee!), so I thought what better way to honor the games that got us started than to get them running again?
So, I present to you, two quick and free FNA/SDL2 ports that run on Windows, Mac, and Linux! Please be aware these are very basic ports – no fancy customizable controls, resolutions, etc. I may add more features to them in the future, but my goal for now was just to get them running on PCs so that they weren’t completely lost to time.
TAKE ARMS (2011)
Take Arms was our vision of how 2d gameplay could be modernized for the 21st century. Inspired by childhood classics like Contra while taking equal influence from more modern titles like the Battlefield series, it was designed to be an online multiplayer shooter for fans of 2d games. The overall game design was simple, but the technology needed pushed us to our limits. Not only did the game support online networked matches for up to 8 players, but Tim designed a full-on skeletal animation system and editor to animate the soldiers. The three maps that shipped with the game were painted out by artist Jianran Pan overtop a blocked out template, then painstakingly chopped up and re-assembled in the engine. Unfortunately, this PC port suffers in one major way: online multiplayer isn’t supported. The reason for this is that the game was originally developed for the Xbox 360, which used its own proprietary matchmaking system that worked on PC but was not licensed for distribution. So, until I have time to write a whole new matchmaking system, this ported version will be limited to offline bot matches only. Also worth checking out is the commemorative Art Book with more info and behind the scenes look at the development of the game, as well as the time-lapse video showing how the game evolved over the period of two years.
48 CHAMBERS (2012)
48 Chambers began its life before Take Arms with the much less subtle name of 36 Chambers. The game was originally developed over a few month span in 2009 as an entry for the DREAM.BUILD.PLAY contest held yearly back then by Microsoft. It was sort of a desperate, last gasp effort to get SOMETHING made after continuously running into walls with game design. When your ambitions exceed your skills it can be very frustrating to spend months and months on an idea that just doesn’t pan out. After several misfires, I ran into the “World’s Hardest Game” – a simple but very difficult game where you play as a square avoiding projectiles – while taking a break at my day job. It finally struck me that the simplest concepts can still captivate if done right, and I decided to do a quick game inspired by it for the contest. After submitting the game to the contest, Tim and I immediately went into development of Take Arms and I just kind of forgot about it. It was only after finishing Take Arms and looking back through my old work that I thought it wasn’t too bad of an effort and decided to add some more levels, new graphics and music and officially release it on the Xbox store for a dollar. This port features the much needed addition of Leaderboards, but is otherwise identical to the XBLIG release.
LOOKING AHEAD
Now you may be asking yourself, what’s next for Bit Kid? Well, I am happy to say that I’m working away on my 4th title! It is still early in development, but is coming together great and looking to be my biggest and best game yet. I hope to officially announce it in the near future, so please stay tuned. If you haven’t yet, please be sure to join our newsletter to stay up to date with the latest. Thanks again for a great 10 years, and here’s to the next 10!
