Playing Every Game in the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality
PEGBRJE: ‘8 Bit Space’ and ‘Walking Tourist’
Space in two forms
8 Bit Space is a platforming adventure created by GlassFrogGames, an indie company run by Simon Turner. Inspired by the ZX Spectrum games of old, players will follow in the footsteps of a little astronaut and their ship computer Z.X as they venture across five new star systems in the hopes of activating a strange portal.
At its heart, 8 Bit Space is a collectathon adventure where players will jump into one of the five star systems and grab everything they can. Each system has five levels, full of points to gather and enemies to jump over (no weapons allowed for our astronaut).
While the points are enticing, the true goal is to find three crystals to open up the temple of each star system, which in turn activates the portal. These crystals are not ‘hidden’ per say, but they are not advertised as being in each level and it is up to the player to search through all five to find them.
The order in which the levels are done is of no consequence, and if players wish to leave a level without completing ‘everything’, they just need to reach the purple ‘end’ teleporter to get out.
This open-endedness is what gives ZX Spectrum its adventuring excitement as there is nothing stopping you from jumping around the star systems at your leisure. Grab a few of the points, grab the crystal and leave a level, or perhaps 100% every level out of sheer collectathon excitement; the choice is yours.
It helps that the retro aesthetic plays right in to the arcade feel, along with a great soundtrack to compliment. If you loved the previous ZX Spectrum games involved in the bundle, this is a no-brainer.
Walking Tourist is a puzzle game created by August Junkala, game developer-turned fulltime indie dev in Australia. The game focuses on an individual whose friend has arrived in their city, so they go on a walking tour to show it off. Sounds simple enough, right? Well…
Unfortunately, there are two things that create the puzzling environment for the player. First is efficiency; the character and their friend want to ensure they can get where they are going in the least amount of steps possible. Each step is tracked on the pedometer found in the bottom left, and there is a reference once the player reaches the yellow destination.
The second problem is the city itself, as it has a very strict politeness metric. Merely blocking walkers can award negative politeness, and the more strikes against the player the more likely they are to chase them out of town. There are also unavoidable strikes such as needing to shove through crowds, which can draw the ire of the police who can move much faster than the player.
It begs the question; what kind of city is this, and why does it feel so terrifying?
This creates a strangely interesting dynamic of puzzle solving as players will attempt to find ‘cheats’ in the way of aggressive behaviour. Everyone wants to finish within the correct parameters — that’s why golf exists in my eyes — but getting a negative score feels detrimental as well. How does one balance between being impolite while also getting where they are going?
Overarching questions about societal balance aside, Walking Tourist gameifies your ability to go outside and walk from place to place. It gives you that satisfaction of finding a solution that somehow produces less steps than expected, or the hilarious events of getting chased by a mob.
Either way, if you are looking for a puzzle game about simply wandering around town, this might be the game for you.
