when not playing
When playing an old game, you find a new way of enjoying it through its game manual.
Press RIGHT or swipe RIGHT to advance the story!
A short story made for Bitsy Jam #85!
In their review of Deadly Premonition (2010), James Stephanie Sterling once wrote:
"I say a game needs to be judged by how often it made you happy, how much you laughed or became excited, and how long you spend thinking about it after it was finished. No other game has made me laugh so hard, laugh almost to the point of tears, laugh just by thinking about it."
I agree, and I think that's what happened when game manuals were a thing. In a way, game manuals were an extension of the game itself, a way of experiencing it even when you're not playing.
It's an aspect of video games that I think is still present today, of course, not in the form of game manuals but in other ways (mostly social media).
Credits
Scenario, art, program by Wandering Artist (me)
Music by Wandering Artist (me) (someday available on my bandcamp)
Art was made with Aseprite and implemented to bitsy via Pixsy by Ruin
Music added with Bitsymuse hack by David Mowatt
Comments
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Oh this is lovely! I really feel the nostalgia. I love the music also. The whole thing comes together very nicely: art, music, writing, vibes
<3 Thank uuu!
It's very nice and cute game! i like how it looks like and what about. How do you make art like it in Bitsy? You really was doing all this long and hard by your blood and tears in Bitsy itself or you used some program where drawn it? If you are, i want to know how, because when i tried to convert pixel image with image convert for bitsy Pixsy it looked very bad and crunchy. Maybe i need right size of canvas for it? Do i need to, for example, make small pixel image into big pixel image for it? Thank you for reading or answer if you will!
Hello! I use Aseprite to draw. If you want a perfect image conversion you should make an image of 128x128 pixels using only 2 colors!
Thank you very much for answer! It's very helpful for me.
Beautifu! Also a very great moment its like when you notice that you can upload things to the internet.
Thank you! You're right, that's a great idea for another story lol
Beautiful game, it really holds up when communicating those nostalgic vibes! Great stuff!
<3
Beautiful artwork: a perfect, cozy little experience.
thanku! <3
It's a great idea, I loved the visuals and music it really brought a wave of nostalgia. Manuals were really something magical in the past, when I started playing, I didn't know how to read English, so I literally imagined the plot of the games, but when I had access to the manuals (which were in my native language) I spent hours reading and watching the arts and I finally understood at least the basics of the games, well, it was common for us to take the manuals with us to school, etc. because we read them so much.
I'm glad you liked it! Thank you for sharing your story too!