Here’s somewhat morsel for the puzzle-fiends amongst you to chew on. Bit Rat: Singularity is a standalone ‘teaser’ for a bigger deliberate cyberpunk story by new studio Bucket Drum Games, however a full-featured and remarkably intelligent little sport in its personal proper. An AI (you) has gained sentience within the basement of a giant company tower, and begins testing its attain, extending paths to unfold itself via the tower. Naturally, hacking and company intrigue abounds.
In mechanical phrases, Bit Rat: Singularity initially seems to be like a easy block-rotating sport within the vein of Pipe Dream, however there’s a shocking quantity of depth to the sport because of a wide range of fastidiously thought-about and interlocking gameplay techniques. Take a have a look at the sport in motion within the trailer after the bounce.
While the trailer above might make the sport look somewhat simplistic, there’s a shocking quantity of complexity to it. While your aim inside every degree is straightforward – join a knowledge path out of your beginning server to the exit level – you shortly find yourself juggling a number of mechanics, together with which rooms are powered, which turbines are energetic and the way a lot load they’re below, which rooms are accessible to the quickly hackable human beings (controlling which is course of which the AI finds distasteful, if vital) wandering across the complicated and extra. As you’ll be able to solely rotate tiles which are each powered and inside your current knowledge community, you’ll usually must plan forward and strategically break routes so as to re-path via them from a special angle later.
While early ranges within the story mode (a pleasingly cyberpunk story of an AI gaining sentience and deciding to go for a little bit of a wander) provide loads of wiggle room, issues ramp up shortly and earlier than lengthy you’ve acquired to plug and play your means via some intimidatingly complicated techniques the place the one means out requires a number of layers of forethought. Mercifully, the sport affords a vast undo perform, permitting you to roll again strikes. Without it, Bit Rat can be nigh unplayable, as a result of all it takes is a single tile twisting within the fallacious path to not solely break your fastidiously constructed circuit, however render the extent unbeatable. With this characteristic, it turns into a much more pleasurable proposition, though my pitiful brain-meats are already beginning to really feel somewhat strained even comparatively early on within the marketing campaign.
I’m already curious to see what builders Bucket Drum Games have deliberate for the universe they’ve established right here. Singularity is just the prologue chapter of a bigger narrative, in spite of everything, and introduces what seems like a surprisingly complicated world, even when we solely see it from the dispassionate eyes of an AI because it passes via. While I can sense that I’m quickly to splatter in opposition to the glass ceiling of my very own mind’s limitations enjoying this, Bit Rat: Singularity looks as if a fairly great way for puzzle followers to whereas away a day, particularly on the (actually) cheap-as-chips price of $2 over on Itch.io.
