8BitBoy	Paint by numbers
Rating	Personal Rating: "Worth purchasing during a sale" Traditional Rating: 6 out of 10 Genre: 3rd Person Platform Adventure
Review	8BitBoy is billed as a huge platformer (with 16+ hours of main story) by the developer on the Steam store page for the game but that is a bit of a misnomer. Whoever is taking 16+ hours to clear this game is either 90+ years old having never played a computer game in their life or a 2 year old toddler who is in the process of developing his/her hand and eye co-ordination. Having played for just over three hours I have already managed to reach the fifth and final world. Sure I can see a bit more longevity in the game if you seek out all the secret rooms within each level but 16 hrs is definitely pushing it. Also if there is a story in all of this outside of some grown man booting up his 8-bit console and magically getting sucked into its game world then I must have missed that part. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=355374546 Booting up the game you are greeted with a simple message from its creator who professes his undying love for everything gaming related. There is no denying he was obviously heavily influenced by the platformers of yesteryear - particularly Super Mario Bros. - because at the heart of it 8BitBoy is a simple Mario clone (with the main character and the world he inhabits basically ripped straight from the 80's Nintendo Mario classics). Mushrooms are replaced with birds as our titular copy-paste hero bounces on heads to remove enemy obstacles. In much the same way Mario punched blocks to reveal coins and power-ups so does 8BitBoy. It's all very...retro chic but without the chic bit. 8bitBoy does give the player the abilty to shoot projectiles but its never really explained why eating fruit such as blackberries gives the hero the ability to shoot out tiny little fireballs. If you played any of the old NES Marios back in the day, 8BitBoy will be instantly recognizable as you traverse its five different worlds. Where the game excels is in delivering a great little chiptune soundtrack although it's very limited musical array starts to repeat fairly early on. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=355373493
Conclusion	As a homage, 8BitBoy is perfectly serviceable and while it isn't going to bring down the house it should offer those looking for some 8-bit nostalgia a relatively fun-filled time. In the end 8BitBoy achieves what it sets out to do...almost! It's still no patch for the actual games it's inspired by and I would say you are better off going to play the original Mario SNES classics, which are freely available all over the internet today, but considering the price ($3.99) and that clearly 8BitBoy is made with an undying fandom love and you could be doing a whole lot worse with those $4.00.
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This is a first impressions after 2 hours of gameplay

You often see games coming out that promise a nostalgia trip to the early days of gaming, but very few games deliver on that promise, and either fail when it comes to artstyle, music or most importantly; gameplay.

8BitBoy is not one of those games. It is a game that harkens back to the 16-bit era when Nintendo and Capcom rocked the world with their line of Super Mario and Mega Man games respectively. It is a game that manages to feel both fresh and familiar at the same time.

It is one of those games that are deceptivly simple. The controls consist only of the arrow-keys to walk jump, and crouch and the spacebar to use a projectile if you've got one, while holding it down makes you sprint, and shift to use an item you've obtained by collecting 100 coins. Despite of this, the game is extremely difficult, but it's not cheap. When you die, no one is to blame but yourself, and you're forced to learn from your mistakes. The game is comprised of 5 differently themed worlds.The gameplay is your standard 2D platforming fare; you go from left to right, killing enemies, avoiding hazards and jumping on platforms to reach the end and advance to the next level. The game is not without it's differences however. It's surprisingly open-ended, with many, if not all of the levels having branching paths and secret areas, rewarding you for taking the time to explore. The game also features an interesting Weapon-tier system, where at the first pick-up you will get a shield, on the second you will get a single fireball, on the third you will get two that fire in a rapid succession, and on the forth you will get more powerful fireballs. The projectiles bounce off surfaces, making killing the enemies extremely satisfying. The music in the game is absolutely fantastic, and I'm sure fans of Chiptune will get a kick out of it.

Unfortunately the game is not without it's flaws. The enemies for one are mostly boring and generic, being comprised of Bats, snakes, giant insects and birds. The same can be said about the bosses I've faced so far, which have been nothing special. There are also moments when objects in the background look like they're in the foreground, making it possible to mistake them for platforms, resulting in you falling to your death.

There are also a few bugs I encountered while playing, nothing too gamebreaking but some annoying nonetheless. The worst one was definetely the times when sprint suddenly decided not to work, forcing me to restart the game. The others are mostly visual bugs, like enemies walking on air when you destroy a block in their path. I also find the lack of trading cards and achievements a bit disappointing, but those are hopefully getting added in the future.

Despite it's flaws, 8BitBoy is an excellent Platformer that fans of the genre should find entertaining for a while, and for the price I absolutely recommend it.

This game appears to have all the elements that would make it fun, but it's faulty mechanics and a ton of other stuff just ruins the fun.
It is a very hard in all the wrong ways; very punishing and somewhat repetitive.

I'll try to justify why I'm not recommending it, since it seems like a lot of work was put into the game and the dev updates it regularly, which tells me at least he cares.

First about the levels.

• Within each world some levels are super hard but others are a walk in the park. Specially if you are just shooting for the end without exploring. Having branching paths and secrets is ok, but have your main level be interesting as well. That's just like making an RPG have awesome side quests and a bad main story. Side quests are a bonus, not the main stuff, it's like the topings on an ice cream.
  
• Variety is also an issue, each world has a lot of levels, but they all feel like the same level with rearranged stuff. Each world introduces some new baddies and graphics, but they are not well distributed or introduced.
  
• Also, levels are long but they don't flow right, I find myself a lot waiting idle for a monster to get out of the way or a moving platform to reach me. Or sometimes the opposite, for example on the flooding levels, where you "escape" water that rises, since it expects you go down the bazillion secret paths, if you just follow the main level the water is never even close to you. This just tells me the levels were not really planned much, stuff was just thrown there. I would much prefer fewer levels but better planned than a ton of levels all the same.

The enemies don't follow any "consistent" pattern, they move, jump and shoot whenever they want. This extends to other stuff, for example one of the enemies throws a big snowball that sometimes hits the wrong pixel and rebound on a different direction from where it was supposed to go. This happens with a lot of stuff including the bosses, they rebound against the walls in a weird fashion when they jump.
You die because you can't predict stuff, it's just twitch reactions a lot of the time or simply impossible to dodge.
I'm honestly not sure if this is related to framerate or whatever, but it's just an ingredient for a bad plaformer.
Consistency is what makes these kinds of plaformers fun (at least the ones this game is trying to emulate). On most games from the NES/SNES/Sega era, the enemies and the enviroment reset on each life, and always move the exact same way when you respawn, so you can learn the level. This way when you die you know it was your fault.

Moving on to glitchy stuff

• Hitboxes are weird. Sometimes you don't properly hit platforms or pass through them.
  
• Solid blocks and non-solid blocks look the same.
  
• Some of the background can be confused with platforms.
  
• Breaking squares from below also behaves badly, sometimes you have to hit squares twice or more.
  
• Throwables from enemies go through stuff. I was hit a couple of times by one of the small snowballs from an enemy I wasn't even seeing on the screen.

Finally, my biggest issues, several game mechanics are bad:

• Level exploration is super punishing. On my playthrough I was going through levels in a straight line to the finish. Levels are super hard already without exploring, and exploring is just pointless, any benefit is crushed by the fact that any mistake and it's back to the start without power ups. Exploring stops being fun after the 30th death, where you have to redo the entire level from the beginning, while also loosing the power up. Risk is not worth it just to get a couple extra coins.
  
• The power up system is very unbalanced. The game doesn't know if it wants to be a shooting plaformer or a jumping plaformer, and the mix is not well done. A power up makes enemies super easy, but no power up makes them a nightmare. You are massively underpowered without a power up. And, let's not overlook the fact that, if you don't have one, you die in 1 hit. So you can't shoot, but you also insta-die, it's the worst and not well balanced.
  Levels don't help at all, some enemies are even impossible to kill by jumping, for example the birds that fly high and shoot at you. If you compare this to super mario for example, the difference is that in super mario the main focus was jumping, and you could finish all levels just with small mario, the flower was just a "nice to have". And if you compare to most shooting plaformers the difference is that you already start with a gun or have means to handle enemies other way. In this game the balance is bad, and you start with nothing each time you die....
  
• Last, the lives are just worthless. The fact that, loading the save restores your power up when entering the level, just makes it better to have 1 life with a power up and get a game over on each death. Also, harvesting lives is horrible. If you are going to make a game inspired in old games, bring only the good stuff, not the bad. In any case, harvesting lives doesn't work here, because A) it's super hard so you would need like 2000 lives B) there isn't any fun level to quickly get lives C) on each death you loose the power up D) it's better to get game over and continue than having lives

The rant ends here, these game mechanics were the last thing that ruined it for me, but they could be fixed with changes like:

• Adding checkpoints would encourage exploration. Super nintendo games added them for a reason. If you want to keep the difficulty, you can do something like Shovel Knight or Bit Trip Runner 2 where you have the option to break or skip the checkpoint if you want.
  
• For the power ups the easiest would be to make the shield be a default on death, and make the first pickup be the red berries. An alternative would be to better balance the levels for when you don't have any pickups. Since right now it's a death sentence.
  
• The behavior on death should be the same as loading the last game or something similar. I would just get rid of the lives system entirely. The game could keep track of the deaths but have them be meaningless except for points or something.

Got destroyed by the same cactus enemy at the start of a level like 10 times in a row, 10/10.

8BitBoy is a homage to oldschool platformers. It looks a lot like Mario, and a little like Psycho Fox and Wonder Boy, but it has a propose: the main character is a man trapped in a world made of games of his childhood (NES and Master System era).

In your journey through five worlds you'll face different enemies, find a lot of secrets and traps. You'll need to perform perfect jumps in some areas to pass tougher stages. This can daunt some young players, but don't worry, this is not a problem of level design; games used to be like this in late 80's.

The pixel art feels truly retro. Even the menus are oldschool.
The soundtrack...well, could be better. Music is repetitive and kinda sad sometimes.

8BitBoy is made by only one guy (Rasmus Kønig Sørensen) - also, looks like this is the first game he developed. It has some flaws, but for the cheap price we can forgive.

All in all, I rate this game a 7/10

I may not be good at it. But this is a GREAT game! It may have the elements of mario and some others but its supposed to. Its a fun little platformer that is actually pretty long. It could take a couple hours or maybe a day depending on how you play it, or how good you are.

I am driven away from so many platformers with great potential simply because they lack an interesting story and a connection with the character(s). Anyone who has played 8BitBoy will tell you it is not one of those games and its touching introduction will have you hooked right off the bat!

As for the gameplay, it is flawless and nostalgic. The music and graphics remind me of playing classic Pokemon and Super Mario games and the controls are very smooth (I recommend using a console controller).

Full-clearing the levels is also very challenging (and rewarding if you are going for highscores) but it is not entirely necessary if you just want to beat the game. So if you're a gamer who likes to go for 100% on every level, I say good luck and bring extra controllers! :)

All things considered, it's a fun game with an intriguing story and it is a must try if you love platformers!

A good platformer that pays homage to the games it clearly draws inspiration from. The great thing however about this game compared to other newer retro titles is that instead of trying to emulate and clone the content it aspires to be, it makes its own improvements and feels like a new game. Crisp sprites, loads of awesome hidden content for those that want to find it, will make you want to stretch the most out of your limited time on each level. Often you find yourself in a tricky spot trying to determine whether or not to use precious time for that tantalising power up just out of normal reach.

Absolute bargain, it has elements of all my old favourites. Easy to load save points, Got it for just over a quid. So for that price I have nothing negative to say!

I love platformers. They take me back to the days when I was a kid, sitting up late at night, trying to get through various incarnations of the genre in the early days of NES. I've never claimed to be good at them, mind you, but I enjoy them a lot.

8BitBoy didn't seem like much at first glance. It came in a bundle, which means I was after something else in said bundle most likely, and 8BitBoy just came along for a ride. One day I was digging through my library to find a cure for a sleepy Sunday afternoon, and I happened to catch the platformer tag when I scrolled across it. I figured it couldn't hurt to give it a spin.

The first time through? 8BitBoy feels a bit off. You go in expecting Mario, but the controls just aren't the same. They're a bit more floaty, not quite as precise. This will throw you off a bit, but press on. As you dig a little deeper, you start get the hang of the controls and the game starts to feel more familar. You're progressing through the maps, you're stomping on birds and making jumps. Then there's that special moment when you're standing on a ledge and accidentally push the control into the wall, and you slip through and discover a secret room...and now 8BitBoy has its hooks in you!

8BitBoy is a love song to those platformers of old. You will notice elements of them all throughout. While looking back so fondly, the game still manages to be its own beast. It's hard. Hell, it's very hard! It's also packed full of secrets, warps to other zones, many many maps and more. All it makes for a very fun, low budget platformer that you may not have noticed otherwise!

A very fun and nostalgic inducing game!

it's a fun platform game

A simple classic platformer done right. 10/10 for nostalgia.

Great level design and great gameplay and it sometimes even surprises me with it's design. It's also bug-free unlike most Steam games.

The secrets become a bit old after a few levels and I would have prefered an overworld like in Super Mario Bros 3 but those are pretty much the only downsides I could find to this game.

If you love Mario, there's no reason why you wouldn't love this.

Kinda Like Mario. lol whats to complain about. i paid $1.00

XD

It's good for what it is. The controls are not as tight as what I'd like for them to be, but I mean, it's fun to play and it does what it's supposed to do. If there are sequels I will expect more from them than this one. Overall, worth the money.

Update: After having played with an xbox controller, I've found the game quite a bit more fun than before. Some of the tighter jumps can lead to combos and there is quite a bit of technical jumping. The secrets are fun to find also. On the whole, this game definitely does some things well the material it's an homage to did. This is a good brain relaxer, for sure.

Hay, come check out my Unerdog Review of this fun little Platformer, Enjoy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tflAZw0JoV4

It is exactly what I wanted it to be - Charming Retro Gaming

EDIT: My only warning is that this is a challenging game. I'm constantly reloading saves, but that is just my play style. I'm sitting on about 17 lives at the moment. What I do is I run through and let my self screw up a bunch, and find the best way to get to the end of the level. When I finally get to the end of the level and I only have 1-3 lives left, I reload the level so I have 17 lives, and run it until I reach the end of the level without dieing once. This can take several reloads, but its how I prefer to play. That being said, let me go ahead and talk about how wonderful this game is.

It's been a while since I made this review, I just wanted to iterate how great I think it is that the designer took the time to create the kind of sound effects, music, challenge, animations, and graphics that so completely give this game a retro feel. Its very obvious that this game was a work of love, created by someone who really enjoyed and understood what made the 8-bit platformers so much fun.

I'm on world 4, and i'ts hard to describe in words how lovely and rare it is to find a game that makes one feel they picked up (for lack of a better word) an expansion pack to games they played in the 80s/90s. Yeah, I could go back and play those games, but being able to play a brand new game that embodies everything that made those games great is truely a special treat.

If their other games are any thing like this, I will be buy, in a heart beat, anything from Awesome Blade. Can't wait for more.

it is a hard, yet excellent game. I was a kid when 8 and 16-bit games were cool, and that game made me feel like a kid again.
The game creator definitely had fun trying to make these hard levels, and you really have to be good to finish it.

For all nostalgic platformer lovers, don't look anywhere else. This is a pretty indie game, and it deserves all the attention it can get

A very competent, fun to play platformer. I'm to the third world so far, and it's difficulty level seems spot-on: not so hard as to be discouraging, not so easy as to be trivial.

The game has a very nice tendency to have lots of secrets, side areas, and bonus stuff hidden throughout each level, that adds a bit of flavor - do you go straight for the end, or get some of the bonus material?

All told, it's an extremely enjoyable and fun game that i'd recommend to anyone who likes platformers, or 8-bit nostalgia.