{"id":2381,"date":"2020-10-15T14:03:29","date_gmt":"2020-10-15T14:03:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mycours.es\/digitalmedia\/?page_id=2381"},"modified":"2025-04-04T12:57:05","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T12:57:05","slug":"bitsy","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/mycours.es\/digitalmedia\/bitsy\/","title":{"rendered":"Bitsy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Bitsy is a little editor for little games or worlds developed by Adam Le Deux.
\nBitsy games typically involve some kind of avatar moving through different rooms.
\nEach room is made by repeatable tiles and can contain interactive objects and exits to other rooms.
\n“Pushing against” interactive objects can make them disappear (collectables) or display text (dialogues, monologues, descriptions, narration).<\/p>\n

Bitsy editor<\/a><\/p>\n

Bitsy games are saved in the browser memory so download them often as a backup and if you need to work from different computers.<\/p>\n

Assignment<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Make a narrative environment\/story\/game in bitsy starting from one of the assigned themes.
\nPlayable in 5 minutes or less – quality not quantity.<\/p>\n

Part 1
\n<\/strong>
\n1. Play a few titles and recommend two games to the class by posting a link on discord. Write one paragraph explaining why they are worth playing and highlight some idea, solution or trick you can potentially apply to your story.
\n2. Bring one ideas for a short bitsy game elaborating on the assigned theme. Post a one paragraph description.
\n3. Plan all the rooms on paper (or digital such as miro), including sprites, npcs dialogues.
\n4. Make two rooms in bitsy representative of the style, the dialogue and the vibe of the game.
\nThis is mostly for you to get acquainted with the tool and understand how long it takes to make things for it, don’t get too attached to it.<\/p>\n

Part 2
\n<\/strong>Complete the game and post it in itchio with a proper page with screenshots, description etc. Make it playable full screen (it’s an itchio setting)
\nAlternatively you can just post the HTML it in discord.<\/p>\n

Learning objectives \/ Grading criteria<\/h2>\n

It has some degree of non-linearity – don’t make me advance through a series of scenes
\nIt’s something a child would never think of making
\nIt has no default music or graphics
\nIt’s Tell a story non linearly, through narrative bits disseminated in a coherent environment (think of it as a world-building assignment)
\nConveys a theme, express something personal, create a mood without resorting to cliches (ie don’t put a fetch quest just because that what happens in games)
\nYou reused graphic assets economically (tiles and modular assets are common in game design)
\nIt communicates\u00a0the affordances of a space, such as: where are the exits, what are the walls, what are you supposed to do, where are you supposed to go (this huge part of game design, level design, and art direction in interactive media)
\nYou overcame the limitation of a tool by using hacks, unconventional solutions, or out-of-the-box thinking.<\/p>\n

Playtime<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Before you start\u00a0making your\u00a0bitsy<\/a>\u00a0game, let\u2019s all play these pieces:<\/p>\n

Junk Shop Telescope<\/a> (playing with scale)<\/p>\n

Spiral house<\/a> (playing with abstraction by alumn Everest Pipkin)<\/p>\n

A gallery visit<\/a> (not only top down)<\/p>\n

Novena<\/a> (playing with repetition)<\/p>\n

Continental Drift<\/a> (autobiographical)<\/p>\n

Moss as texture as space folding onto itself<\/a> (playing with patterns and abstraction)<\/p>\n

Roomba Quest<\/a> (puzzle)<\/p>\n

Our Damned Machine<\/a> (environmental piece)<\/p>\n

The last human touch<\/a> (time travel)<\/p>\n

Cinerarium of solaris<\/a> (magical realism)<\/p>\n

A prison strike<\/a> (by me)<\/p>\n

A holiday yarn<\/a> (visual hack)<\/p>\n

Castle of the water monk<\/a> (made with bitsy in 3D<\/a>)<\/p>\n

EVERY BITSY GAME ON ITCHIO<\/a><\/p>\n

Assignment:<\/strong> play a few titles and recommend two games to the class by posting a link on discord. Write one paragraph explaining why they are worth playing and highlight some idea, solution or trick you can potentially apply to your story.<\/p>\n

Tutorials<\/h2>\n

Intro to bitsy\u00a0<\/a> (text)<\/p>\n

Intro Tutorial<\/a> (slide presentation)<\/p>\n

Bitsy video series<\/a><\/p>\n

Bitsy dialogue system<\/a><\/p>\n

Bitsy variables<\/a><\/p>\n

Borksy a collection of bitsy hacks<\/a> to add various functionalities<\/p>\n

Brainstorming<\/h2>\n

Bitsy is a simple whimsy tool, that doesn’t mean your game have to be simple and whimsy.
\nYou can have humor and wholesome themes but ultimately your goal is make something that looks like it’s made by an adult artist, so take it seriously and avoid childish stories like “a puppy has to collect 5 cupcakes”.
\nAll anthropomorphic animal characters are forbidden. If you have animals they have to behave like animals.<\/p>\n

Narrative prompt:
\nEverything in one room
\nMemory
\nAbstract
\nPoem
\nAging
\nUtopia
\nInequality
\nObsession
\nEducational
\nAlphabet
\nAdapt any fiction 100 years + old
\nHostile architecture
\nBefore and after
\nColonization
\nBureaucracy
\nFour Seasons
\nAn upsetting dream
\nGlitch
\nMy first time
\nReverse time
\nSmell
\nSport
\nParanoia
\nRiot
\nDeath
\nFactory
\nNo words<\/p>\n

Theme modifiers, pick one:<\/p>\n

-Non linear space (the rooms are not describing a continuous space)
\n-Non linear time (the game has flashforwards or flashbacks)
\n-Loop, the game ends where it began
\n-Multiple endings
\n-Multiple beginnings
\n-Multiple avatars (using the avatar by room hack)
\n–Non fiction<\/a>
\n-Autobiographical
\n-No movement in space
\n-Abstract avatar (what if it’s not about a person walking around)
\n-Non human\/non anthropomorphized avatar<\/p>\n

What are places, locations, situations that immediately come to your mind?
\nWhat are some less obvious one?
\nWho is the player and what are they doing there?
\nWho else lives or exists in that place?
\nWhat happened in that place an hour ago? A year ago? What is going to happen tomorrow?
\nHow can you tell the story of the place through objects and characters disseminated in this space?
\nHow do you intrigue the player and keep their attention? What questions are you asking narratively?
\nHow can you surprise the player? What is a twist, a discovery, a revelation you can deliver towards the end?<\/p>\n

Tips and notes<\/h2>\n

It’s ok to leave areas untiled, you can use negative spaces and the background color to communicate what areas are walkable<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>especially for natural environment make slight variations of the same tiles to make it look less grid-like<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>If your avatar and sprites walk on tiles of both colors make them transparent by adding
\nBGC *
\nRight under the corresponding game data like below
\nDoing so requires a sprite color that stands out against the other two.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Do not under any circumstances<\/strong> use the default bitsy music. Turn it off.
\nThe default music just tells the players that you don’t know what you are doing and that they should not play your thing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Avoid square tiles and straight edges especially when doing non architectural rooms<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Making tilesets is pretty much about rounding corners and creating patterns that break the grid:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s a template for a fairly standard tileset<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Click on paint > magnifying glass (search) to access to your tileset quickly<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

modular tiles are powerful but consider patterns that cover multiple tiles to add some variation. Like this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>versus\u00a0 this\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

You only have two colors but you can use techniques like dithering (manual in this case) to add depth and gradients<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Try to convey exits and walkable areas without using arrows and explicit signage.
\nYou can have multiple exits taking you to the same room for more open ended levels<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The classic exit-reentry problem: a door is approached by moving left, the avatar spawns in the second room to the right of the entrance, the player keeps pressing left and goes back to the first room. Annoying and confusing, either maintain cinematic and spatial continuity or spawn the player away from an exit that could cause that problem.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bitsys don’t have to be top down or side view, but consider that other layouts make the 4 direction movement and the wall collision more awkward.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

You can’t have a proper gameplay in bitsy so you may be tempted to create some challenge by making the player’s progression less intuitive eg with hidden passages and non obvious interactions. Obfuscation is not puzzle design: good puzzles are always readable, you know what you can<\/strong> do and what you have<\/strong> to do, the challenge is figuring out how<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unless it makes sense conceptually you don’t want the player to wander around trapped in your game forever.
\nGive your game a proper ending:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bitsy hacks<\/h2>\n

Borksy\u00a0\u00a0<\/a> a collection of bitsy hacks including 3d, advanced sound, dialogue functions etc<\/p>\n

DO NOT USE Image to bitsy or pixsy to import external images, it will break your game. It used to work in previous versions but not anymore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bitsy is a little editor for little games or worlds developed by Adam Le Deux. Bitsy games typically involve some kind of avatar moving through different rooms. Each room is made by repeatable tiles and can contain interactive objects and exits to other rooms. “Pushing against” interactive objects can make them disappear (collectables) or display … Continue reading “Bitsy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2381","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mycours.es\/digitalmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mycours.es\/digitalmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mycours.es\/digitalmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mycours.es\/digitalmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mycours.es\/digitalmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2381"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"http:\/\/mycours.es\/digitalmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4098,"href":"http:\/\/mycours.es\/digitalmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2381\/revisions\/4098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mycours.es\/digitalmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}