Yep, it looks retro.
Binary Boy is a freeware platformer made in March 2013 by Jared Johnson of the Data Fidelity
website and can be played or downloaded there. Unlike most other games of this genre, the Player Character is unable to jump and is limited to moving on the single path made for him: however, he is able to go below the path and the gameplay revolves around bypassing the enemies and obstacles through changing the player orientation in time. It has the standard retro visuals and soundtrack associated with many indie games.
Provides examples of the following tropes:
- Alliterative Title: Binary Boy
- Background Boss: The pirate skeleton stays in the background for the duration of the fight, and its cannonballs begin in the background before becoming physical objects. Likewise, the Kraken in the next level is entirely in the background.
- Batman Can Breathe in Space: Neither the player character nor the other couple of humanoids you meet in the final space level have any issues with being in space with no protective gear. Especially weird given that the Boy does get a scuba mask if he’s travelling underwater.
- Checkpoint Starvation: Averted in the extreme. The checkpoints are placed after every obstacle in your way. However, the entire game needs to be finished in one sitting.
- Collision Damage: Oh, yes.
- Creator Cameo: The devil-like guy in the final, space level is Jared Jonhson himself.
- Desperation Attack: The pirate skeleton fires more and more cannonballs each time you successfully deflect one into the ship, although they remain pretty easy to dodge.
- Green Hill Zone: The first two levels are set in one, during mid-day and dusk respectively.
- Jump Physics: Averted. You cannot jump at all.
- No Cartoon Fish: Averted. Like everything else in the game, the fish are cartoony and abstract.
- No Plot? No Problem!: The game has no plot whatsoever.
- One Hitpoint Wonder: The protagonist is this, easily killed by just about anything. However, this is compensated with the checkpoints being placed after nearly every obstacle.
- Our Zombies Are Different: You have bright-red, headless bodies in here, which will often drip blood downwards. Said blood is just as lethal as a physical collision.
- Spectacular Spinning: When you get on the spinning platforms in the space level, your screen spins around.
- Super Not-Drowning Skills: If he's underwater, the titular Boy will simply get a scuba mask out of nowhere and put it on.
- Tactical Suicide Boss: The Alien Robot at the end of the second level would have been invulnerable if he didn’t feel the need to turn backwards and shoot at his own ship, which seems to contain its main CPU (he dies once the ship is destroyed.)
- That's No Moon: Literally: the moon which naturally moves alongside the screen much like how a real moon can be expected to turns out to be an alien spaceship piloted by a hostile robot.
- Weak Turret Gun: The red turret-like creatures are invulnerable, but that is only because you cannot attack. Once you gain the ability to create water bubbles every time you flip down, they can be knocked over with one hit.
