Bit Boy!! is a series of games for WiiWare and the Nintendo 3DS, intended as a tribute to video game history and, specifically, the technical aspects that make it work behind the scenes. The series features arcade-collect-a-thon-style gameplay, with the main character, a pixel named Kubi, having to navigate a monster-filled maze to free his trapped friends.
The first game, Bit Boy!!, was released for WiiWare in 2009. It largely focused on The Golden Age of Video Games (referred to as the 4-bit era in-universe) — the monsters roaming the mazes came from that time, and Kubi had to travel through each video game generation with increasingly-improving graphics leading up to the present in order to stop them. It was known for using the Wii Remote as a joystick.
The second game, Bit Boy!! ARCADE, was released for the 3DS eShop in 2014, with a larger focus on story this time around. It features a plot where game developer Bernd witnesses a Bad Future where Kubi is eaten by one of the arcade monsters from the previous game, and he becomes determined to prevent this.
There are two more games in the ARCADE saga currently in development.
This series features examples of:
- Affectionate Nickname: Bernd's "little cubie" towards Kubi. He doesn't think it's so adorable.
- A God Am I: Kubi gets a little full of himself when he realizes he has access to the game's developer in ARCADE.
- Anti Poop-Socking: The series is dedicated to arcade-style gameplay, including needing to insert coins to continue after a Game Over, and the coins in ARCADE are the 3DS's Play Coins.
You should probably start walking. - Applied Phlebotinum: The Golden Pixel Flies in ARCADE, which provide magic that makes the portals and item blocks work.
- Author Avatar: Bernd.
- Character Shilling: Played for Laughs when Bernd treats Kubi as if he were his child, complete with endless compliments and signs of affection, much to Kubi's embarrassment. Played straight the other way around, though, with Kubi complimenting new elements that come up, which has struck a bad chord with some players.
- Crunch Tastic: KUBITASTSIC
- Expy: Both the gameplay and the character of Kubi are Expies of Pac-Man. All in good faith, of course.
- Gratuitous German: The Shadow Plättchen, the Big Bads of ARCADE. Probably because "Plättchen" sounds more threatening than "Plates".
- Hold Your Hippogriffs: "What the HEXXnote ?!"
- Hostile Show Takeover: Bernd isn't the one putting the monsters in the levels.
- Inferred Holocaust: In-universe. Kubi is worried and angry that this is what happened to the friends he rescued when the first game's world was deleted at the start of ARCADE.
- Larynx Dissonance: Why, yes, that monstrous voice you keep hearing is the smiling pixel. Why do you ask.
- Mercy Mode: An Easy Mode is available after getting a Game Over once in a level.
- Physical God: ZeLeLi, who's able to freely travel through time and make it flow to his will.
- Retraux: Strongly in the first game, with every world except for the final one sporting graphics from an older generation. Less so in ARCADE, but still present to an extent in the first world.
- Precision F-Strike: note
- Set Behind the Scenes: ARCADE, also known as "the game that takes place while it's being developed".
- That One Level: Discussed in-universe by Kubi as being 1-2-Phase 10.
