Itsy Bitsy Narratives tiny worlds, big ideas

The projects here are made with Bitsy, a simple, browser-based engine for making small, narrative games. There's a whole universe of bitsy games out there, filled with quirky narratives, personal stories and all kinds of amazing experiences. Bitsy's simplicity and tight constrains sparks creativity in many, this is how it sparked mine:

The house of the living A gothic bitsy adventure #

The house of the living is my first bitsy game. Much like the short weird fiction stories it takes inspiration from, it is more of a mood piece than a proper narrative. You explore a strange gothic mansion, but the goal is to experience it and soak up its creepy atmosphere, much more than trying to reach "the end."

I started making this game by accident. I stumbled upon the 2018 gothic game jam, noticed others making games for it using bitsy and decided to give it a go. I mean, it made perfect sense, as both, bitsy's low-rez aesthetic and creepy gothic themes are totally my jam (pun, unintended).

The idea was to make this sprawling mansion with sidequests and different paths you could choose... but I spent most of the time making graphics. This was the first time I worked with 1bit limitation, so it took me much longer to make stuff I was happy with. If it wasn't for the jam's deadline I don't think the game would be finished. I was already pushing the limits of the engine (the current version of bitsy doesn't have those issues), and knowing myself, I would probably get discouraged, and this would be yet another of my projects stuck in the depths of my hard drive's eternal limbo. I am thankful for that deadline.

House of the living was mentioned on itch.io blog and wired.com

The world had been sad since Tuesday A surreal bitsy tale #

The title is the opening sentence of Gabriel García Márquez's story "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings." Yep, my second bitsy game is also inspired by literature. It was made in a week as a final project for an English class when I was finishing college. I really didn't want to write another boring final paper that will only be seen by me and the professor. At least this little interactive experience can be enjoyed by others.

Being made relatively soon after my first bitsy game, it follows a lot of the same "beats." It is also a mood piece with twists, unanswered questions and a surprise "money shot" screen. However, this time, instead of dread, it tries to capture the initial confusion and sense of discovery magical realism provides. In this game I experimented a bit more with bitsy, playing with randomizers and variable dialogues based on collectibles. Of course, just like the previous game, I spent way too much time on pixel art :P

The world had been sad since Tuesday was featured on RockPaperShotgun

Bitsy HD A hacked Bitsy editor #

I don't really remember if I wanted to make a Bitsy game with more detailed sprites, or just thought it would be cool to have more resolution. All I remember was sitting on the Bitsy Talk Discord and deciding to give hacking bitsy a try.

I forked the, then current, bitsy repo and started poking at the code. I had no idea what I was doing. I think at that time, it was my first time trying javaScript. I somehow managed to change the sprites from 8x8 to 16x16 pixels. It worked, but had issues - there was bunch of code not expecting the extra pixels. I spent few more days trying to squish the bugs I introduced and shared it with the community. People liked it, so with the blessing of the original author, I shared it on itch for others to use.

I never ended making anything with it, but others did and it makes me happy ☺