Tiny Q&A: Gaijin Games’ Chris Osborn (BIT.TRIP: BEAT) part 2

Here’s the continuation of our interview with Gaijin Games’ Chris Osborn about the highly punctuated WiiWare rhythm game BIT.TRIP:BEAT.

Other BIT.TRIP games are also rhythm-based. Will they all feature the same kind of graphical theme, or are you traveling through different eras of game history?

The BIT.TRIP series plants itself right of the middle of the “second generation” of video games, which includes not only the Atari 2600, but also Intellivision, ColecoVision, and even the Atari 5200. Plenty of games out there have humped the NES era, so we decided to up the retro ante and go even farther back for BIT.TRIP. Even though BEAT is based on the early part of the Atari era, expect to see other BIT.TRIP games touch on some of the later era stuff too.

Can you tell us about the custom BIT.TRIP shoes found on the Gaijin Games website?

Sure, those suckers belong to Mike Roush, the artist behind the BEAT. You too can get your own BIT.TRIP shoes from converse.com. We want to see an army of them on the streets, so please send us your pictures! Some NIKEiD ones would be rad too…

What kind of reaction did you receive to the “Commander Video” ARG? Do you think it improved the profile of the game? Did you get any especially weird responses from fans?

Dude, I can safely say the viral marketing was a success! As we are but three men working in an office/closet (along with the help of our awesome publisher, Aksys Games), we couldn’t afford a massive marketing push for this game. So the viral thing started out of necessity.

Originally, we didn’t plan on doing anything beyond the video itself, but once we saw the enormously positive reaction to it, along with all the speculation, we decided to take everyone a bit further down the rabbit hole. By and large, everyone in the various forums that followed the campaign loved playing along and trying to piece together all of our clues.

We didn’t get any especially weird responses from the fans, but we sure underestimated how resourceful they’d be. Several people tracked down our CEO/Designer Alex Neuse’s “CommanderVideo” profiles on stuff like XBLA and YouTube, which we certainly didn’t expect!

The Gaijin Games logo recently changed. Do you think the new logo is stronger? Were there any perceived issues with the old logo? Is it weird that I’m asking questions about the logo?

Whoa, enough about the logo already! Geez. Well, since you asked, yeah the new logo is stronger. The old logo, while a fine piece of graphic design, just didn’t fit our company brand. The Japanese influence is apparent enough in our name, so the rising sun/red/white theme was a bit heavy-handed. Also, we don’t just make violent games, so it doesn’t make sense to have a blood spatter as the logo. In fact, we’ve only made one game so far, and it’s rated E for Everyone! The new hotness hits on our company value in being green (reducing office waste, lowering carbon footprint, etc.) and being a humble, small studio.

So yeah, Gaijin Games wants to thank JC and Tiny Cartridge for taking the time to make this interview happen. Now onto MY questions for YOU! What do you, dear readers, want to see in the BIT.TRIP series? Fire up the comments with your own ideas! CommanderVideo is watching…

JC and Tiny Cartridge want to thank Chris and Gaijin Games for their time and consideration!

tags / aksys, / bit trip beat / gaijin games / jc / wiiware