Rogue Bit is a very different type of game on Nintendo Switch with a retro look and feel from decades ago. Learn more in our Rogue Bit review!

 

What’s the premise of Rogue Bit? You play as a sentient bit that looks like the @ symbol. You can move using the D-Pad, and you can of course also use the left analog stick, but I suggest you go with the D-Pad for more accuracy. You are taught how the game works via the XOR – for Exclusive or. The game is all about manipulating code to be able to complete stages. The difficulty is pretty out there, as you will get to see on your own as you play the first half-hour or so of the game.

 

The game will inform you of the basics of how data is stored. At its most basic, a switch will be on or off, the voltage will be low or high, and so on. This is represented either with a 1 or a 0. All of these 1s and 0s are stored in a bit, and these are grouped into bytes – terms you’ve undoubtedly used before. Each byte will have eight bits in a single byte, which gives a possibility of 256 options between 00000000 and 11111111 – from 0 to 255 to be precise. This is how numbers, alphabet characters, and other things are stored.

One of the puzzles in the game will show you what you can expect to see during your time with Rogue Bit. There will be a barrier you won’t be able to cross, and to carry on you will need to use your character to modify the massive wall of bytes to be able to hack code and find the right path that will help you to carry on with your adventure. You will do this as the game shows you all the binary code of the left side of the screen, in a different color from the green that you will see on the main gameplay portion of the screen.

 

The explanations are part of the game, and due to that you can’t go back and refresh your mind on the core mechanics, so you’ll have to learn s you go to be able to add more and more skills to your knowledge bank. Most of the instructions are presented in large walls of text, so you better pay attention to what you’re being shown, or else you’ll find yourself stuck more than once. You might want to go old-school and take notes for the new information you learn, or you could always make good use of one of the Nintendo Switch’s features and take a screenshot whenever you find a new set of instructions!

 

Rogue Bit is going to be handy for the coders of the future, as it will teach them some of the basics they will need to understand in their potential field. It’s not an easy game to jump into, but I do have to applaud the developers for how they’ve designed the game and the puzzles it includes. The throwback to simpler times for this Nintendo Switch release is appreciated. The game has a lot of potential, and it’s unique look, and gameplay mechanics help it to stand out from the crowd. Something I do want to mention is that reading the text when playing in Portable or Handheld mode is not an easy feat, but you can luckily zoom in on the text by pressing on the Home button twice, an ability that was added in one of the Nintendo Switch system updates.

Disclaimer
This Rogue Bit review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Bigosaur.