Bit Trip Runner is as simple as a game can get.
You play as a little jogging alien who's entire goal is to jump over obstacles and collect gold. It's like something you would've played on the Atari, it's that basic. Some say it's a rhythm game, but I don't necessarily agree with that, as often times the music barely functions as anything other than what it is; background music. Rhythm games often have you moving to the music, not moving to create the music. That being said, it's fun for what it is, but it's fun for me in an extremely particular way, because it brings together two things I absolutely crave: platforming, and repetition.
One of the biggest appeals to me about games like Sonic the Hedgehog growing up, aside from just being cool as heck, was that you invariably did the same thing every time. You ran. That's what you did. You ran and jump. In fact most platformers are that way, but Sonic was especially built around that concept of running, hence why it's my example. For someone like me, someone who needs repetition, it was the perfect game. Tetris was the same way. I would come home from school and load up Tetris on my computer and play it for hours at a time, because I craved repetition. I'm autistic, it's something I need. I need routine and repetition, and that's what Bit Trip Runner delivers in spades more than anything else.
Don't get me wrong, Bit Trip Runner is by no means a fantastic game. It's so basic that it could be a downloadable title from the Play store or something. It's run and jump and duck. As simple as things come. Angry Birds has more of a complexity than this game does. But that's what kind of makes it perfect, is that lack of complexity. Nothing these days seems to want to harken back to the simplicity we once had where you moved and jumped and shot and that was it. Now everything has to have extreme conflict, challenge, or a plot. None of those things are inherently bad by themselves, but they're not exactly necessary, especially for a game so steeped in basic principles.
I've looked at the other titles, and they seem to get even more complex, visually especially, and that kind of kills the whole feeling this game gave me, which was "after school unwind computer game". It's a mixture of 2d and 3d, but it works somehow, and it's not so 3d that it's exhausting to look at and it's not so 2d that it becomes a bore to visually take in. That's why I didn't mind looking at it for hours at a time, and believe me, I did look at it for hours at a time. Because that's what I need. Repetition. It appeals to me in a way nothing else does. I find myself, especially these days, yearning more and more for basic repetitive gaming experiences and instead getting quickly bored by the more complex and seemingly interesting titles. I sometimes wonder if I didn't have the brain problems that I do, if I didn't have my autism, would I find this game anywhere near as enticing? Yeah, I probably would, just because I do in general like platforming and stuff, but as enticing? That's hard to say.
But because I have my autism, this is a perfect escape game for me. It lets me turn my brain off, and just....be. I don't have to think, I don't have to have that feeling like my brain is constantly on fire, I can just exist, and it's nice, because I don't have many other things in my life that grant me that serenity. I'm constantly overwhelmed by one thing or another, one person or another, one project or another, and most games require or simply ask too much of me as a player anymore for me to not only make progress in it but enjoy making progress in it. But Bit Trip Runner doesn't do that. I gives me three basic movements and one goal: Run. Jump. Slide. And reach the end.
I will watch the same episodes of TV shows repeatedly, I will watch the same films repeatedly, I will listen to one song on repeat for a month, because my brain needs the safety that is found in repetition. It just cannot handle that much constant new input. Newness is unknown, thus it's scary, thus my brain cannot handle it. But Bit Trip Runner is familiar, it's simple, it's easy. It's comforting.
And in a world not made for people like me, in a world where I'm so constantly surrounded by the uncomfortable, it's nice to feel somewhat at home in the comfort of a game, even if that game is something as generic as Bit Trip Runner.
