PAX East Spotlight: Bite the Bullet
By: Peeziest
If you've been following along with our PAX spotlights, then you already know about Bite the Bullet. For the unaware, Bite the Bullet is a 2D run-and-gun pixel-style platformer. What makes it stand out, is the eating mechanic and how it ties to a progression system. I had the pleasure of playing the demo at PAX East.
You can eat stunned foes, as well as food found around the stage. Doing so provides resources that are used to level up your character. There are different groups of foes, such as meat, plants, and robots. As you level up, eating different groups impacts how you play.
As I played the demo, I leveled up to the point where my character effectively became vegetarian, barfing any non-plant food he tried to consume. The trade off is that eating plants provided the character with a barrier of birds that could protect me, and a couple of other benefits.
The progression system is fairly deep. You have access to a skill tree, with different branches focusing on certain types of food and play-styles. Because I unlocked plant-based perks, my character started a plant-based lifestyle.
In Bite the Bullet, it's possible to eat TOO much. Retaining so much mass makes the character fatter, which drastically reduces movement speed and limits jumping height. Running and jumping expended calories, making the character fitter and removing the previously stated penalties.
In my short time with the demo, I found I needed a good balance of eating to make my character stronger, while also resisting the urge to eat everything since I don't want to get fatter. Just like my personal life!
There was also a super meter of sorts, which eating filled. Once filed, you could enter a super mode where you mutate and defeat foes with your fists as an invincible hulking monster.
Bite the Bullet is rapidly approaching its release date, and you can wishlist it now on Steam