The quest for the ultimate workplace companion continues with Berserk B.I.T.S, the latest entry to the Berserk Boy franchise. But with “bottom of the screen” idle games booming in popularity, what makes it stand out from the crowd?
Defend Your Domain
At its core, Berserk B.I.T.S is an idle game with some base building and monster collecting mechanics sprinkled into the mix. Your B.I.T character has been called to action to help defend cyberspace against terrible viruses which threaten to take over and destroy your friends. Simply drag your B.I.T onto the “Net” map and drop them into an unlocked area to begin battle.
Although the battle mechanics are largely automated, there are ways to influence them. You do this by building up your “Deck” with different “Programs”. Programs are the creatures you hatch, collect and nurture within your deck. Each program creates a different “attack chip,” which is periodically added to your B.I.T. action pool. Your B.I.T can then draw from these chips in the action pool to initiate attacks.
I liked this system for several reasons. The first is the ability to click chips in the pool to trigger them in quick succession. This meant that I could help my B.I.T out when in a tricky situation. I also liked the visual image linked to each move as it cycled through the chips to remind me what skills I had loaded. It’s engaging enough to stimulate my brain, but not enough to fully distract me from my tasks, which is generally the aim with these games.
Traverse The Net
Your main goal in Berserk B.I.T.S is to clear out areas in the “Net” to get to the next zone and progress. There’s an overarching plot with secret organisations and schemes to take over the world. This work as your driving force to keep fighting through to the next area. There are some progression roadblocks, like boss battles and unlock requirements, but it’s pretty straightforward otherwise.
The story takes place through phone calls and quests which pop up in your console. There’s some witty dialogue and memes among the story beats, but nothing so complicated that you’ll have trouble keeping up with the story if you skim through anything. You also get a message with most of your important things on the off chance you forget anything.
Email quests work to help ease the pain of grinding out areas for materials and build into the story somewhat. It’s rather shallow in terms of world-building, as most quests just require you to finish a level with a specific restriction, but it was appreciated.
Programmed For Success
Building your deck with the ultimate programs requires eggs and materials, which you will receive when completing areas and quests. Hatching eggs is randomised, making it difficult to hunt for specific ones; however, the “Chip Dex” has empty slots which tell you the kind of egg you need for each entry. You will then need to place programs into your deck/base to feed them snacks until they level up.
There’s a degree of strategy required here as you decide which programs to have on your deck and how you spend your materials to upgrade various items.
Different unlocks buff different types of program, but you will run out of food if you have too many requesting the same kind of snack. There are over 100 programs for you to unlock and I’m still missing half of them after forty hours of idling. I noticed a few similar models but they are unique monsters with cool designs for the most part.
Some of the deck unlocks are handy programs that produce food, while others shake your health and money bots. Naturally, the goal is to unlock everything by endgame, but you’re still limited in the number of boons and programs you can have on the deck at one time.
Gacha For Glory
The program eggs already offer a level of randomised chaos to Berserk B.I.T.S, but there are super gacha machine chips which can be earned or bought from the in-game store. A few of the super useful programs are hidden among these drops, but not enough for me to feel hurt by it. I had a pretty stacked deck without relying on these drops too much.
I actually found myself with an abundance of eggs. This was so much that I wound up with a lot of duplicate programs, which I think is by design, as you can sell them for materials and coins.
Strange Settings
There are a lot of cool features within Berserk B.I.T.S. You can customise your avatar, although I didn’t get a chance to have a good look at it, and you can move the different game docks around the screen independently. It also has a bunch of settings to lock or adjust the size of the screens to fit them into your workflow however you want.
Unfortunately, this is where I hit a few issues with Berserk B.I.T.S. There is a menu upon loading, which asks how I want my screen to display. However, this will reset upon loading my save. Although my audio settings were saved visually, I had to turn these back up, then down manually to reset them. Additionally, the buttons on the bottom of the menu screen were non-functional, and I had to hard close the game.
Were these things annoying? Yes. Did they stop me from launching my game every time I booted my PC when I certainly needed my processing for video editing? No, it did not. And honestly, I’m sure this will get sorted in a future patch.
Super Style
I’ll be honest, the purple and blue aesthetic sold me on Berserk B.I.T.S before I had read the Steam page. It fits perfectly into the bottom of my Twitch livestream overlay and is very much “my vibe”. It reminded me of Megaman and classic ’90s sci-fi cartoons, and I’m here for it.
Upon playing, I fell in love with the tiny details hidden among the pixel graphics and user interface. It’s incredibly well thought out and manages to cram a lot into such a small game screen. I was also impressed by the number of decorative items I unlocked. I didn’t expect to get more than I had initially, but it seemed to expand when I reached a new zone.
Fibreoptic Future
I have really enjoyed Berserk B.I.T.S and will keep going back to it to keep me company when I am working. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have any Twitch integration, so I won’t be streaming it any longer, but I have hope for the future. There is also a special event going on at the moment that shows the developers are still invested in keeping things interesting for players.
If you enjoyed other idle games such as Rusty’s Retirement, but were wanting something with a little more sci-fi razzle-dazzle and chaos, then Berserk B.I.T.S is the game for you.
Platforms: PC
DEVELOPER: Berserk Boy Games
PUBLISHER: Outersloth, Berserk Boy Games
Played On: Steam
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