In case you forgot when the game is set.
198X is a 2019 video game developed and published by Hi-Bit Studios, where you are... playing a video game.
Yes, really.
A loving retraux to old-timey arcade games set in the 1980s (as the title states), you play as a kid (named in-game as... "Kid") stuck in a dull suburban home, who wandered into an arcade in a factory. One whose games are still functioning, and being bored out of your mind, you then put in a quarter.
The following games are available:
- Beating Heart - A Beat 'em Up style action game where you fight your way past faceless thugs in the streets and a subway.
- Out of the Void - A Horizontal Scrolling Shooter with you in control of a spaceship blasting alien vessels and asteroids.
- The Runaway - A Racing Game leading from the big city to a tunnel and a canyon.
- Shadowplay - A ninja-themed Platform / Hack and Slash game with plenty of running and jumping involved.
- Kill Screen - A sci-fi themed RPG where the player explores an abandoned spaceship filled with monsters.
198X contains examples of the following tropes:
- Advancing Wall of Doom: The last section of "Shadowplay" has you being pursued by a shadow demon wearing a white mask (that resembles No-Face from Spirited Away) chasing you down a cavern, and you can only outrun it. Be warned, said demon even has the ability to lash out hidden appendages from underneath its mask, just like No-Face in the movie.
- Asteroid Thicket: The second segment of Out of the Void have you flying through an asteroid field after taking down waves of enemy ships. This is one of those rarer instances in spaceship games where the asteroids cannot be destroyed (though they can damage enemy ships alongside yours).
- Auto-Scrolling Level: "Shadowplay", where the player is always running forward. There's no way to stop him from running, except to slice and jump all the way to the end.
- Battleship Raid: The third and last part of Out of the Void, where you fly through the interiors of the enemy mothership and blast your way to the end.
- Captain Ersatz: The boss of "Shadowplay" is a far more hostile version of No-Face from Spirited Away. The "Kill Screen" level also has a CE of SHODAN from System Shock as the overall game's Final Boss.
- Charged Attack: In "Out of the Void", your spaceship can fire a charged shot by holding down the firing button. There's even a "Charge" meter onscreen which starts blinking when it's at maximum, where your spaceship then fires a bolt larger than itself capable of destroying enemies in a straight line.
- Derelict Graveyard: "Out of the Void" is set in a spaceship graveyard, with destroyed vessels of assorted sizes floating in the background throughout.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The player's kid protagonist is simply named... Kid. Even in the opening credits (And Introducing Maya Tuttle as "Kid").
- Genre Mashup: An arcade Beat 'em Up, space shooter, ninja-themed platformer, RPG, all rolled in one.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: "Shadowplay", thanks to your weapon being a katana, has you slicing every onscreen enemy in half. But as most enemies in this stage are armed with katanas too, if you get hit you're also treated to a slow-mo shot of your body splitting diagonally in two.
- In the Hood: Your player character in "Beating Heart" wears an sweater with a hood that's always on.
- Leave the Camera Running: Practically all the cutscenes featuring Kid when he's not in the arcade. Expect plenty of still, stationary shots depicting him sitting by a window, leaning against his locker, sitting beside his treehouse, just sitting, standing still as he's on a train, lying down as he chills on his bed...
- Ninja: "Shadowplay", the action platformer set in ancient Japan, has these as recurring enemies. The player himself is one too.
- Outrun the Fireball: "Out of the Void" ends with your ship out-flying the exploding mothership as it blows up behind you.
- Piranha Problem: Gigantic, oversized piranha enemies will pop out of the water in large numbers during the waterfall segment of "Shadowplay".
- Sequel Hook: The game ends with a neon-purple "To be continued" over a black screen.
- Spread Shot: Another power-up obtainable in "Out of the Void", which branches your ship's cannons into three directions.
- Stationary Boss: The giant robot that guards the core of the mothership at the end of Out of the Void is completely immobile, being built to the ground but can still fire a Wave-Motion Gun covering half the screen, blast you with projectiles, and occasionally claw at you with its oversized hands.
- A Winner Is You: How the game ends: if you complete "Kill Screen", you're then treated to a cutscene of your character sitting in the rain... before the screen goes black announcing, "To be continued". (Roll credits!)
