Find out why Binaries might just melt your brain when it hits PS4 today

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And why you’ll keep coming back to the tricky puzzler that aims to kill you over and over

In theory, levels in Binaries are really easy to finish. Each level is a single screen so there’s no scrolling, and all you have to do is get Blue and Orange (yes, those circles have names – it’s not a game with lots of lore, so we cling to what’s there) to the blue and orange chequerboard areas at the same time. You can’t even fail by running out of time.

Binaries

In practise, levels in Binaries are likely to kill you over and over again. You can’t control Blue and Orange separately like in other games that give you a couple of characters, you see. Instead, you use one stick (or the directional buttons if they’re more your thing – there’s no judging here) so actions make them both move at once. You want to jump Blue? Better make sure Orange isn’t underneath some spikes or you’re starting the level again, my friend.

But don’t worry; dying is cheap in Binaries (of course it is, we’ve even got a little counter that comes up and tells you how many times a level has killed you) so you’re good to go again in the blink of an eye and the sad cry of a weirdly personified circle.

Binaries

“Why would someone make a game this hard?” you ask. It’s a good question. For years I’ve loved tough platform games, but the problem has always been that I’m utterly terrible at them. Seriously awful. This left me with a couple of options: either I could practise, spending countless hours gradually honing my skills; or I could make my own, which I’d naturally be good at because I knew the tricks to all of the levels.

Combine that with a fortunate incident where I accidentally duplicated the player character, an irrational love of the colours blue and orange, and a lot of gaming jokes, and here we are – with 101 controller-smashingly tough levels for you to try and master.

And you do have to master them if you want that sweet platinum trophy. Although you can’t fail by running out of time, Binaries will judge you based on how fast you’ve been. Manage to beat our best times and you’ll earn an S rank. Achieve that on every level and you’re done. Simple, right?

Binaries

Don’t worry, it’s not all stacked against you! Don’t tell anyone, but secretly we do really want you to enjoy the challenge and love our game, so we’ve done a lot to remove the frustrations you might feel at dying for the 111th time because of that set of blasted spikes.

The first one you’ll notice is the game’s map. We know that getting stuck on a tough level is annoying, so we try and make sure you’ve always got a lot of different levels to try. They’re arranged in a grid, and finishing one unlocks all of the levels around it. This means the map opens up really quickly and you’ll be able to pick your own way for finishing every level in the game – there’s no linear order or collecting stars to progress here.

Binaries

Next up is the music. Will’s a very clever man (Will is the audio guy on Binaries by the way, I’m not just name-dropping some random chap here). He realised that chirpy excited tunes would really quickly get on your nerves. At the same time, he wanted the music to celebrate along with you when you’re doing well (hey, it does happen!). The solution is a dynamic soundtrack of top funky electronica that strips away to the bare bones if you’re going slowly or dying a lot, and builds up when you’re making progress.

Finally, there are jokes. Now, a lot of games say they’re funny. And Binaries is one of them. We’ve got up to 10 jokes. There might be more if you find the same things funny that we do, but that’s kind of out of our hands.

Binaries

Anyway, that’s a quick run-down of what Binaries is all about. We’re really excited for you all to be able to play it, and we’re looking forward to you telling us which levels you’ve died on the most in what will no doubt be quite colourful language.

PS: At the time of writing I still can’t finish all of the levels in Binaries.

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