Boti: Byteland Overclocked

Critical System Failure

Boti: Byteland Overclocked is an action platformer set within the confines of a vast computer world, and is the debut of Polish developer, Purple Ray Studios. While I found its colorful and charming world largely impressive, with some fairly decent, if familiar, gameplay, my time with Byteland Overclocked was unfortunately buggy, broken, and ultimately disappointing. 

When a developer sends out code as early as we received for Boti: Byteland Overclocked, a few scenarios come to mind. Either the developer is extremely confident in their game or that it's been finished for some time, or that it's functional enough to play but in need of a few extra patches before the big day arrives. Sadly, Byteland Overclocked sits firmly in the latter, as bugs and numerous technical issues plagued almost every waking minute. In fact, I had to put the game down for almost two weeks in order for an update to fix the steps leading to the final encounter, a battle, and a conclusion, that was sadly not worth the wait.

Throughout the roughly 6-7 hour adventure, I had four moments where I was locked from progressing. Two of these situations I had to brute force my way through, with another resulting in uninstalling the game and then reloading the game numerous times to eventually get it to work, and the last one, as mentioned above, had me waiting for an upcoming patch. This was due to a character not getting on a platform for me to drag them to the goal. Without them on the platform, I could not progress. You can see how this was an issue. 

I want to stress that I do feel that Byteland Overclocked is a good game, it just clearly needed more time in the oven to iron out its experience before Press was able to play it and then put together a review about said experience. Based on the various reviews that I have read to see how others felt about the game, I’ve seen outlets that were unable to beat the game due to its issues, to those that simply stopped playing it because of them. 

When it comes to what I experienced, I had platforms that were constantly not appearing, invisible walls where I needed to go, jumping pads that simply didn’t work, to pinball launchers that wouldn’t fire, thus preventing me from hitting some crucial switches. Hell, I even had a whole boss encounter that was just not ready for that build. In fact, they even put a teleporter in the back of the room to move you along. Now, all this was known by the team with a “known issues” list given to us beforehand. Will any of this be fixed before launch? I hope so, but I cannot guarantee it.

Boti begins as the titular Boti the Bot is sent to another bot named Kernel, who assigns the newly acquired Boti the role of a courier. He then is given two sidekicks in 'One' and 'Zero', a talkative dou that handles the narrative moments within the game while providing various commentary as you progress throughout the computer. Kernel then sends you on a mission to overclock the CPU since it appears to be running a bit slow. Well, like any story in a video game, that act of completing your mission sends the world into chaos, and it's up to you, One, and Zero, to set things right. Oh, and Kernel has also mysteriously disappeared, so there's that too.

While various distractions and complications will fuel the remainder of the story, that is more or less the tale you'll encounter here. You'll team up with a bot inspired by a certain classic TV detective, as well as some short-lived secondary characters that you’ll forget instantly, but for the bulk of the story, One and Zero is all you'll have. Your quest will lead you to various parts of the computer, from the graphics processor to the network adapter, to the heat sink, working through the various parts of the computer as it takes you to some pretty gorgeous locations when they work anyways.

You'll take on typical platforming, slides where you'll want to hit certain markers to keep your streak going, pinball launchers to hit switches, to boat sections that while fun can leave a lot to be desired in regards to how good it feels to drive. You'll also have the ability to move obstacles and switches around using a magnetic power. While parts of this mechanic are fine, I felt this slowed down the game having to lug most of those objects around. However, my biggest issue is the magnetic jumping, largely due to how the controls and camera fight you at every turn attempting to pull it off. Every time I saw these platforms, I let out a loud sigh. 

The overall gameplay feels fine with a somewhat floaty nature to moving Boti around that may not feel good to some players. Regardless, you can dash, float, and take part in very basic combat, all while taking the whole adventure on in local or online co-op. I attempted to try local but it simply didn't work with the build that I had. While some parts of the game do feel perfect for co-op, the whole game is easily beaten solo, even if the appeal for something like this is to enjoy it with another player. 

Boti: Byteland Overclocked also features a hub world you can return to if you want, given that each mission continues into the next, scoring you ala Angry Birds. At first, I didn't see the appeal of the Hub world, but by sheer accident, as the game didn't tell me about this, you can use the collectibles you earn to enhance Boti, upgrading their durability and scanning abilities. And, as you explore, you'll find numerous outfits for Boti to change into, several of them were actually really great. 

Exploring each area requires that you track down Megabytes, which is effectively like collecting coins or rings in other platformers. While they don't fly out of you when hit, you'll spend them at level checkpoints, opening the path forward in some form or fashion. You’ll earn a ton of these as you bash around bad guys and smash the chests that are practically everywhere. 

It's unfortunate that my time with Boti: Byteland Overclocked was met with so many issues because deep down I feel it's a fairly decent effort in creating a fun action platformer, especially as it is the first game by this team. With a few patches under its belt, then I could easily recommend the game to those looking for a good time, especially to those who want a co-op experience to share with their kids. I think Boti is a fun character to explore in this colorful and mostly engaging world, but at the end of the day, a mess of technical issues made it one adventure I’m just glad to leave behind. 

For the best representation of the game, Images were provided for the review.

Developer - Purple Ray Studio. Publisher - Untold Tales, Couchplay Interactive. Released - September 15th, 2023. Available On - Windows. Rated - (N/A) - No Descriptors. Platform Reviewed - PC. Review Access - A review code was provided by the PR/publisher for the purpose of this review.