This space adventure is both retro and modern all at once thanks to its vintage design and great story
If you’re after some classic point and click gameplay akin to the old Lucas Arts games of yore – such as Day of the Tentacle or Grim Fandango then you’ll love Bik. Particularly because this one’s set in space.
In fact, really, it’s only the pixelated graphics and retro-spook music that brings them together, but it’s a useful point of reference no less. In reality, Bik possesses a funny bone much more refined and modern than that of the 80s adventure games.
But it does share some cornerstones with that era – a boy goes camping, has a faithful dog, that ultimately plays a part in many of the biggest problems, a camp fire, marshmallows, comic books, and even a good old-fashioned alien abduction. It’s very Flight of the Navigator. There’s even and old style GameBoy that you get to play around with – but we’re getting ahead of ourselves here.
A nice relaxing campfire. Nothing could possible go wrong.
Parallel stories
Starting in space, you Ammut. Ammut is cantankerous (also, largely inept) and spends the first part of the game complaining about the state of his dilapidated spaceship. As you inspect the objects, you learn that Ammut has a buddy, who is trapped behind a fire. Once you solve this mystery (we won’t give it away, but come on it is the first puzzle, so it shouldn’t be too hard), you realize the segment is somewhat of a prologue, and you’re suddenly sent down to Earth to take care of the titular Bik, who’s on the aforementioned camping trip. Following his abduction – the two stories continue in parallel and eventually start to converge as the adventure really starts.
From there you have to face uncertain enemies, asteroid fields, and the further foibles of a dilapidated ship – but to say much more on the story would be to give too much away.
This is what computer game cinematics used to look like in the 80s.
What you can say about Bik, however, is that it’s a richly written story, not too complicated, but with enough excitement and puzzles to solve so that it doesn’t just feel like a story is being told, and that your input matters little – like many adventure games like this.
Haunting twilight pitch-bend
Furthermore, the audio – oh, the audio! When the majority of iOS games claim that it’s “better using headphones” you can take the instruction with a pinch of salt – but with Bik, the sounds are just as immersive, if not more so, than the story and gameplay. From a relaxed space hum on the alien ship, to a haunting twilight pitch-bended synth around the campfire, to a dramatically tense alien abduction score – the music is a huge part of this game, and by redesigning the soundboard for different locations and scenes entirely, it really does feel like more work has gone into this game than the majority of iOS releases, which is great to see.
The alien abduction scene is surprisingly harrowing thanks to the well produced audio.
In conclusion, Bik is a game that features graphics that, despite being fully retro, give it a richly archaic taste, but more than that – its story-writing and characters are bang up to date. So if you’re sick of yearning for the old days of point and click, and want something a little more present, then you won’t go wrong with Bik.
Price: $1.99 / £1.49
Size: 161 MB
Version: 1.05
Developer: Zotnip
Platform: iOS Universal
