This is the two hundred twenty-fourth entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. This particular entry is also part of the Keeping Score series about games and their soundtracks. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Our two hundred twenty-fourth random selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality is sat on the couch, controller in hand, ready to get that high score. It’s Hi-SCore Boi, by 88domo, and it’s messing up my intro formatting by not having a tagline in the bundle at all. Touché, 88domo.

Hi-Score Boi is a very simple game. Our titular boi is sat on the couch in a darkened room, facing his TV, as he plays a video game. His cat sits beside him, both they and the room rendered in a chunky voxel style (but not real voxels, this isn’t Outcast). Tap the spacebar, and the boi will hit a button, causing an explosion of colored particle effects to erupt from the screen, and adding 100 points to his score. Keep tapping for more colorful effects and more points. Earning enough points will unlock new costumes for the boi and his cat.

And that’s basically it. There are some nice touches, like the way the boi occasionally bounces excitedly as he plays, or the way his cat sometimes gets off the couch to stand on the floor, transfixed by the visual spectacle on the screen. I also like the way the graphical effects on the TV light up the room as the boi plays. But this is basically a clicker game, where players just press a button over and over to make numbers increase, with the only rewards being new costumes. There are three different music tracks to choose from while playing (and they’re included with the game download, more on that later), and a separate high score mode that challenges players to get the highest score they can in 60 seconds (by mashing the space bar as fast as they can), but there’s not much else to the game. To be fair, though, unlocks come pretty quickly. I only spent a few minutes on the game and got a handful of unlocks, but I could have nabbed the rest in short order if I’d kept playing.

One weird thing to note: upon first launching the game, the volume sliders for both music and sound were set to zero, so the game itself was silent. This was easily rectified in the settings menu — although I left sound much lower than music, since the sound effects were pretty loud — but it was weird. I should also point out that it seems Hi-Score Boi was further expanded after this version from the bundle. There are posts in the development log on the itch.io page about major updates to the Steam version of the game, which add new levels (a coffee shop, an arcade, and an e-sports event) as well as more unlocks and extras. So perhaps it’s better to view the version in the bundle as more of a prototype.

Even so, Hi-Score Boi is a bit of silly fun that might be worth checking out. Just don’t expect more than a few minutes of entertainment from it. If you missed it in the bundle, it’s sold for a minimum price of $1.99, and the download includes the original soundtrack. Which brings me to…

The Score:

The soundtrack for Hi-Score Boi, credited to N3ku, consists of three tracks that clock in at about three and a half minutes in total. That’s not a ton of music, but it makes sense given the brevity of the game itself. The tracks are “Hi-Score Boi Menu”, “Hi-Score Boi Theme”, and “Hi-Score Boi Theme (Remix)”. The menu music is a slow tune anchored by some piano chords, with synth lines and programmed percussion layered on top. The theme track is much more energetic, with a bright, lo-fi synth melody and counter-melody that evoke the early days of sample-based synthesis, the likes of which could be heard in games on the Super Nintendo. It’s also mixed much louder than the other two tracks, for some reason.

The remixed theme gets mellow and quieter again, and bears a striking resemblance to the menu track. I’m not sure if that’s because the remixed theme was repurposed for the menu, or if it’s mislabeled and is actually a remix of the menu music. Regardless, it strips back the synths and adds reverb for a spacier, more modern-sounding groove that has a bit more drive to it than the menu track does.

Overall, the music is pretty nice, if brief. I look forward to it popping up from time to time when listening to my music collection on shuffle.

That’s 224 down, and only 1517 to go!