Bytebound

Cinevva's analyzer read this game's design doc and its source, then wrote the brief below. "Make your own" hands it to the game creator as your opening message, so you start from a real spec rather than a one-line idea.

Create a playable game titled “Bytebound” in a crisp pixel-art, top-down arena style. Render the playfield internally at 320x180 with nearest-neighbor/pixelated scaling to fill the browser, using a dark navy computer-grid background: a #11182f field with subtle alternating 16px tiles and sparse tiny blue-gray data specks. Keep the camera fixed on the whole arena; the player and enemies move within the rectangular bounds.

The premise and presentation are retro-computer themed: the title screen says “BYTEBOUND” in large gold lettering with a pink/purple shadow, “Taskbar Hero, recompiled” in mint, and explains: survive corrupted waves, collect scrap, and evolve the loadout; the weapon attacks automatically while the player steers, dodges, and chooses upgrades. Include a prominent “BOOT INTO THE GRID” button. Use a monospace UI, dark translucent panels, chunky 3px borders, pixel shadows, and a gold/mint/pink/purple palette.

Core gameplay is an automatic-fire survivor arena. The player is a small centered pixel humanoid/robot: mint body and pale mint face, dark outline, gold side details, and purple boots. Start with 100/100 HP, level 1, 0/30 XP, Spark Dagger damage 12, one projectile per volley, 0.42-second fire interval, movement speed 68, projectile speed 165, pickup radius 34, 8% critical chance, and a short dash cooldown. Move with WASD or arrow keys; on mobile provide four large translucent directional touch buttons at the bottom. Press Space to dash. The dash has a 0.85-second cooldown, emits mint sparks, and heals 3 HP; while dash is active, enemy contact does not damage the player. Clamp movement inside the arena.

The Spark Dagger automatically targets the nearest living enemy and fires at it, with no manual aiming or attack button. Projectiles are small 4x4 gold/white pixels with a pink center. Shots can critically hit for 2x damage; show floating damage numbers and pixel impact sparks. Player-enemy contact continuously drains HP based on enemy damage, with subtle screen shake. If HP reaches zero, stop the run and show a “SYSTEM CRASHED” panel with a summary of reached stage/wave, threats deleted, and scrap banked, plus a “REBOOT RUN” button.

Begin at Stage 1, Wave 1, stage name “GREEN CACHE.” Each wave starts with 5 + (wave number × 2) enemies entering from outside the arena edges. Enemies chase the player. Early waves randomly use these corrupted pixel creatures: BUG, a pink/red square with dark lower detail (28 HP, speed 20, contact damage 10, 7 XP, 1 scrap); SPAM, an orange square (52 HP, speed 12, damage 14, 12 XP, 2 scrap); GHOST, a mint/teal square (40 HP, speed 27, damage 12, 14 XP, 2 scrap); and, from later waves, TANK, a larger lavender square (105 HP, speed 8, damage 22, 24 XP, 4 scrap). Use dark outlines and small HP bars above every enemy. Enemy HP scales with stage and wave: multiply base HP by 1 + 0.22×(stage-1) + 0.055×(wave-1), and increase speed slightly by wave.

Every fifth wave also spawns one large BOSS with a gold rectangular body, horn-like gold protrusions, dark purple eyes/details, and a pink lower stripe. The boss has 720 base HP, 11 speed, radius 18, 30 contact damage, 100 XP plus 40 bonus XP on defeat, and 25 scrap; show a wider HP bar. Announce boss signals using banner text such as “BOSS SIGNAL // THE NULL ARCHITECT,” cycling boss names “THE NULL ARCHITECT,” “ROOTKIT PRIME,” and “THE BLUE SCREEN.” On normal waves show a temporary centered banner like “WAVE 1 // GREEN CACHE.” Defeating a boss shows “BOSS DELETED // CACHE CLEARED.”

Defeated enemies burst into pixel particles and leave collectible glowing rectangular XP gems: mint gems for ordinary enemies and larger gold gems for bosses. Gems are magnetized toward the player inside the pickup radius and are collected on contact. Ordinary kills give 100 score; boss kills give 1000. Track kills, score, and scrap. When all enemies are defeated, wait 1.5 seconds and spawn the next wave. After wave 10, advance to the next stage, reset to wave 1, heal 30 HP, and change the stage label through “DUSTED DESKTOP” and then “MIDNIGHT SERVER” (cap the displayed stage-name list at the third name). Increase difficulty via the scaling above.

When collected XP reaches the required amount, level up immediately and pause the game behind a centered modal titled “LEVEL UP // CHOOSE AN UPGRADE.” Start next-XP at 30 and update it after each level with floor(previous × 1.34 + 8). Offer three randomly selected distinct choices from these exact upgrades, applying the selected effect and then resuming play: “Overclocked Core” (+22% attack speed, multiply fire interval by 0.78, minimum 0.12 seconds); “Hotter Sparks” (+7 damage per hit); “Twin Thread” (+1 projectile per volley); “Patchwork Armor” (+25 max HP and heal 25); “Boots of Bandwidth” (+18% movement speed); “Vacuum Protocol” (+45 pickup radius); “Lucky Byte” (+10 percentage points critical chance); “Piercing Script” (shots pierce one additional enemy). Display each choice as a button with its name in gold and description beneath it. After selecting, briefly announce the installed upgrade in uppercase.

The HUD is always visible over the arena. Top-left: an HP label like “HP 100/100” above a pink/red horizontal bar, then “XP 0/30 · LV 1” above a mint horizontal bar. Top-right: “STAGE 1 · WAVE 1” (append “· BOSS” during a boss wave), “SPARK DAGGER · 12 DMG · 1 SHOT,” and “SCRAP 0,” aligned right. Include a centered temporary announcement banner in gold. On small screens, keep mobile touch controls at bottom left and show “AUTO-FIRE ONLINE / MOVE TO SURVIVE” at bottom right; hide those controls on larger desktop screens. Preserve the deliberate low-resolution pixel aesthetic, square particles, blocky characters, dark outlines, subtle floating damage text, and occasional screen shake throughout.