Bernie Needs Love
Bernie Needs Love is, in essence, a simple and lighthearted platformer in which the player must guide Bernie, a nice but anguished old man chased by death, towards his girlfriend — while avoiding the many hazards of a poorly maintained yet beautiful city and collecting blue 'love-enhancing' pills to make it an extra-special night! A humorous portrait of social and existential issues in a media where death and sexuality are usually quite one-dimensional, Bernie Needs Love also stands out from the crowd with its charming lo-fi graphics, lovingly composed chiptune music, and hardcore difficulty level — which are sure to satisfy players who grew up in the 8-bit era. Aesthetically, Bernie Needs Love is indeed a loveletter to the games of the 80s and early 90s, but also an experiment on getting the most out of a self-imposed set of limitations: the palette is a mix of CPC, C64, and NES colors with a few odd ones to highlight certain elements, while the original chiptune soundtrack is entirely created with synthesizers that faithfully emulate the hardware of iconic 8-bit and 16-bit machines. Regardless of its nostalgic appeal, Bernie Needs Love is an up-to-date game from the depicted subjects (i. e. the anguish of life in the constant shadow of imminent death, one's need for love and sex, the pharmaceutical industry, etc. ) to the modern conveniences it provides, such as automatic support for the Xbox 360 controller, quick and easy switching between the windowed and fullscreen modes, audio options (toggle-enabled and independent controls for Music and SFX), and saving the player progress. Even the hair-pulling difficulty is balanced with infinite lives, immediate restart upon death, and no loading whatsoever after the first loading screen upon start (which shouldn't take more then 3 seconds, by the way).
English