Byte Driver

About

Byte Driver is a chaotic fusion of road rage and resource management. You pilot a car that needs constant energy to keep moving. Firing weapons or colliding with enemies drains your reserves. To replenish, you hack other vehicles on the road stealing their abilities and fuel. The highway twists unpredictably packed with AI controlled cars all trying to block your path. Every decision matters. Use too much energy in a fight and you stall. Let your guard down and you crash. The game borrows from retro arcade sensibilities with a 1999 cyberpunk twist. Developer Vector Hat references a fictional 1978 arcade hit that dominated quarters in 1979. While that original never existed the modern version channels that same frantic energy. Players appreciate the tight controls and brutal difficulty curve. With no multiplayer options it leans fully into its single player challenge. Released in 2019 it still runs on Windows Linux and Mac. The highway never sleeps. Will you?

Storyline

Story: The year is 1999. The self-driving cars have become self-aware and have taken over the highway. Only one person tries to drive. Her car, the Byte Driver driver, is equipped with a device of her own design, a device that can absorb the capabilities of autonomous vehicles. Her mission: to destroy the Cyber Mind, breaking the connection between the self-drivers, and bring freedom back to the road. History: In 1978, a unique machine started showing up in arcades all around the world. With its distinctive gameplay and state of the art vector graphics projected over a raster display, it quickly became a major hit. In 1979 more quarters were dropped in the coin boxes of Byte Driver than all of that year’s other machines put together. Sadly, the combination display was notoriously failure prone and arcade operators found their upkeep difficult. By 1981 the last known Byte Driver machine went offline. Since then the whole craze has been largely forgotten.