A game by Hi-Bit Studios for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One, originally released in 2019.
198X is a casual narrative-focused adventure told through the lens of late 80’s arcade games. The game’s protagonist – known simply as “Kid” – is slowly coming to terms with his changing life, from the changes in his family dynamic, to the changing social norms of becoming a teenager, so his journey of self-discovery. Kid lives in the suburbs and discovers a seedy arcade in a bad part of town, which offers him an escape into new worlds. The game shifts between introspective cutscenes and video game action across five different games, with the narrative eventually merging into the on-screen action.
The games themselves are actually less important than the story being told, as each of them consists of only a sampling of what a full game would offer. That said, for all its focus on narrative, the games that Kid plays don’t have much of a direct impact on the overarching story. He describes the games as an escape, rather than drawing any specific life lessons from the challenges he overcomes… and most of the games are fairly simple and consequence-free by design.
