Steins;Gate: Hen’ikuukan no Octet, or more commonly known as Steins;Gate: 8-bit, is a non canonical continuation of the story from the original game. It is another collaboration project between GigasDrop. and Nitroplus (SoniComi, Deus Machina Demonbane) and 5pb (Muv-Luv, Corpse Party Blood) which was released on November 2011 as a PC exclusive.
Similar to the main game, it also received an unofficial English fan translation. The story is oriented mostly towards the more comedic, but it references that connect Chaos;Head and Steins;Gate together.
Set after the true ending of the original Steins;Gate, the protagonist Rintarou Okabe receiving a “D-Mail” sent by himself from the year 2025 and told by his future self that the IBN5100 has been stolen once again this time by a man named “Knight-hart”. To save the world from chaos, he must take it back.
The game has been made to simulate the feel of of the retro computers in the 80’s era complete with text input controls, pixelated graphics and oldschool chiptune music. After new game is selected, player can choose to emulate the game between 5 different computer settings whose names are parodies for their real life counterparts: NEC PC-8801, NEC PC-6001, Sharp X1, Sharp MZ-2000 and Fujitsu FM-7. Though very pixelated and primivitive, the artwork for both characters and backgrounds is otherwise surprisingly detailed
While a visual novel, the interface follows the standard of text adventure game. Player have to interacts with the game through typing commands for moving (left, right, down etc) and with characters or objects (talk, open door, give flashlight, etc). The game offers no list of which commands can be chosen in a given scenario, so player will have to work out which ones to use their own. It may be difficult for an average gamer, so player have to pay attention to the text and know the characters and preceding storyline which generally offers hints on what to try out.