16 levels · 4 worlds · 4 bosses · power-ups & golden disks · chiptune music · full screen · keyboard, gamepad or touch · free · no download · no login
Arrows / WASD move · Z / Space jump (hold for higher) · X / Shift run, and fire with the blaster · Down enter a door · P pause · F full screen · M sound · gamepad and touch work too
Press Enter or tap the game. The world map opens: pick an unlocked level and press Enter again.
Arrows or WASD move, Z or Space jumps. Hold jump to go higher, tap it for a hop. Hold X or Shift to run and jump further.
Land on bugs, glitches and spam mail to remove them. Hit the 01 blocks from below for bits and power-ups. Never stomp a virus: jump over it.
A patch gives a shield that takes one hit. A second one gives the blaster: press X to fire. The overclock bolt makes you invincible for 8 seconds.
Touch the checkpoint halfway, look for the three golden disks and walk into the exit gate. Beat the boss of each world to open the next one.
Byte Runner is a side-scrolling jump-and-run game in the style of the 8-bit era. You play a small terminal robot that runs through the inside of a computer: across a motherboard, up into the cloud, through a hot server room and into an old CRT monitor. There are 16 levels in four worlds, each world ends with a boss, and every level hides three golden disks. It runs in the browser on a computer, tablet or phone, in a window or in full screen. Nothing to download and no account.
Everything in the game was made for this site: the pixel art is drawn in code when the page loads, the levels are simple text grids, and the chiptune music and sound effects are played live by the browser's audio engine. The whole game is one web page.
Run to the right, jump over gaps and enemies, and walk into the exit gate at the end of the level. Hold the jump button longer to jump higher; with the run button held you go faster and jump further, which you need for the wide gaps. Landing on an enemy removes it, but touching it from the side costs you your shield or a life. Bump the 01 blocks from below: most give a bit, some give a power-up. Halfway each level there is a checkpoint post: after a lost life you start again from there.
| Action | Keyboard | Gamepad | Touch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Move | Arrow keys or A / D | D-pad or left stick | Arrow buttons |
| Jump (hold = higher) | Z, Space, Up or W | A | A |
| Run and fire | X, Shift or J | B or X | B |
| Enter a door | Down or S | D-pad down | Down button |
| Pause | P or Esc | Start | Pause button |
| Full screen / sound | F / M | — | Buttons top right |
The patch puts a cyan shield around the robot; one hit removes it instead of a life. If you already have a shield, the same block gives the blaster: the robot turns orange and the run button fires pings that remove any enemy, also viruses, and damage turrets and bosses. A hit takes the blaster away and leaves the shield. The yellow overclock bolt makes you invincible for 8 seconds, and enemies you touch are removed. A backup disk is an extra life, and so are every 100 bits.
Each normal level gives up to three stars: one for reaching the exit, one for finding all three golden disks in one run, and one for finishing within the par time shown on the map. Beating a boss gives one star, so a perfect game has 40 stars. One disk is always in the secret room behind a door, one is high up and one is somewhere risky. The world map keeps your stars and best times.
Press F or the button at the top right of the game for full screen; the pixels are scaled up sharply to fit your screen. On a phone, turn it sideways in full screen and use the buttons on the screen: arrows on the left, A to jump and B to run on the right. A gamepad works as soon as you press one of its buttons; a standard controller layout is expected.
The game runs completely in your browser. Your progress (unlocked levels, stars, golden disks, best times, top score and settings) is stored in your browser's local storage under the key jb-byterunner-v1; nothing is sent to a server. Page statistics come from SimpleAnalytics, which uses no cookies.
Byte Runner is an original game made for jasperbernaers.com, inspired by the side-scrolling platformers of the 8-bit era. The hero, enemies, worlds, levels, pixel art and music were made from scratch. It uses no characters, names, graphics or music from any commercial game.
Play Snake, dig for diamonds in Boulder Dash, set off chains in Chain Reaction, test yourself with the typing speed test, or make your own chiptune in the 8-bit studio.