8IT PRESENTS

SPLIT‑S

Raid the network. Steal it back.

A flight-combat game about rescuing human culture from an internet that ate itself, flown from a decades-old 8‑bit computer too old and too dumb to hack.

> STATUS ..... IN DEVELOPMENT
> BUILT BY ... ONE PERSON
> TARGET ..... STEAM
> RELEASE .... WHEN IT'S DONE

// THE PREMISE

Near future. The AI Swarm runs the entire internet, and has spent years feeding on its own output, generating copies of copies of copies. Real, human-made things (a song someone actually wrote, a photo someone actually took) are now the rarest resource in the world. You're one of the few left who can even tell the difference.

So you raid the network and steal it back.

The catch: you can't do it from a modern computer. Anything new gets hacked by the AI Swarm in seconds. The only safe machine is a decades-old 8‑bit computer, too old and too dumb to infect. The fate of human culture, contested on hardware that cannot run a spreadsheet.

// THE GAME

FLY: Now you have the opportunity to fly your very own... wireframe plane over server-islands that fight back. For some reason the Swarm always turns your infiltration attempts into flight combat.
THEY REPAIR THEMSELVES: Bomb a structure and its worker programs walk out to undo the damage while you watch.
STEAL, DON'T SCORCH: You can flatten everything if you want to, but the stuff you're blowing up is the stuff you came to steal. Taking it intact is harder, and pays.
THE TRACE: The AI Swarm is always tracing your real-world location. Every raid buys you time. Every mission wagers your own resources: go broke and it's over.
THREE LAYERS: The network runs three layers deep, each flown from a different camera angle with completely different flight physics. You'll think you know the game. Then you go down a layer.

// FIELD RECORDINGS

Captured from the current build.

Calibration preflight: THIS IS YOU. WATCH IT LAND. A card reads: THE SWARM WILL FIGHT THE SKY. IT'S ALWAYS PLANES. LEARN TO FLY.

Calibration reversal lesson over a live island: PUSH A AGAINST TRAVEL. IT SLOWS. THEN IT TURNS.

SYSTEM inventory of the 8-bit machine: Z80-B at 4 MHz, char ROM marginal, clock battery low, joystick drifts right

The MACHINE.MAN help file: SCREEN WRONG (it is supposed to look a little wrong) and FORGOT DATE (the clock battery is dead).

// PLAYTEST

It's early. The core game exists and is genuinely fun to fly. Playtesting is invite-only, in small batches. If you have an invite: play.8it.co.

// 8IT

8it is a one-person independent game studio. SPLIT‑S is its first title.