BYTE

Fact Sheet

Developer

James Martini

Release Date

October 1, 2025

Platform

PC, Mac

Length

~10 Hours

Pitch

To live for all eternity is hard. To love for all eternity is even harder.

Take control of Jonathan Harker as he moves from his home in New York City to the mountains in Central Oregon to help the mysterious Count Dracula purchase a collection of properties in NYC. Help the Count with work tasks, spend time with your friends, and investigate the sinister underbelly of Dracula’s castle.

Description

BYTE is a tactics-RPG/visual novel from developer James Martini that adapts the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, examining themes of queerness, technology, desire, and more.

BYTE takes place in Detroit, Oregon in 1990. Dracula hires Jonathan Harker to help him purchase properties using the help of fax machines, telephones, and the internet. Rapid developments to transportation, communication, and medical technologies lie at the core of Dracula’s horror, and BYTE explores how the novel adapts to a technological revolution still happening today.

Cutscenes show both journal entries by characters, keeping with Dracula’s style, and traditional visual novel dialogue scenes. BYTE is all about the clash between 19th-century Gothic and 20th-century technology, so retaining the literary style of the novel is a core part of the experience.

Combat in BYTE happens when Jonathan needs to hack into a computer. Hacking takes the form of grid-based tactics battles where Jonathan needs to accomplish tasks rather than directly fight enemies. Tasks can include collecting data, getting through firewalls, installing software, and more.

Trailer

Screenshots

About the Developer

James Martini (they/them) is a solo game developer from Portland, Oregon. They graduated from NYU’s Game Center with a BFA in Game Design in 2024 and have worked in the games world for four years as a game reviewer and now as a quality assurance tester.

BYTE is their first commercially-released game but they have created many smaller games over the years, playable on their itch.io page. Their small turn-based RPG Yvain and Gawain, was featured on itch.io’s homepage when it released.