I ■ Pixels

First, I want to say thanks to everyone who’s followed us through the various channels. It’s exciting to be starting on this new venture, and it’s great to have some initial support from friends and family. I also want to say thanks in particular to Peter Robbinson and Vera Süssli for clicking on that donate button on the left sidebar and contributing toward us keeping this site running! It means a lot to Matt and I, and we’re very encouraged to come up with some great stuff.

Today is really the first day since I left my job that I’m sitting home, by myself, trying to plan what I’m going to do. Honestly it’s a little intimidating to be in the situation that I am, but it’s also exciting. The game that we’re focusing on now is at a point where I need to be working on the concept art and coming up with our look. It’s been a good six years now since I’ve really been doing artwork of any sort so I find myself looking around for things that inspire me. Last week I sat down to play through the Scott Pilgrim vs The World game (I started recording play through videos on our YouTube channel a few months ago when I realized I haven’t been playing as many games as I should and needed some motivation to force myself through the collection I’ve amassed). It’s a fantastic game that’s supposed to see some new DLC soon, and the pixel art is absolutely wonderful.

Even these though these take advantage of an even larger sprite size than the average SNES or NES game, Paul Robertson did some really nice work in this game, and it’s refreshing to go back and see these carefully crafted classical animations that are so limited in their size, and frame rate and yet so clear and fun. It’s unfortunate that that new DLC has some controversy surrounding it, and a shame that Ubisoft didn’t continue to make use of Paul Robertson for this update.

Along the same lines as the return to old school in-game art in modern games, I’m still very much in love with the concept art from back in the era of my childhood. I’ve been drooling at my screen every time I come across old artwork by Katsuya Terada, or the old Metroid artwork. The Mega Man games were a huge inspiration to me growing up, and it’s fantastic seeing that old style of concept art today. I wonder why it is that I love this stuff so much. Is it just nostalgia? It all just feels so fun. *sigh* Alright, time to crack out the drawing board and get to work.

 
Update: Since I was on the topic of Scott Pilgrim vs The World today, I figured that I’d attach a related article about the making of the game, which Brian Lee O’Malley just posted on Twitter.