Hobbies And Interests

Pixel Art Platform Game Tips

Creating pixel art for platform games requires skills in a variety of areas, including background design, character design and basic animation. Pixel art platform game designers must make identifiable characters out of simple shapes at extremely low resolutions. Try these tips to break through creative roadblocks that appear while designing a pixel art platform game.
  1. Consult the Masters

    • Study history. Take a look at the most successful pixel art platform games, including single-screen games like Donkey Kong, and side-scrolling games like the Super Mario Bros series. Research early arcade games and study character and background designs and animation for ideas. Look at pixel art web design and pixel art music videos. Don't limit the scope of your research to the gaming industry. Video games are a product of the late 20th century, but matrix-based art dates back much further. Look for innovative solutions to design challenges by looking at pointillist paintings, Impressionist pixel tile mosaics and Native American bead work.

    Begin on Paper

    • Unplug from your computer. Put your PC's graphic drawing tablet aside and give yourself permission to temporarily "downgrade" to pen and paper. Some designers find that, early in the process, ideas flow more readily through a pen than through mouse clicks and keyboard-tapping. Additionally, leaving the digital realm may reduce distractions. Develop rough ideas on scratch paper. Use a pen instead of a pencil to avoid over-editing. When you've narrowed down your ideas to a just a few of the best, switch to graph paper and French gray markers. Once you've reached the next stage of edits, add color.

    Use Drawing Reference

    • Go to the library or search online for images of the type of people or animals you want for your characters. Once you've decided upon a setting, research landscape painters and photographers who focus a on milieu similar to where your game takes place. For example, if you want a mountainous landscape, study Ansel Adams. If the action takes place in a nocturnal street scene, look at Brassai's "Paris At Night."

    Use Sprites

    • Students of game design who have never made a pixel art-based game may be accustomed to full animation. In full animation, the artist starts with fence post drawings called keys, extremes and breakdowns, then refines the animation by adding "inbetweens," or additional drawings placed in between the basic poses. Platform games may use limited animation that utilizes only key, extreme and breakdown pose sprites for walk and run cycles. Carefully designing high-style characters with strong silhouettes can do more to enhance game play than spending additional time inbetweening.

    Appeal to Nostalgia

    • Assume that your audience will expect simple, pixelated artwork and embrace simple, "herky-jerky" animation as part of the platform game's nostalgic charm.


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