Tag: pixel art

News

Is this Twitter bot the next Bob Ross?

Bob Ross is a man that needs no introduction, but I’ll write one anyway. Bob was a television host from long ago that taught the world how to paint. His signature afro, calming voice, and beautifully hand-painted vistas made him a household name in the 1980s and 1990s, until he lost his battle with lymphoma in 1995. Though Bob has remained a legend, still. And now there’s a Twitter bot paying homage to Bob’s life’s work. Happy Little Painting 594282521-9 pic.twitter.com/2UZt2UNJQ3 — Bot Ross (@JoyOfBotRoss) January 26, 2017 Created by Brent Werness, the Twitter bot generates an endless cascade of new…
Pocket Kingdom
News

Pocket Kingdom might be the start to some epic pixel-art games

The pixel artist who calls himself “08–n7R6-7984” probably has too many projects on the go. The one that has caught the most attention is RE5734L3R, which follows a robot that makes its way up the class system of a mechanical cyberpunk city by stealing the social chips of other robots. It’s the pixel art and animation that steals your eyes: megacities sit in fuschia horizons, lightning-blue interfaces glitch and garble, bulky spaceships fly through metallic scenery at a blistering pace. It’s been four of five years since the game first hit my radar and it’s still only a piece of tantalizing vaporware.…
News

Balthazar’s Dream reveals what good boys dream of, and it’s ruff

A soft whimper causes you to look up from your work. It’s your dog, who is sleeping peacefully in bed. Is she dreaming? Her legs twitch slightly. Maybe she’s running around in a field, chasing a squirrel. She’s too old to do that now, but you like to think that the tiny mammal stood no chance in the dreamscape. “Wow.” You think to yourself. “She’s doing such a great job laying there.” You rouse yourself from the couch and tiptoe over to the sleeping dog and carefully drop to your knees and place your face mere inches from her nose.…
News

One game creator’s way to overcome depression? Make an uplifting game

The blinds are drawn. The room is dark and quiet. It’s past noon, and you’re still in bed. Your eyes are fixated on the carpet, bland and beige. The walls are white and bare, the furniture is hard and stiff. What is supposed to be a safe and comfortable space feels more like a prison—you are trapped. You haven’t showered yet, and your stomach reminds you that it needs attention. Your body is screaming at you to get up. Get out of bed. There’s work to be done. But moving is a chore. The signals that travelled to your brain…
Owlboy
Review

Owlboy is a masterful tale of transcending disability

My girlfriend speaks softly. She’s a ghost on the phone. If you ever met her in person, you’d lean in a little when she introduced herself. You could say it’s her personality. But you’d only be half right. The other half has something to do with a very large truck that collided with her small body when she was seven, leaving her in such a state that the doctors who treated her became locally famous. While the miracle docs lined up for pictures in the newspaper, Erin was still unable to communicate; it was years, she tells me now, before…
No Place for Bravery
News

Is there enough room for another pixel-art RPG?

There’s a close-knit cloud of terms frequently cropping up in the discussion of action role-playing games lately. “Atmospheric,” “minimalist,” “roguelike,” “pixel art,” et cetera. Hyper Light Drifter established its appeal almost entirely on the back of these signifiers. Titan Souls did the same last year, and the upcoming Children of Morta is looking to bring in the same traffic too. But for every new (or, in this case, old) aesthetic enjoying the apex of popularity, there comes the inevitable point of exhaustion. Such as might become the case with No Place for Bravery. It is pitched along the lines of being a 2D roguelike action-RPG…
News

Expect to gather round Djur’s bonfire for a sci-fi fable

The campfire story has been resurrected in videogames recently. A rush of independent games have taken their own spin on the sit-around-and-talker, and the idea of making a game out of a fable is currently being tested by upcoming games like Forest of Sleep. The recently-announced game Djur expands this area of thinking, and aims to combine the quiet calm of fantasy worlds with sci-fi, and explore the meaning of myth and humanity through folk tales. it attracts the uncanny So far we don’t know much about Djur besides the unusual moniker of “sci-fi fable.” But that’s okay, because the little…
Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor
News

Time to take in the trash: Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor is out this week

After nearly two years in the works, Sundae Month’s lo-res sci-fi adventure Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor has a release date; it’s September 16th, and will be available on Steam and itch.io. Yes, there’s about to be a new trash person in town. As an Alaensee woman with a municipally-subsidized trash collecting job, you’ll take in the trash. Incinerate it. Take in the trash. Incinerate it. Routine is at the heart of Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor, as per the job. But maybe—just maybe—you’ll be able to get off Xabran’s Rock, the place that treats you so terribly, with a little…
News

Artist imagines what Instagram would look like on Windows 95

Windows 95 had a lot going for it: its iconic startup sound; its soothing teal background; Internet Explorer in its earliest, purest form; and my personal favorite, the Paint program. Today, if you’re ever feeling particularly nostalgic, you can run Windows 95 in your browser. (True to history, attempting to use Internet Explorer will cause the emulator to crash.) But the emulator reveals a conspicuous absence: no Instagram. Yes, Instagram only launched in 2010, and as a free mobile app rather than a Windows 95-friendly .exe program. But what if it had come into existence two decades earlier? Russian graphic…