I have been kicking around the idea of an environmentally driven game involving the evolution of Jellyfish for about half a year. As a more mechanics driven game designer, image/style are usually one the last things I nail down in my process. Jellyfish are simple creatures and it crossed my mind that a minimalist art form may compliment their natural symmetrical beauty.

Pixelart. My thoughts a few years back were that “pixelart (was) pointless,” simply: “Why not make a game look as good as possible?” This discomfort with the art form evolved into a love/hate with my first real experience engaging with the medium in McPixel. The graphics were crude and dated looking, but it was these very aspects that complimented and often facilitated the games’ hilarity. Later, (the amazing) FTL would illustrate to me that pixelart was a lot more effective and versatile than I had originally thought.

Enter the Pixel. I’m not an artist (trained or otherwise) and I have 0 skill with any program aside from MS Paint; which conveniently requires no skill… at all. I think I might need the tiniest bit of technique. So- I google “how to pixelart,” and find this great pixelart tutorial. It’s a simple cube exercise and it shows how one needs 4 colours to illustrate (what should be perceived) as one colour on a simple 3D object. So- I give it a shot “HOLY SH*T! That’s a nice f*cking cube.”

*erhem* The style resonates with me. So tonight, I’ll start playing around with some imagery on MS Paint.