I was influenced by traditional Eastern art in developing my own sprites.
Since this was the first time I have created pixel art, I decided to use a more painterly method.
Above has been my process for developing sprites. I paint a vague image until it looks correct. I then narrow down the colours and make it readable. This process has eased me into the traditional method of developing an outline first.
The original use of a narrative in the game would have been basic and only provide the context for play. The story and aesthetic would back up the game play. The idea was to bring the player into a fantastical world and fight fantastical creatures.
However as I couldn't progress in terms of game play, I focused on the aesthetic and using the aesthetic to tell the story.
I am interested in theatre from playing games like Kentucky Route Zero that incorporates it into various themes. I wanted to explore classic themes like tragedy. A narrative around this theme and the grotesque world I had sounded interesting to develop.
I wanted to explore what would happen after the tragedy and when all of the events and their consequences have happened. The player was a victim of their own bad choices. Bringing a character like that into a world full of victims gave the reason for the distorted world and characters. T
Tragedy would be a focal point in the world and be a part of the environment. However I didn't want to be extremely dark, I wanted it to still have a light heart at times. The Chinese Epic Monkey has a theme of tragedy as the main protagonist falls and then is redeemed. Although I had no intention of exploring the theme of redemption, Monkey had the right tone.
Lisa is a game that is lighthearted while exploring really disturbing themes. Lisa helped with figuring out the structure and the feel of the game and aesthetic.
This is the first time I have made pixel art and the main difficulty to overcome was in working with the limitations. I found that I could make larger sprites around 100x100 pixels big without too much difficulty. However, when it came to making the smaller sprites and sticking to the traditional way of making sprites, I found it difficult and the sprites turned out quite bad.
It is difficult to translate a lot of detail into a few pixels while keeping it readable so I based the aesthetic on games like Risk of Rain and SuperBrothers Swords and Sorcery. The sprites in these games are quite rough and use colour instead of black lines to show detail.
I decided to keep the smaller sprites in this style and the larger one would add the detail in dialogue.
