The world is in a wierd place at them moment. Covid-19 turned everything on it’s head and many things are different, some good and some bad. I loved that I got more time to spend with the family and the weather here has been great. The slowing of pace was definitely a welcome change and, at first, felt really great.
Towards the end of my Final Major Project, we were told that UAL (the grading body responsible for my course) were no longer counting it towards our final grade. This is a worry, because none of our previous work was designed to be marked. It was all merely summaries of learning. I’m still waiting for my final marks, but it feels very deflating to have put in a lot of work, that won’t count towards my grade. Of course the work can still go towards my portfolio, but the whole situation left me feeling a bit lost and generally unproductive.
I took the opportunity to do a couple of bits of fan art, which I havent done in the longest time. It was refreshing and I had a lot of fun doing them, but I just can’t seem to shake the feeling that “I just can’t be bothered”. I’m hoping that as I return to work in a couple of weeks, normality will kickstart itself a little, giving me the extra boost I need to stay creative.
an Art, that I recently completed. Darth Maul is awesome!The other piece. Vivi is probably my favourite Final Fantasy character. His existential pain is reflective of a few current events.
I am slowly gaining traction on a new project. A few screen captures have made it to Twitter, but I’m holding off on a full reveal right now.
So that’s where I am at the moment. The world is in a bit of a crappy place and I’m just drifting along with it. Things will get better though, and I’ll be back here with more updates.
From the monochrome glare of “Computer Space” and “Pong” (Alcorn, 1972) in the 1970’s, to the complex beauty of 2020’s “Eastward” (Eastward, n.d.), the pixels arranged on the screen have been an integral part of transporting the player to the amazing worlds of video games. I am going to explore the brief history of Pixel Art. In an effort to improve my understanding and application of digital art, I wish to look at the origins and its first games. I will explore the way in which technical limitations impacted the way in which game assets were created and presented on the screen, including techniques used to overcome these. I will then look at the art form’s decline, when the PlayStation era called for polygons, before delving into the present and future of pixel art, where artists are no longer bound by technical restraint.
First of all, what is pixel art? The website, Techopedia.com, defines pixel art as “digital art wherein images are created and edited at the pixel level using a graphics editing software” (Techopedia.com, n.d.). The origins of these images in games, mainly began 1972 on the Magnavox Odyssey. The Magnavox was only capable of displaying two white blocks and one line, making use of plastic screen overlays to emulate board and card games. The ping pong game included with the console was the inspiration for Atari’s “Pong”, releasing in the same year and becoming the first commercially successful video game. The Atari 2600 bought game cartridges and more complex shapes and colour. Whilst still relying on basic blocks, programmers were able to create identifiable shapes by this period. “Space invaders” (Nishikado, 1978) was able to portray simple alien creatures as the enemies and move them across the screen, with changing animation frames. The game “Adventure” (Robinett, 1980), whilst still using basic blocks to portray the player character and level layout, arranged pixels to create identifiable items, such as keys and Dragon enemies. Although the developer was able to create more complex sprites, he was unable to display them on the screen, due to hardware limitations. On the Atari 2600 you can only have 5 moveable sprites, only 2 of which are able to be more complex. It is for this reason that the character in “Adventure”, is a simple square. Similar practices would continue, until advances in arcade hardware could accommodate more complex sprite manipulation.
The early 80s heralded the beginning of the 8bit era. By utilizing sprite tile sets (collections of pre made sprites, which could be arranged and pasted to create levels), arcade games could start to create more varied and rich images. Donkey Kong (Miyamoto, 1981), featured brightly coloured levels, with lots of moving items and recognisable Characters, of varying sizes. The hardware had the ability to store 128 16×16 pixel sprites, along with 256 8×8 pixel sprites. The smaller tiles were used for the backgrounds, saving memory and leading to increased variety. Most of the moving elements, such as barrels, fireballs and Mario (known as “Jumpman”) were 16×16 sprites, whilst Donkey Kong consisted of six of these placed next to each other. These Chunkier sprites, also made the animation and programming of the characters a lot easier and more efficient to run on the new arcade hardware and later, Nintendo’s Entertainment System (Altice, 2016). Games such as MegaMan (Matsushima, 1987) continued this trend of chunky, recognizable characters on more complex levels, although starting to make use of more colour, emulating the anime style which emanated from Japanese video game culture at the time. The colors used often changed depending on which hardware the game was made for, as they all handled this data differently. The ZX Spectrum could only handle 2 colours per 8×8 sprite, from a set pallette of 16 colours. The NES allowed for 3 colors on a 16×16 sprite, from 4 different palletes made up of 53 colors each. The Sega Master System however, could handle a maximum of 12 colours on each sprite from a palette of 64 colours (Dadako.com, 2018). These are all 8bit consoles, but these limitations show how the design process of a game would differ, depending on your intended platform.The reason that Mega Man was designed as a blue character, was because on the NES console’s limited pallete, blue had the most shades, meaning that the artists were able to add more depth to his sprite (Hawkins, 2013).
The Super Nintendo (SNES) launched in 1990, during the 16bit era and the fourth generation of home consoles, along with the Sega Genesis. The SNES was able to display 256 colours on the screen at once. These 256 colours were split into 16 pallettes, each containing 16 colours (Super Famicom Development Wiki, 1998). Sprites around this era were starting to become more in line with traditional animation frames. Capcom artists, working on games such as Darkstalkers (Jimenez, 1994), would draw the animation frames onto grid paper first. These pages were then placed onto a tablet device, called a “digitizer”. The lines were then traced, using a “Digitiser Puck”, which is basically a mouse with a crosshair, used to follow these line drawings. Other studios started to use “Light Pens”, a stylus which interacted directly with the computer screen. Techniques were developed, to avoid “jaggies”(a term used to describe jagged lines, where a curve should be). Curved lines could be made smoother by making sure that a row of pixels is never surrounded by smaller rows on each end. If at least one of the rows is the same size or bigger, then the curve will look better (Azzi, 2019) .
With the technical power of the PlayStation, in 1994, came an increased demand for 3d polygonal graphics. Sprites were now old news used mainly for fighting games and JRPGs, although by now even Final Fantasy had shed its pixels in favour of 3d with the release of Final Fantasy 7 (Sakaguchi, 1997). The pixel art genre began to fade into obscurity, a relic of the old school.However there was still interest and people that hung on to the expressive minimalism of the form.
Throughout the early 2000s, art sites such as DeviantArt, kept the pixel art movement bubbling away. It was with Re-Logic’s Terraria (Omer and Bednarz, 2011), that Pixels erupted into the mainstream in a big way. The game was massively popular with influencers, creating lots of interest in crowdfunded projects such as Shovel Knight (D’Angelo and Flood, 2014). The Kickstarter campaign raised $311,000, leading the game’s artist, Nick Wozniak, to go as far as crediting crowd funding for the genres resurgence (Dewey, 2014).
Presently the market is full of pixel art games, due at least in part to the explosion of small indie developers. Is it all down to nostalgia? I don’t belive so. What people think of as “retro” isn’t actually the case. The old TV screens of the 80’s and 90’s displayed the pixels with less clarity, meaning the art blurred together a bit. People have forgotten this, due to the use of emulators to replay classic games. The sharp, clean pixel Mario that everyone recognises as the “NES version”, is just how we retrospectively remember it. New pixel art is cleaner, clearer and more expressive, whilst still being based around self imposed restrictions.The recent titles are now utilizing new technology, including complex particle effects, lighting systems and blending the lines between 2D and 3D, in a term known as “HD 2D”, in games such as “Octopath Traveller” (Hasegawa, 2018). I believe that this will be the future of pixel art in games, using the pixels in 3D environments and using the high end pysics, lighting and effects enjoyed by 3D games.Developers are no longer hamstrung by limits in color pallete of amounts of pixels on a screen, meaning that the choice to include pixel art in your game is no longer “retro”. It’s a stylistic expression, letting the player fill in the blanks, letting solo developers tell grand stories, which translate well to the young and old. It’s timeless.
Bibliography
Alcorn, A. (1972). Pong. USA: Atari.
Altice, N. (2016). I Am Error. The MIT Press, p.69.Altice, N. (2016). I Am Error. The MIT Press, p.69.
In this essay, I plan to explore various areas of benefit within the area of computer games. I aim to first look at some social benefits of games. I will look at how multiplayer games, conventions and competitive scenes, link people with common interests allowing them to socialize, perhaps more than they would do otherwise.
Next, I will look at the positive psychology of playing games and the areas of motivation and fulfillment, including the different types of wellbeing achieved by players.
I will show that games have the power to improve one’s ability to process visual information, including studies into the effects of this stimulus on surgeons. I will then look at the benefits in the mental health sector, being used in counselling and therapy sessions.
Many games include a multiplayer element, which can be played by two or more players. These are either local (also known as couch co-op), where the participants are on the same computer, or online. Over 70% of gamers regularly play with one or more of their friends. (Granic, Lobel and Engels, 2014). Why do people enjoy playing together? One aspect of many multiplayer games is cooperative play. In the book “How Games Move us”, by Katherine Isbister, she explains that there is “something deeply satisfying and bonding about overcoming a challenging mental and physical situation with someone else” (Isbister, 2017). The author refers to this as “Coordinated Action” and references the good feeling achieved by collaborative efforts such as, team sports or getting a car out of a snowdrift. Imagine that warm feeling, but spread over a matter of hours, days or weeks and you can start to understand why people prefer to play in this way.
The other type of multiplayer gaming is competitive play. Many games such as, Fortnite (Fortnite, 2017) and League of Legends (Cadwell, 2009), feature mechanics that encourage players to compete against each other. This competitive landscape gives players a sense of achievement, along with a sense of community with other like-minded people.
The desire of players to associate with other gamers, often culminates in the creation of conventions. Fans can gather in one place to celebrate their love for a chosen game, or genre of game. Notable conventions include Runefest (for the fantasy role playing game, Runescape (Gower, 2001)), Minecon (for the creative building game, Minecraft (Persson, 2011)) and Blizzcon (for various Blizzard games). ESports tournaments are an extension of these gatherings and are becoming more and more popular. By 2020, the global eSport market size is projected to be worth $1.65 billion (Influencer Marketing Hub, 2019), leading to increases in both players and spectators. The Fortnite World Cup attracted over 2 million live viewers (Spangler, 2019), many of which would be communicating on social platforms.
I will now look at the feelings of motivation and fulfillment, felt by people as a result of playing computer games. The Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors state that there are two approaches to happiness (Counselling Connection, 2010). The first of these is “Hedonic” Wellbeing. This is related to subjective personal satisfaction, for example, getting the most points and winning the game. It makes you feel happy with yourself, but there isn’t necessarily anything too in depth around this happiness. This would be the case in a game such as “Fifa20” (Fifa 20, 2019), where the experience is short lived and immediate.
The alternate type of happiness is known as “Eudaimonic” Wellbeing. This is related to deeper experiences, personal challenges and growth. It is the game experiences that you just have to tell your friends and family about. Playing games with rich, deep stories, such as “The Last of Us” (Druckmann, 2013) tend to lead to this type of emotion in gamers. Another route to this feeling of “growth” would be in role playing games, like “The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim” (Carver, 2011). In this game, the player takes the role of a character that can be heavily personalized. The game itself is very open to individual interpretation and thus, leads to very personal stories and experiences. These experiences are then often shared with other players or friends.
Where the previous two areas were related to emotional benefits of playing games, I shall now look into physical benefits. The Beth Isreal Medical Centre, in Boston, has found that gaming may improve one’s ability to perform keyhole surgery, stating that there is a “potential link between video game play and laparoscopic surgical skill and suturing” (Rosser, 2007). 33 surgeons took part in an exercise, using the “Top Gun” laparoscopic and suturing program, to accurately simulate an operation. The study found that nine doctors, who had previously played video games for at least 3 hours a week, made 37% fewer errors and performed 27% faster than surgeons who had never played games before.
This benefit to health can also be extended to mental health. The game “Sparx” (Merry et al., 2013) is a free to play online fantasy game, aimed at young people with depression and anxiety. The various quests in the game are based around things such as negative thoughts, and an in-game guide offers advice and explanation of social skills or problem solving, upon the completion of tasks. The game was created by a team of psychiatrists and was awarded a range of awards, leading to a follow up game, aimed at helping adolescents come to grips with their personal sexuality.
Deep-VR (Harris, n.d.) is a VR game, where players navigate an underwater world, using just their breath. A customized controller method, measures diaphragm expansion, to track the player’s breathing rate. Long, slow exhaling, causes the player to go deeper and explore, whilst inhaling causes them to float upwards. These meditative breathing exercises can relive anxiety and relax the person taking part.
Over the course of this essay, I have discovered that there are varying and important benefits to playing games. Whilst the mainstream media portrays computer games as bad influence and a drain on peoples emotional and mental wellbeing, the opposite of this can be found at regular occurrences. I have found that gaming can be a healthy addition to social interaction and that it is not the isolating practice that many deem it to be. Events, such as conventions and competitions, are great ways for gamers to make contact with like- minded groups of people. I have explored how games can make you feel “happy” and motivated, leading to personal satisfaction and wellbeing. Lastly, I looked at the benefits to both physical and mental health, dispelling the myth that gaming destroys your brain and is detrimental to personal health. In an age when atrocities and poor decisions are blamed on the technologies that some don’t understand, it’s refreshing and enlightening to realize that computer games can have such a positive impact on the lives of many gamers around the world.
Bibliography
Cadwell, T. (2009). League of Legends. Riot Games.
Carver, G. (2011). The Elder Scrolls V : Skyrim. Rockville,Maryland: Bethesda Game Studios.
Isbister, K. (2017). How games move us. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, p.45.
Merry, S., Stasiak, K., Fleming, T., Shepherd, M. and Lucassen, M. (2013). Sparx. New Zealand: The University of Aukland.
Rosser, J. (2007). The impact of video games on training surgeons in the 21st century. – PubMed – NCBI. [online] Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17309970 [Accessed 4 Oct. 2019].
So after a rollercoaster couple of weeks, working from home, the first demo of the game is ready! Head over to https://bravepenguin.itch.io/crystal-warriors, to give it a try and feel free to leave some feedback.
I had planned to start a devlog, but as I’m already having to do this for the college, it just felt like too much extra work at the moment to document it all twice. A I update the project, after the course is done, this may change.
I’m also fighting the urge to start a side-project. I have a really good idea, but don’t want it to take my attention away from my current subject, but watch this space! I’ve started some sketches and notes, but won’t be too drawn in just yet.
It’s been a while, since my last post. First of all, Christmas was super busy for me, so I didn’t have a lot of time to do a lot outside of family business. I had put a hold on personal projects (outside of pixel art), due to the incoming Final Major Project for my college course, in February. I knew that once the project started, it would require me to dedicate as much time as possible, with little room for personal side quests. I decided to create a multiplayer, party-style, competitive platformer. If you ever played the old Super Mario Arcade game (or the mini game in Super Mario Bros 3), then you get the idea.
An early movement prototype
The project started and I hit the ground running, with the intention of getting the game playable at EGX Rezzed, in March. I was well on track to achieve this, with the game and art coming together really well, when the Coronavirus pandemic bought the globe to a standstill. EGX was now cancelled, but I carried on making progress and getting good responses.
A screenshot from the game
My workflow has been hit again this week, with the closure of schools and colleges. I am now home schooling 3 kids (between the ages of 7-12), whilst looking after my 2 year old (my partner is currently still working during the day) and working on my college project. I also work in the evenings, so as you can imagine, my world is a rollercoaster at the moment!
But………..I will make it. Eventually the madness will end, hopefully leaving people with more appreciation for the little, less thought about things in everyday life. I’m going to aim to update the blog a little more now (it may save a little bit of my sanity), possibly starting a development log for the game, before the demo hits itch.io. Thanks for reading!
I began my college experience with mixed feelings. Firstly, I was 32 years old! How was I going to cope, after being out of education for so long? My finances were still not where I would have liked them to be, so that was another worry. By this time, my son was in his final year at primary school and had already been learning how to code, so I was almost certain that the other students on the course will have encountered it as well. I had never learned to code, not even the basics. I had never used Photoshop, Maya or Unity. The first few weeks only confirmed some of my fears. The much younger students, many of which were from a completely different world to the one I grew up in, knew nothing of the games that I grew up playing. Most had encountered at least the basics of code and many had previously used Photoshop in secondary school. I persevered and soaked in as much as I could, slowly beginning to talk to a group of students, that I am still friendly with now. As we moved into our first independent game project, my original fears and insecurities around my age began to morph into confidence. People were taking notice of what I was making, and the speed in which I was putting things together. My experience with time management, along with my art skills and relentless google searches meant that I was being asked lots of questions and being asked to give advice on other projects. I had hit my stride and was loving the experience of learning these new skills. It was at this time, I came up with my dev identity, “Brave Penguin”. Basically, penguins are my spirit animal and I wanted a fun mascot to represent my efforts.
That’s not to say that there wasn’t any hurdles. With 4 children at home, it was hard to do work during the day (my youngest wasn’t at school, though we have childcare for when I am at college), and I didn’t get home from my job until 9pm, which left little time in the evenings, assuming I didn’t want to invest in personal time, like watching TV or playing games. At one point, before my partner was back at work, I was attending college on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, working as a laborer and block paving on Tuesday, Thursday and some Saturdays, and working every weekday evening. It was exhausting, but I was focussed on learning all of these cool new skills.
I was proud to pass the first year of my course with Distinction. I worked really hard and learned a huge amount. Over the duration of the course, I had the opportunity to test games for Frontier Developments and Ninja Theory and got to chat with industry figures at our end of year expo. I hope to repeat these experiences soon, as well as having the opportunity to show our work at EGX Rezzed, which will be great.
I’m currently heading towards the end of my second and final year of my course. Whilst I initially saw my age as an obstacle, it has proven in many cases, to be a great asset. My experiences and time-grown skills are serving me well and I feel that I am in a much better space than I would have been, at 17 or 18 years old. I am looking forward to the future and creating fun experiences for others to play around with, as I continue to grow as an artist and developer.
I had originally planned to start this blog with my journey as a mature student and my initial forays into Games Development, but thought that I had better delve into my background a bit in order to fully explain why I waited so long to study an area that I was passionate about since secondary school.
I grew up in a single parent environment for much of my childhood, under circumstances familiar to many people. There wasn’t an abundance of money, but we were never hungry, always in clean clothes and, somehow, always spoiled at Christmas time. We always had games consoles in the house, starting with the NES and the Sega Master System, leading to the SNES and Mega Drive Later on. Although I enjoyed playing the games on these systems, I distinctly remember the first time that I looked at the screen and said “wow!”.
My older brother was playing “Zelda: A Link To The Past” and I was completely struck by the huge world map. “How can there be no levels?”, “So you can go anywhere on that map?”. Games all of a sudden felt bigger. They contained worlds filled with stories to explore. This initial reaction would shape my taste in games for years to come.
The first time I encountered the Playstation, my brother was playing Final Fantasy 7. I followed his progress, in awe of this massive rich world, illustrated in the anime art style that had gripped me, after sinking into many Manga films on the Sci-Fi channel. I got my own Playstation soon after and gleefully took a trip to the local game shop in the town centre. I left with 2 games, “Breath of Fire 3” and “Wild Arms”. Although the new 3d worlds were great, I found that pixelated sprites, were the remedy to a long lasting itch in this world of polygons and pre rendered backgrounds.
Fast forward to the end of secondary school and I was lost and confused. All of my friends had some kind of idea what they wanted to do after school and how to get there. I knew that I wanted to work in art. I loved the idea of being a games artist, but had no idea how to get there. I had no access to internet at this time, as we had no pc at home, and although there was internet at school, I lacked the technical confidence to even use the IT suite. When my teachers saw in my statement that I had no idea how to achieve my goals, they took the opportunity to direct me to their brand new sixth form, studying the subjects that I was strongest in, English and Art. Bewildered and panicking, I agreed, leading to 2 years of wasted time and more frustration. I finished the 2 years, still with no idea what to do. There were no games development courses locally, as far as I know, so I decided to get my first job and put my aspirations on hold.
I worked evenings at Cambridge Airport, cleaning hangars and offices. I didn’t love the job, but it was nice to be earning money. I took an interest in DJing at this time, so my first couple of pay checks went towards a set of turntables, records and a stereo. Soon after this, I was given a pc, which was due to be thrown out of the airport after an office refurb. I started to play around on it, still with no internet, and discovered that I wouldn’t blow it up by pushing the wrong button! The processor ran at around 500 mhz and it had 256 mb of RAM, so I quickly realised that I would need to upgrade, in order to run the music production software, that my friends were introducing me to. I spoke to the staff at a small local computer shop and started to buy parts, in order to build a capable machine. I had everything I needed after a couple of months and to be honest, have no idea how I managed to put it all together on my own, with no internet or outside help! I was now able to make music and also begin my journey into PC gaming, I was falling in love with gaming all over again.
Not long after this I met my partner and my son was born in February 2008. I needed to work more hours to be able to provide and, in October 2008, started my job at Sainsburys. Starting just before the christmas rush, on the non-food department was a baptism of fire for sure. However I wasn’t put off by this. I enjoyed the rush and the chaos. I loved being able to help people and quickly found a niche that no one else at the time could fill. There was no one else who knew about Games, consoles and electrical devices in general, so I took ownership of all of these, quickly becoming a key figure in the store. I was largely happy for a few years, however still dreamt of a life outside of retail. The problem was, the thought of giving up a full time job, to study, was terrifying…….so I stayed.
Fast forward again to 2018. I was in a middle management position, with 4 kids and was about to be made redundant, along with many others who felt that they had no place in the “new Sainsburys”, following a major restructure. Here was my chance! My partner was looking to start working again, meaning that we should be able to get by. I would study and work part time and she would work during school hours.
And so began my new journey. A mixture of excitement and fear coursed through my thoughts, as I prepared to head back into education, feeling completely out of my depth…………..
Journey of a Brave Penguin 