Pixel Art Pops In Teignmouth

Invader is a pioneer of ceramic pixel art inspired street art and his Space Invader inspired creations can be found all around Paris. He seems to have an acolyte with a pixel art enthusiast who has dotted several videogame, animation and pop culture pieces in Teignmouth, Devon with his signature Pacman Ghost. There have been art pieces appearing next to street signs in the small coastal town. I've found 30 so far but am sure that there must be a lot more around. I'm gonna go on a hunt to find them all, Pokemon style.

If you like what you see, you can follow Ghost on Instagram as ghost_tq14 or Facebook as Teignmouth ghost.

Katana Zero- Video Games As Art

Katana Zero is a super stylish pixel art hack and slash platformer. The game casts you as a bathrobe wearing modern day samurai who is given targets by his handler but the drugs that give you time manipulation powers may have side-effects that may be unravelling your mind… quelle suprise! It’s all gritty, dark stuff and the gameplay can often be brutal but with the thumping electro-pop music and almost instantaneous chance to try again, it is well worth the 7 to 8 hours of play. Check out screenshots from my play through!

Warriors of Fate- Video Games As Art

So, ploughing through the Capcom Beat’em Up Collection I came across Warriors of Fate, a title I was unfamiliar with. Warriors of Fate is based on the historic novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms which was written in the 14th century but set nearly 2000 years ago.

The game is typical Capcom beat’em up fare but it does have a few novel ideas such as the introduction of a war horse which provides elevation and a sort of shield status and up to three players can play at once, but with my wife not being a gamer I played solo like a saddo. It’s a good looking game with some anime style art but not extraordinary by any means.

Kamiko- Video Games As Art

Kamiko is a top down action game in the vein of the original Legend of Zelda and Gauntlet. You can play as one of three divine maidens: Yamato has a giant sword, Uzume has a bow and arrow and Hinome has a dagger and shield combo. In the game you play through four levels which consist of easy to solve puzzles involving sliding blocks, buttons, orbs and keys. The game is download only on Nintendo Switch and is usually on sale for a few pounds but is well worth the hour or so play time, just to appreciate the beautiful pixel art graphics.

The Nostalgia of Low Poly Art

I've spoken before about how nostalgia typically works in 20/ 30 year cycles (linked below). And so it comes to pass that on the 20th anniversary of the Playstation people have looked back with rose tinted eyes at the games of the early Playstation.

For many it was the first real introduction to the world of polygons, typically games had been 2D and sidescrolling on consoles, PCs had been experimenting with polygons for years, but due to their prohibitive price point was unavailable to many. So with the PS release the first wave of polygon games into being, looking at the gallery below you can see that the art was in it's early stages but there was a cubist beauty to its angles and contours. Many polygons had to be sacrificed in the quest for an improved frame rate. The games may look quite janky now but some, especially those with an interesting art direction, still hold up pretty well.

Over the decade we have seen the revival of pixel art and pixellated games, this has in part been due to the rise of the Indie scene and the affection that the creators have for 8 and 16 bit games... but now its the turn of polygon games. For those in the know the low poly art scene has been in full swing for about 3 years. The idea of producing simple items through limited polygons presents an interesting artistic challenge and there are many tools available to do the job. Some are easy and some are more complex but the end result can be curiously spellbinding. I have spoken before about how you can create immersive worlds without the use of photo-realistic graphics and the same applies here in low poly art, you can create wonderful worlds without needing to make it look exactly like the object as we can fill in the details ourselves. A similar event occurred in ancient Greece, although obviously not with computers, where the statues had become so lifelike that there was nowhere else to go with artistic interpretation so there was a move towards more stylised sculpture.

I for one am glad that there is yet another facet to the video game and art scene and am all for different forms of expression. Long live low poly!

LINK- Video Game Soundtracks on Vinyl

Pixel Art and Nostalgia

Pixel art was born out of necessity, this economy of design came about due to the various technical limitations. The most famous example is Nintendo giving Mario a moustache to clearly separate his mouth from his nose. 

Miyamoto, creator of Mario, stated that the moustache was put in place so players could see the different parts of the characters face.

Waves of nostalgia abound!

Gamers like me have an affinity for pixel art as we grew up with it, nostalgia is a wonderful thing and we don't need to apologise for it. Many indie developers are accused of being cynical and preying on my generations nostalgia and there is a debate to be had here. On the one hand there are A LOT of pixel art games out there right now and it can almost seems like a game isn't "indie" if its not pixel art or "retro" but that's a very cynical viewpoint. Pixel art can be really good and there are different levels within the medium, someone can make something visually very simple like Flappy Birds or  Spelunky, but then someone can really take it to another level, giving it a modern visual twist in amazing games like Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP or FEZ , which adds simple 3D polygons that mimic an 8-bit style to the scene. 

The maturation of my generation combined with the ease of access to technology and a booming indie scene has created a wonderful time for pixel art and expression. This current gen of consoles promises amazing lifelike graphics but the game I'm most looking forward to is Hyper Light Drifter, a pixel art based game which looks astonishing.

Enjoy the feeling of nostalgia, don't fight it... learn from Sheldon!