Why We Love Pixel Art In Games
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 พ.ย. 2022
- Pixel art is one of the most prominent art styles in gaming, from Super Mario Bros. to Stardew valley the style has come a long way. There are certain feelings that this style can simply capture better than many others in my eyes, that feeling of warmth and nostalgia mixed in with some amazing gameplay just makes for some of the best games I have ever played!
Music used:
- Overture - Stardew Valley
- Cloud Country - Stardew Valley
- First Steps - Celeste
- Drive Me Wild - VA11- Hall-A
- Madeline and Theo - Celeste
- Exhale - Celeste - เกม
With pixel art, you have a limited amount of space for whatever you're making, so you have to make sure each pixel is relevent to what you're making. It also encourages using very specific colours, down to the hexcode, rather than just using a general colour and the colours nearby, allowing for greater precision.
Also a lot of people are inspired by the games they played as a child. It's why we're currently seeing a wave of low-poly games inspired by PS1/PS2 era.
This is prob my favourite thing about pixel art, it forces the game designers to constantly make conscious choices about what everything needs to look like, if you think of an autumn tree in a AAA game it'll look nice i'm sure, but looking at an autumn tree in Stardew valley is beautiful, the vibrant oranges make that tree look so full of life. Since pixel art kinda needs to be colourful to make out what everything is, nothing feels boring, desaturated or lifeless imo (if done right, of course!)
really shows his pixel history
Every game is a pixel game. Some pixels are just bigger than others
Wise words
Well yeah, in computer science, everything that a computer show are just pixels. You just can't see it.
You really thought you said something really deep smh
True
True but not all games are pixel games but not all games are pixel art games
I love your point on being able to take in everything all at once in a pixel art style game. There's a whole different level of immersion and fantasy that these games can give players compared to games that aim for high definition and realism.
I completely agree, often times I’ll be much more immersed in these games than I would be in some big AAA game with the latest graphics. Not to say that those high graphic games are bad, but damn pixelated games hit different!
Grew up playing pixel RPGs so it’ll always have a soft spot in my heart.
Same here! It’ll always be one of my favourites :)
I find Pixel art games more charming than super realistic games
No idea why I got recommended this but you did a great job with this video! As someone who has always been very appreciative of sprites and pixels, you conveyed perfectly the allure of it all.
Wanted to note, Cave Story and CrossCode are two fantastic Indie games with some great pixel art for anyone interested in something new to play
Thank you so much! I actually have seen some Cave Story gameplay but have yet to try it out, I think I must have watched some sort of essay video on its creation I think! I will have to check out CrossCode though, I've never heard of that one!
@@T1nk CrossCode is so good. I also recommand Unsighted. 😁
@@T1nk the cool thing about it is the whole thing was made by one guy. Graphics, story, music, and the engine it runs on. He even developed his own music creation software to make music for the game. On one hand is incredibly simple, but on the other it gets deeper than you'd expect. 100% recommend
That sounds exactly like the kinda game I’d really enjoy, I love games made solely by a single person! :)
This shows that a game don't need to be 4k HD explaining all details to make you happy... Simplicity is Golden.
Who said anything about 4k? Most people just don't want shitty looking graphics at 1080p.
The another thing is, that developers leave the space for details on the players imagination.
2d games in general give me that sort of charm. When you git gud at it (I’m sorry I had to) the stressful moments seem to blur as you dodge and weave through the attacks in ways that you can predict but also always slightly keeping you on your heels because you know if you look away you cannot dodge, while the calming moments are well, calm.
Yes! This is very true, I feel like you sort of almost enter that ‘flow’ state when playing 2D games, maybe because you can see everything easily.
I love it for the vivid colors on display. They create such lovely contrast that realistic AAA games could never do.
Agreed!
Damnnn that transition at 1:23 was *CHEFS KISS*
And the shear effort you put in this video is AMAZING
Thank you so much! :))
I completely agree with what you said about [pixel] precision, it was tough when I was little and the PS N64 3D craze was hitting and 2D absolutely dropped off the map, even as kid I was like "NOOO!" and seriously I remember at the time 2D games were being absolutely abandoned (it's a miracle that SotN was even made at all) it was an interesting time too because all of the great 2D platformers were getting the "3D treatment" and while I do still have fondness for those versions, honestly I still think 2D has the best and tightest character controlling of all, it is and always will be my favorite. I see pixels and it's like hearing an old song or looking through old photos... Pixel art is nostalgia, virtually! And I love that they've gotten so popular again (I knew when I first played v.1 Cave Story it was the beginning of the best comeback of all time!) Aw jeez anyway, sorry for rambling, that was a "back in my day" moment for sure LOL! Awesome video! Keep 'em comin'
I know what you mean, everything going more 3D was pretty cool and exciting but these days I find myself much more drawn to the pixelated 2D games! For platformers, most of the time I have to go with pixel games for this exact reason! The controls all feel so accurate and precise that each death or mistake feels like my own fault rather than the games! And thank you so much!
The nice thing about pixel art is that it is also timeless. It doesent age. Look at the old Pokémon games. They still look good even today.
I completely agree. I actually much prefer looking at gen 3, 4 and 5 Pokémon games than some of the more recent entries, maybe that's partly due my nostalgia, though!
@@T1nk Same. Pixel art is much easier to look detailed than 3d graphics and buggy models.
My nostalgia makes me love the 5th gen the most since the sprites were moving and the game tried some really interesting things.
Sometimes I really wish there was a new piclxelart mainline game. Or like a pocelart mode like in dragon quest. In that game you could switch between the 3d graphics and pixel art.
Thats why there is no light is my fav game, got amazing art that ive never seen in any other game
I totally thought this was a person with like 100,000 subscribers. I was so subscribed you deserve 1million. this is awesome
Hahaha thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoyed :D
its a shame you didnt use any clips from modern terraria because that game has come a looong way graphically, definitely one of my favorite uses of pixel graphics
Sadly I haven't had too much free time to play and get some footage, so have been using much older footage from its trailer. I will keep this in mind though for the next time I use terraria footage and hop onto my game
speaking about pixel art, my mom saw me playing the binding of isaac: repentance and she asked me if the game was old, i said that the game was old since it came out in 2014.
Good video but the analysis i feel is way too closed, the core argument is "they look calmer and cozy" but not all games that use pixel art are calm games. there are also very intense action filled games which don't really feel "cozy and calm".
I love how they are just such a nice palette cleanser. They can never overwhelm you.
Great vid as usual
Thank you man!!
Pixel games are also accessible to more people. I'm so grateful that i can play games like Terraria, Minecraft, Stardew Valley, etc even on my potato pc. Gaming doesn't need to be expensive
This is one of my strongest arguments for why indie games are so great actually! They tend to be more affordable and can run on most PCs!
Personally, for me it's because I just love retro games that much. Never had a really strong machine to play stuff or even think of buying new gen games, so I had to stuck with emulators; was pretty enough to me tbh, thousands of games and more than 10 emulators installed and configured. Nowadays I sort of stopped but still love those types of games over any other (Aside from individual exceptions; play Dokapon Kingdom man)
I feel that, I'm even considering buying one of those mini versions of old consoles for that retro game feel!
Underrated youtuber
You deserve more views and subscribers
always lovely (and i guess unfortunate lol) to watch a good video and double take at the numbers, feels like a special treat
Thank you so much! I like to think of this as my hidden little corner of the internet where I can make silly little vids! :3
I love games with pixel art style a lot more now or simple graphically games 😊
My favorite pixel games are the ones with less stark or no outlines like Kingdom: New lands, Don’t Escape: 4 days to survive, Sheltered, Starbound (this one has outlines easy on the eye), and the like. The no outline look is so fluid and yet so crispy. It’s like eye candy watching little characters move around the screen with no dark outlines to distract me. It’s my number 1 favorite pixel game style :D
I 100% agree. I dont care for realistic looking games.
I like both but definitely tend to prefer more stylised pixel games!
I adore Coffee Talk, so glad others know about it
Same here! I'm looking forward to its sequel too next year! Also, if you enjoy Coffee Talk, you might also really like VA-11 Hall-A, its very similar except cyberpunk dystopia themed and one of my all times favourites!
This whole video was a wonderful watch! I can't believe you dont't have a million subs? Srsly, this was very informative and rlly well made!!
Hahaha thank you so much!! Maybe one day eh?
In my opinion, 8-bit is best. The 256-color pallette really lends itself to vibrant graphics, without appearing too "saturated", but still feel warm. I like it. Even quantized art looks good, the dithering just enhances it. Plus, having a palette of 256 colors, especially in more complex scenes or still images, insures that the whole scene will have a similar style and not look to out-of-place. And especially if you do all the post-processing in 8bit, with or without dithering, if you plan the palettes right, and don't use TOO many effects, an 8-bit look is VERY desireable, even in 3D scenes. This is coming from a non-artist though, so keep weary. (Also, P.S, the Pico-8 version of Celeste runs at strictly 4-bits, actually, an 8-bit version of modern Celeste with all it's effects and smoothness still intact would be interesting, though), EDIT: You even touched on that in your video, nice!)
very high quality video loved every second of it! Stay consistent and you'll defo hit big numbers eventually.
Thank you so much! That's the current plan :))
Hey just found your channel through recommendations,
Awesome video, looking forward to seeing more like this! :)
Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed :))
glad I came across your channel. love it!
Thank you so much! :D
@@T1nk algorithm actually did something right and recommended your video! no problem! keep it up!
One of my favorite games, rain world, has the most beautiful art style I have ever seen. Each room in the game tells a story just by looking at the beautiful, pixelated background
I just gave it a quick search and it looks really great! Gonna have to add that to my wishlist :)
@@T1nk it's incredibly hard but there is no greater satisfaction than slowly improving at the game. So many WTF moments I will never forget. It's been out for years and it's about to get a HUGE DLC which will make the game twice as big so I'd recommend giving it a try :)
Damn that sounds really good! I’ll see if I can nab it during the winter sale :D
Damn dude, you're growing fast. Congrats!
Ay thank you so much! The algorithm gods have been particularly kind to me this month :D
For a some small channel your video presentation quality is incredible 👌 keep it up 💯
Thank you so much!
I LITERALLY SEARCHED WHY DO I LOBE PIXEL ART AND UR VIDEO POPPED
AND OH MY GOD UR SO RIGHT
Haha, glad you enjoyed!
a lot of my favourite games are pixel art games like stardew valley, terraria, unpacking, and forager ! :D
Same here! I need to actually play unpacking, it’s been on my wish list for a while!
The game a short hike is a great example of this
Pixel art games tend to be much more vibrant which I love
Same here!:)
yo great video, you're gonna grow big in no time 💯💯
Thanks so much!!
People still argue to this day whether Super Mario Bros. is a pixel art game or a low res art game - the game had a pixel art cover and the NES was advertised with professional CRT monitors, however realistically majority of people played the game on consumer CRT TVs.
Bc i’m autistic and it’s aesthetically pleasing to look at.👽
Hell yeah 😎
What the fuck I thought based on the quality of your video you’d have way more subscribers and views. You definitely need way more
Thank you so much! :D
Fantastic video!
If you’re looking for any feedback I’d recommend getting a bit more games to use as footage
Thank you! And thank you for the feedback, as I continue making vids I will keep trying to grow my footage collection so that I can have a larger and larger variety of footage! :D
I enjoyed this video a lot :D
Thank you so much! :D
To anyone searching for some amazing games with pixel art graphics that weren't mentioned in this video, I suggest checking out "Hyper Light Drifter", "Noita" and "NYKRA".
Also keep an eye on "The Last Night" and "REPLACED". They both look absolutely spectacular, merging pixel art with 2.5D
Played Noita briefly in its beta but put it down and decided to wait until full release, do you recommend going back to it now? :)
Yeah, absolutely! :D
Played coffee talk 1&2 it was very fun
I still need to get round to playing 2! Looking forward to it though :)
I’ll take charming and appealing 2D sprites and pixel art over bland 3D models and polygons ANY day. Idk why but something about it just stands out way more to me. I think it gives certain games more personality and life imo.
lovely video! could i ask for the titles of the games you featured? specifically the on that seems to be set in a cafe?
Thank you! The cafe game is called Coffee talk, I highly recommend - some of the other more prominent games shown were stardew valley, Celeste, little witch in the woods!
@@T1nk thanks! it looked super interesting. I love your genuine appreciation for pixel art
Because I can actually run them on my potato pc
Could someone tell me the name of the cute cafe game they show clips of??? It looks so cute and fun I really wanna know what it is
I believe you’re talking about the game at around the 1 minute mark? It’s called Coffee Talk, it is a fantastic game which is getting a sequel in 2023!! :) - Also the soundtrack and general audio in the game is so brilliant!
Excelent video c:
Thank you so much!!
Great video! and if you don't mind what's the name of the game in the beginning?
Thank you! The game right at the start is called Little Witch in the Woods. As of recording it, the game was still in early access I believe (maybe it still is!), but I still highly recommend playing it if you enjoy anything witchy and cosy!
so underrated
Thank you :D
are there any modern pixel games as detailed as the original DK country series?
New subscriber
I don't know if you like Metroidvanias, but you should check out Blasphemous. It's so so beautiful and is one of my favorite games of all time.
I’ve actually started looking more into some metroidvanias recently because it’s a genre I wanna try playing some more of, so I’ll check this out thank you!!
@@T1nk You will stare at the artwork for an hour trust me haha. And if you do end up enjoying the game, the sequel will come this year.
You should add Fighting Games like from SNK
3:11 game name pls i forgotten
To each their own, I'm not sold though
im such a sucker for pixel art, especially when its thought out. terraria is great, but the pixel art is used more as simplicity, same with the animation, its not really groundbreaking, mining is literally \ / _ but with celeste or something, its so much more thought out. the movements and effects and animations are so smooth its just amazing to play
I agree, Celeste is truly a special game honestly, everything looks beautiful (especially the ‘northern lights’ style background just before badeline appears) - not to say that terraria looks bad or anything, I think the pixel graphics help it achieve many things in terms of gameplay, but no other game has ever looked as brilliant to me as Celeste has!
0:55 can somebody please tell me which game is this
It is called Coffee Talk! :)
@@T1nk thank you so much.
Btw great video really appreciate the work👍
No problem, and thank you so much!
great video! I am a indie game developer myself and I agree completely, and yeah people do boil down pixelart to be "simple" and "not art" at all even, thats just disrecpectful
also whats the game at 2:40 ?
Thank you! Yeah, honestly I think some people just don't understand what goes into pixel art and shrug it off as something of lower quality, which it definitely isn't! - The game is a platformer called Velocity Noodle!
I will admit Stardew Valley does very well in terms of the colour palette and feeling it conveys despite me really not taking to pixel art in general. Or more accurately the way it's been massively overused in modern titles.
Why would I want to have my games in 2023 look like they were made in 1993 on a Super Nintendo or Game Boy with the only exception being a 32 bit colour palette (rather than 8 or 16-bit)?
I say that as someone who games on desktop with a 4k monitor and now mid-range GPU capable of running ray tracing with upscaling on it. For mobiles and steam decks I suppose this doesn't matter so much. But I feel as an art style it really doesn't work well with large LCD monitors (opposed to CRTs) and I'd at least like to see something illustrated with vector art if it's 2d , like Ori and The Blind Forest.
Would've been pretty cool to have a spoiler warning for Celeste. Guess I won't be playing that one now.
What is the game at 7:54?
It is called Velocity Noodle :)
What is the name of the first game?
Little Witch in the Woods
@@T1nk Thanks!
Pixels are the smallest possible grpahical unit
3:10, 3:21 - games name please.
>Celeste uses a 64 bit color palette
>Calls it 16 bit anyway
The number of shadow layers is not what makes something one bit or another, it is the number of colors in the palette.
I am clearly talking about the general art style that it shares with every 16 bit game lol - This is why most people refer to games that use this art style as a 16 bit game, whatever the colour palette
@@T1nk That is a gross overstatement to the point of intellectual dishonesty. Games journos who refuse to talk to people who do sprite art professionally are not most of anything.
Amazing video, but please, put games' names on the corner
Thank you! I will consider adding names in future however it will depend on how busy life is at the time :)
*_"Why We Love Pixel Art In Games"_*
We?? 😵💫 I hate it.
It's pronounced ArKeus
Some games are resource hungry, a game that looks like shit crashed on my tablet
why did you use such old footage of terraria?
Pixel art just needs to stop. A healthy amount of pixel art games is great but it's an oversaturated market now
Totally agree - in a lot of cases it just seems incredibly cheap. At least use vectorised illustrated graphics which look better on LCDs
I hate indie games because pixel art is all indie devs can seemingly make.
Pixel art is so ugly. I hand draw my art assets and can't imagine lowering my standards.
Ah yes, your profile picture must be there to warn people away from pixel art ;)
NOSTALGIA NO CAP
EVEN THE PIXELS ON A JAPANESE P0ŘÑ VIDEOS we watch thats why we love retro
Check out @archewood
Will be keeping my eye on it, looks really interesting! :)