How Pixel Art is changing in modern games! - Discover Indie! - revartsgaming.com

How Pixel Art is changing in modern games! – Discover Indie!

JoshFTL
Views: 154639
Like: 4883
Pixel art is more than just “retro graphics”. This video explores how modern pixel art uses new techniques and styles.

This is a list of links to the games shown in this video in order of appearance:
Nidhogg –
Noitu Love 2 Devolution –

Paint –
Fist of Awesome –
Samurai Gunn –
Towerfall Ascension –
Oniken –
Hotline Miami –
Castles in the Sky –
Roguelight –
The Game Boy Jam –
Some recommended Game Boy Jam Games –
Lethal League –
Lethal League Review –
Sword and Sworcery EP –
Hyper Light Drifter –

Pixel Art Tutorial:

Josh’s links:
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Email me stuff! – gftlbootsie(at)gmail(dot)com

**Ask me to voice act for something you’re making!**

If you’re interested in seeing more indie game pixel art, go here to see pictures and links:

Background music:
97 by lightsoda
Trailer music from Hyper Light Drifter

Special thanks to Owen Dolloway for the idea and to Dan Pearce for his pixel art expertise!

64 Comments

  1. Sometimes your voice over is lost in the background music, great videos.

  2. Any game can be a pixel game if you turn down the resolution enough

  3. Great video, just wanted to mention that the rocks look good not because of pixel art, but because of colour theory. The rocks are blue because having many warm colours for the sky in the background, is best contrasted by the cool colour of blue things in the foreground. Blue and orange being complementary, it looks really nice 🙂

  4. does anyone know the name of the game at 1:23?

  5. Awww no terraria? i think those guys really pushed the limits

  6. personal favorite is Studio Pixel's Cave Story

  7. creativity… it's all creativity 😀

  8. What about evil factory
    Is really good.its sort of like bomber man but with giant evil penguins and robotic crabs

  9. I'd like to note that a lot of rocks ARE blue when you live in nova scotia

  10. pixel art is really the poor man or lazy man's art style. if you notice 3d game art has gone from ugly low polys to high poly counts. but not so much for 2d games.

  11. Cool video! I made a game with pixel art myself and fell in love ever since 🙂

  12. Honestly Old school Snes games still look better

  13. My favourite pixel art game is "cave story" its maden in 2004 and ı still love it. İts brilliant. I m trying to make game by looking it. can u suggest a game like cave story?

  14. "Rocks aren't blue!"
    You probably have never watched JoJo.

  15. Great video, i am learning to make pixel art.
    Could you tell me how did you get sprite animation frm games?

  16. Isn't that little guy in the thumbnail the mascot for Skid's youtube channel?

  17. Lethal League's sprites are actually based off of 3D models and animations.

  18. i actually don't like the way hyper light drifter looks

  19. Quaxis Corporation for Research & Innovation says:

    pixel art is actually harder than digital art, or actual art. You need patience.

  20. I am making a game with pixel art and the background has more pixels than the characters, would it still look good?

  21. rocks can appear blue because of the fill light of the sky tho. just sain

  22. In my opinion pixel art is way harder compared to hand drawn art But i am a huge fan of pixelart and i am currently learning it! If you are new in pixel art i suggest you using shades of grey at first 😉

    Also voxel art is amazing too

  23. Already knew this stuff but this channel is great

  24. I wonder if I can bring a new pixel art kind of style, I already try to do smooth shading

  25. i hate it when games use pixel art as a substitue for style

  26. I love pixel art, not because of nostalgia, i feel none when playing considering pixel art now uses more than just 16 colors or much more than 256. Also it's common in rogue likes and there was none of them in the 90s that where very popular at least they tended to be ASCII art too

  27. Pixel art and retro graphics are not the same thing
    Pixel art: Hyper Light Drifter
    Retro style: Shovel Knight

    Im not comparing those games, just let people know that they are 2 different things. You made the best explanation I have ever heard about pixel art

  28. I'm a big fan of low res graphics, but I don't see how pixel art can do anything with colors that high res graphics couldn't. It's true a lot of pixelated games do have beautiful palettes, but many others do as well. Maybe it's due to the surfaces often stand separated from each other, as there's no smooth gradients except for dithering. Can you explain that a little better?

  29. Who said that it's for lazy People?? I do pixel art and it really takes time to draw gorgeous assets.

  30. It's interesting, but i don't like pixel art. Well, today every indie developer can make a beautiful 3D game in Unreal Engine, but they still making pixel games in Game Maker. I don't understand why? It's sounds like the evolution in game industry is stopped. I like high poly 3D games. But it seems like in 2020s only pixel games will be released because of "retro" fashion. Yay! More pixel games! Let's hurt our eyes with damned pixels! Man, i'm old man now. Now all oldfags like me will be fall in nostlagia on 3D high poly games like Assasin's Creed, Crysis or Devil May Cry in the world, where pixel art is mainstream. It's just my opinion, because i was oversaturated with pixels and played many 90s games. Okay, i should go to retirement home to play Witcher 3.

  31. Hyper Light Drifter looks like how I'm remembering Sierra On-Line games in CGA. Absolutely fantastic!

  32. i think pixel art really can transmit moods and vibes alot better then normal graphics but idk why can be i associate it with my childhoood and all these nes and snes games

  33. Hyper light drifter looks better than 99% of the AAA games these days.

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