When other kids were doing fun stuff like going out with friends or taking part in society, I made awful video games. I still do, only I strive to make them — well, not awful anymore. But since my grasp of game design was always meh and my pixel art skills were okay-ish but not really, I decided to educate myself on how to do these things properly. And since the internet is a wonderful place with an abundance of very helpful people — who apparently have even more free time than I do and spend their days educating others (thank you! <3) — there are quite a few invaluable resources about learning game design and also how to make pixel art.

So, I read a lot of blog posts and tutorials on the subjects and subsequently made this collection of tutorials that have helped me in one way or the other. Maybe it can save you some cherrypicking, maybe not. Also, it’d be handy to have something to print out and shove into my 13-year-old face if I ever happen upon a time travelling machine. Please note that my programming career’s over before it began — I did realize I’m too stupid for that at some point — and I won’t be posting code stuff here.

Also note that this list is pretty much a work in progress. I will add new stuff from time to time and also remove resources that are no longer available. The two numbers behind each entry show when the entry was added to the list (as in month/year, with 10/18 being October 2018).

Pixel Art Tutorials

Sabaku’s Pixel Tutorials: Vegetation, Humans, and Food — Basic tutorial without too much theory that just dives right into what pixel art is all about: pushing pixels! 10/18

Simulating NES Graphics — Want to do pixel art like in the old days? Here’s how to stay inside the limitations of the Nintendo Entertainment System. 09/19

Colors / Palette

Coloring – Pixel Joint Thread — Extremely helpful thread discussing color theory, palette creation and usage, and best practices for color in pixel art. 10/18

How to Make a More Unified Color Palette by Cpestri — Ever made a piece but the colors don’t match? Cpestri shares a technique for harmonizing colors. 10/18

DB32 Palette by DawnBringer — Arguably one of the most famous pixel art palettes of this decade, DB32 is a great starting point for all palette-based endeavors. 10/18

Lospec Palette List — …and if DB32 isn’t to your tastes, there’s tons of other palettes to check out here. 10/18

Typography

Eeve Somepx’s Pixel Art Fonts — A collection of free (and low-price) original pixel fonts for use in your projects. 05/20

Pixel Font Converter by YellowAfterlife — Converts your pixel art fonts to TTF, very convenient for website design or mockups. 05/20

Tools

Aseprite by David Capello — My favorite tool of trade when it comes to pixel art. Not free, but cheap and definitely worth every cent. 10/18

Gradientifier by lendrick — Find color ramps and gradients by simulating light on a 2D object. Based on the DB32 palette, but customizable through its source code. 10/18

GrafX2 ToolBox by DawnBringer — A superbly useful set of analysis tools for the GrafX2 software. Highly recommended even if you don’t use GrafX2. 10/18

Pixel FX Designer by CodeManu — Particle generator / VFX suite tailored toward pixelated games with limited palette. Haven’t tested yet but will, looks great! 10/18

Interesting Articles

Color Cycling in Pixel Art by Stephen Schroeder — A favorite animation technique from the ’90s, color cycling can render impressive results — here’s how it worked. 10/18

A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art by Blake Reynolds — A painfully true article about the reception and value of pixel art in a 3D- and HD-dominated video game world. 10/18

Designing 2D Graphics in the Japanese Industry — A very detailled article about how pixel art was created in the ’80s and ’90s in Japan. 11/18

Technical Stuff

Scroll Back: The Theory and Practice of Cameras in Side-Scrollers by Itay Keren — One of the things few game designers think about when they absolutely should: the behaviour of camera in video games can make or break a game, especially in sidescrollers. Incredibly helpful and detailled article! 10/18

Characters

Just What the Humping Heck is “Character Agency,” Anyway? by Chuck Wendig — Writing strong characters means they are active agents in the plot that act according to their motivations — rather than just replaceable cardboard cutouts that just react as the plot unfolds. This fun article gives some invaluable tips for writing strong characters. 10/18

World Building

Fantasy World Building Questions by Patricia C. Wrede — Literally hundreds of questions that inspire you to think about the world your about to create in great detail. Mandatory reading/answering for every one looking to build a fantasy or sci-fi world. 10/18

See something you think might be interesting to me? Awesome! Contact me.