In Another Castle

In Another Castle

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In Another Castle


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Title: In Another Castle
Pixel Artist: StevenM  (Level 8 MS-DOS :: 23537 points)
Posted: 6/27/2016 12:30
Palette: 12 colors
Statistics:  7 comments    43 faves    0 avatars

For the Pixel-Dailies theme "Bowser".

One-colour backgrounds tend to be frowned upon when framing a sprite or series of sprites, as the image may as well be transparent. A lot of games on pre-SNES hardware had this pitch-black background though, and while it was generally due to lack of time or cost or memory (or the developers wanted the tiles for a big static boss graphic), that pure unrelenting void brought something primal to the imagination of kids everywhere. Was there not enough light to see the walls of the room? Where the walls so far away as to escape light's range? Films weren't afraid to employ this kind of trick (Time Bandits as an example) and even when technology marched on, games like Intelligent Qube weren't afraid to go back to black to really ramp up the atmosphere.

For me the original NES versions of the Mario and Mega Man games gain something when you enter a fortress to find no borders or end in sight, and lose something when they get remade or remastered with 'proper' backgrounds.

Discussion

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JuPa98 (Level 3 Private Eye) @ 7/5/2016 15:33

Love the retro style.


user
Mandrill (Level 9 T-rex) @ 7/4/2016 03:05

The use of negative space here is exceptional. Very well done.


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shizumineko (Level 1 Rookie) @ 6/29/2016 04:08

Wow... great job this is amazing.


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StevenM (Level 8 MS-DOS) @ 6/28/2016 18:08

@anodomani Thanks! It's based on a mixture of modern Bowser and the old King Koopa from the Japanese boxart of Super Mario 1, when they didn't have a consistent look for any of the characters. I loved having the dark blue range in the NES palette to use for parts of his body being cast in shadow from the firebar (such as his hand and his collar) and reusing the green skin tone for things like the collar spikes and teeth anti-aliasing. The big flaw I should have fixed in retrospect is the bridge of his nose having too much green compared to his official designs.


user
anodomani (Level 4 Jasper) @ 6/28/2016 17:42

Woah, the giant bowser emerging from the darkness is terrifying! Wonderful job


user
RAV (Level 1 Rookie) @ 6/28/2016 10:32

Yeah, true story. The game doesn't have to be completely like that, but for levels with the thematic purpose to scare the hell outta ya, this is a super neat way to accomplish that. And the pixel art control on colour makes that kinda stuff especially nice to setup.


user
ParkerBabyDiaperCompany (Level 2 King Checker) @ 6/28/2016 09:48

Nice description. I agree.


Related & Tags

super mario bros bowser boss, In Another Castle avatars, In Another Castle icons, In Another Castle pixel art, In Another Castle forum avatars, In Another Castle AOL Buddy Icons

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