I can honestly say I would play this game.

  While I respect the artist's decision here, I do think that a number of points in this argument rely on assumptions that aren't necessarily true.  The idea that people do not speak the language of "pixel art" is belied by its continuing popularity in a number of arenas, both in that of artwork as a whole and in that of successful games in recent years.  Take Shovel Knight, for instance. 

  There is the question of whether people understand the art here, of whether it has to be explained (and the statement that it shouldn't need to be).  It's important to recognize this, especially in the field of illustration and game animation - if your viewer can't tell what's happening, you are indeed doing something wrong, no ifs, ands, or buts.  You'll get no disagreement from me here.

   The assumption, however, that people do not understand the medium is, in my opinion, flawed.  Admittedly, there are HD purists out there, and there always have been, and for my dollar probably always will be. There is, after all, something that speaks to people about having the newest and flashiest of effects. But purists are hardly in the majority.  Most people who play games are looking for solid content first and foremost. And from what I was seeing of the "pixellated" posts, not all of them were disparaging - merely misusing the pejorative and accidental "pixelated" for the intentional and crafted "pixel art" - a matter for the soldiers of usage and grammar to question, certainly, but not an insult.

  But I think the key issue here is not whether people "speak" pixel art, but whether it is presented clearly.  Looking at the arguments further down in that post, it doesn't sound like the problem is the art (which, by the way, is fantastic) but with the fact that it didn't resize properly on different platforms.  It was the presentation, and not the content, that needed fine-tuning; the resolution change, and not the artwork, is to blame.  There are ways around this - ways through coding, testing, and compatibility measures, to ensure the resize works with minimal disruption.  Time-consuming, I grant you; not easy, sure - but possible.  So deciding that pixel art is no longer a clear language of communication for games while the medium still lives and breathes sounds a whole lot to me like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  It's not the medium that's to blame.

  As I said above, I respect the artist's decision.  Excellent work, congrats on getting it out there, and I wish you success in all your future endeavors.  But I do not agree with it, or with the reasoning behind it.

Many thanks for the suggestions!  I agree with your comment on the clouds - they are a bit odd compared with the rest.  It's the rest that's been the problem, really, which is a big part of why I haven't gone back to this piece for nearly a year now.  Inventing those other solutions has been the biggest challenge - I'm actually considering reworking the style for this game idea and seeing where that takes me. Thanks again for the constructive feedback - always much appreciated!

This is a very solid first piece.  I really like the design as a whole - the shape of the helmet's highly functional, and I'm a fan of the decorations, especially that halo-thing up top.  

That said, there are a couple of small things I think could be improved on - for instance, the beige colors of the backdrop area little too close in color to the yellow parts of the helmet when they're in shadow.  This makes it difficult for the eye to tell where foreground ends and background begins.  There's also a bit of banding on the edges of the helmet - areas where you have multiple lines of pixels of exactly the same length, making it seem like there's a thick, messy line at the edge, especially in the vicinity of the chin. 

That said, this looks a heck of a lot better than my first attempt at pixel art, which wouldn't even be counted as pixel art due to its ridiculous color count.  I look forward to seeing where you take your designs in the future!

Thanks, Agent!  Regarding the lack of details, I think that's partly due to my style choice - for most of the stuff I've posted, I was imitating early games' art styles.  There's only so much space for detail when you're trying to make a character with 4 colors or less, or keep your maximum tile size at 16x16.  However, I admit that I also have a lot to learn on finishing techniques - I don't use AA very much due to the aforementioned color limitations, and I struggle mightily with the art of dithering.  I'd never attempted 'true' pixel art before about a year or two ago, so it's all a learning process.  At any rate, any suggestions you have on how to improve are most welcome, and thanks again for your constructive response!

Holy crud.  That is excellent!

I really like the overall design here, but something in the contrast of colors on the face and hand makes this difficult to read at its original size.  Zoomed in, it makes more sense - but at the standard resolution, it took me a bit to figure out what was going on.  Maybe with a wee bit of color adjustment it'd be more readable?  Good stuff, regardless - your take on the Scout and the dynamic pose are both top-notch. 

Really digging the pallette in this one.  Everything works together smoothly here.  Great stuff.

Really liking the art style in this.  It seems like the sort of thing you might stumble across in a sidescrolling game.

Many thanks!  That's actually only the last stanza of the poem; there were three originally, but I didn't want to put all three in the description because long descriptions often offend.  Regardless, I'm glad you enjoyed it as well as the animation.  

Ah.  I hadn't thought of that.  That's a great idea.  I'll have to give it a shot when I go back to rework this stuff later.  Thanks again!

Don't worry; I will.  Every ship type has its own color scheme, and I don't think any of them use this particular puke-green.  I just picked a neutral, 50%-level color for the purpose of throwing ideas together.  Thanks for your feedback!

I can see how you came to that conclusion.  Like I mentioned to Sir Veillance, this is a sort of liquid fire weapon, so it has a very weird splash effect.  I think I'll have to revise its readability as development continues.  Thanks again for your response!

Can't say I do know what you mean - not for certain, anyway.  Do you mean the national sport of Ireland, the oft-used slang term for vomit, or something else entirely?  Regardless, thank you for taking the time to comment!  It's always good to hear from someone new.

As for the blast looking like a liquid, you've actually got that right: it is one.  This isn't a laser, but a semi-controlled burst of superheated gas or other fluid, more commonly known as plasma.  As you probably already know, plasma can take many forms, ranging from fusing hydrogen to common wood-fires to lightning.  In this case, I decided to go with option number one.  

If you're looking for a more conventional comparison, think napalm.  The idea is that a core of the stuff vents through the cannon, which splashes what is basically star-stuff over the target, melting everything it comes into contact with.  It's kind of like a much hotter breed of flamethrower, designed for close (by interstellar standards) distances and specializing in removing ships' armor.  It can also fire through energy shields to a certain extent, making it useful if you've run out of other ammo.

Lasers, by contrast, will fire instantaneously over their entire operable range, with a certain degree of piercing against lightly armored targets.  Energy shields deflect them something fierce, since they're effectively just directed radiation, and of course they don't have ammunition requirements aside from energy drain.   And finally, slug-throwers pack a wallop on account of accelerating solid mass to a noticeable fraction of lightspeed, and can completely overwhelm an opponent's shields, but have the minor disadvantage of changing your ship's heading when fired unless you've got anti-recoil engines installed.  There will be a bunch of other weapon-types as well, but for now I've just got those basic three.

That shine effect is top notch!  That combined with the AA and color selection makes this a truly impressive little animation.  I'm going to have to check out more of your stuff if I get the chance.

Ahh, yes, that dream.  Gotta love Psychonauts.  You really nailed Raz's style, as well as the game interface.  Cool stuff.

So many details going on here, especially given such a limited palette.  Everything, from the robot to the floor, tries to draw the eye.  The only real complaint I have here is that some of those black lines on the floor paneling trail off oddly, pulling notice to themselves in a way that doesn't feel like it meshes with the rest of the image.  That could, however, just be my eyes on the fritz; it's up to you what, if anything, you choose to do there.

I wouldn't go quite that far.  Your tilesets flow quite well, especially compared to a lot of top-down RPG style sets I've seen floating around.  And you do a fairly solid job of breaking up the grid for the most part.  I'd say that if you're struggling with tilesets, it's just a matter of practice, since the subject matter and feel are definitely there. 

For a completely experimental piece, you really created some interesting patterns of light and color here.  Somewhat abstract, but still readable enough to stay interesting.  The color selections are pretty spiffy, too. 

Not sure what to say about this one.  From close up it looks absolutely excellent, but from a distance the textures conspire to make it look cluttered.  Hm.  Oh well.  I like the piece as a whole, and I would love to see a game that looks like this, so can't complain too much!  Especially liking the textures of the plants and water, which create a very lively feel.

The colors, the overall style, and the seriously game-like feel here all combine to make this a mockup I wish I could play.  Beautiful work.

Really like the flickery animation of the eyes and overall movement; it contributes quite strongly to the idea that this is a machine, with all the jittery inhuman strangeness that entails. 

This piece has a really solid texture and overall atmosphere for something so tiny and minimal of palette.  The dithering in particular is expertly done. 

Oh, wow, that's a clean piece.  Everything fits together so smoothly here; I can easily see this being a T-shirt they'd sell in stores.