2D Will Never Die: A Pixel Art Shrine to the Game Boy Era
2DWillNeverDie
Kiwi's 2DWillNeverDie.com is a hand-built tribute to pixel art and retro games, packed with tutorials, a sprawling sprite gallery, and a blog. The centerpiece: a 20th-anniversary Game Boy sprite starring Samus and her metroid, imagined as the true ending to Metroid 2. The site even hides a keyboard cheat code.
1989 was a very good year. Here's to the super-simple handheld that outlasted them all.
- mdp2021
Aside: who is going to vibecode an isometric Fallout that uses the New Vegas datafiles?
(Just suggesting.)
- bob1029
2D might never die but modern 3D can be a compelling workflow for producing this kind of content.
The part that gets really painful with 2D sprites is animation. It can be a lot easier to model, rig and animate a 3D character and then place them into a special scene/camera arrangement for automatic capture into a sprite sheet.
Doing these by entirely by hand is a really difficult proposition in the current games economy.
- ad_hockey
This style just ages well, doesn't it? I still play Zelda: Link to the Past every few years but I can't play Ocarina of Time even though it's probably the better game. That early 3D with the fogging and pop-in and muddy textures just doesn't hold up, but pixel art is timeless.
- frmersdog
The quantity and variety reminds me of the stupid amount of sprite work done by Ahruon/Abysswolf for Card Saga Wars:
https://cardgallery.tales-tra.com/cards_blue.htm
https://www.deviantart.com/abysswolf/gallery
Literally hundreds of characters. Between this guy and TFA, I feel spoiled.
- khhu2bnn
Capcom's departure from 2D always saddens me, they mastered sprite art and now it feels like a lost technology. There's a whole bunch of indie games keeping 2D alive and yet none seem to ever match the fluidity of Capcom's 2D, e.g. their fighting games, Breath of Fire, Zelda Minish Cap, etc.
I wish those techniques were passed down a lot more.