Computer games

Foreword

I like strategy games and simulations a lot, so I'm not too happy about the decline of PC gaming. Maybe a
change in player demographics (or a perception of their susceptibilities) is responsible too.

Commodore & Amiga

Mega lo Mania

I found out recently that there was a Japanese version of Mega lo Mania. It had some new graphics for the
God-faces and a new intro and extro, but it was for Genesis/Megadrive and is much less playable than the
Amiga version where you can use the mouse. Anyways, I had this idea that the Gods push to establish their
favourite race on the planet (rather than humans with differently colored clothes). It means a lot of art
assets though as everything gets multiplied by 4.

There was a MlM 2 in the works once, but it got abandoned after a few weeks. MlM was developed by
Sensible Software who used the Super Deformed style in a lot of their games. Reference: Sprite sheets:
[Link] Video: [Link]

Pretty boring piece. Shadow of the Beast doesn't seem to be much of a game. I didn't play it back in the day.
It's too busy being graphical. The animations and enemy patterns are stale and lazy. The monotonous running
and punching... could be fun if the kinetics and animations made you feel powerful.

Hard and Heavy

Hard and Heavy was originally a Giana sequel. Due to Nintendo's objections, the game was probably reshaped
a bit. Still, you'll be able to spot quite a bit of stolen sprites and tiles in the game (Metroid, Kid Icarus, etc.).
Reference.

The Killing Game Show & Walker

I quite like the design of the mech in The Killing Game Show. The
levels and enemies are are kind of nonsensical though. Walker has
little army guys that you can shoot at. It would be fun to combine the
two. Maybe throw in some Choplifter, Wings of Fury, Gods.

Moonstone

Moonstone, I wish you had a sequel and more Barbarian'ish parrying and sword fighting. And the
rubberbanding was stupid. Picking up more items made the enemies appear in greater numbers, iirc. Those
swamp things scared the living shit out of me every time. It didn't matter that I knew they were coming. The
game was flawed in many ways, but it's unique, still. Moonstone was based on a board game called Dark
Tower apparently.

Exile

I wish I had discovered the atmospheric exploration game Exile when I was younger. I'm not sure if it's
because I'm older, having seen a lot of games, knowing how they're made, but the magic feeling when playing
games is now almost gone for me. Similarly, I no longer look at the roadsides for strange mechanical devices
which I can use to build robots. My imagination has been tamed, perhaps. However, when I found Exile I got
a glimpse of that old feeling... finding strange looking sprites which could be fantastical things.

Utopia

I have some new stuff which I need to upload. Baak!

Old DOS

More Star Control

Z - Bitmap Brothers

Ref: Bitmap Brothers official site, Maps

Since the sprite and 3D version of the robot looks different, I took the liberty of picking the cherries.

The 3D guys had a nasty solid red (or whatever color) look, making them look like plastic soldiers. I decided
to use the light gray (looks kind beige) torso color from the sprite to break up the monotone. The ribcage
area (and perhaps the whole chest) still needs some work.

The eyes are green on the smaller sprites, but not on the portraits. I went for green eyes even though it's
cheap (glowing cool eyes) and not as expressive as the organic eyes in the portraits. I thought it would be a
good way to mark the face with a special eye catching color contrast.

I did draw some inspiration from the 3D designs. The belly disc was fun and serves to break up the red armor
plating theme. It suggests some kind of core / engine.

I was trying to keep the 90 and 45 degree angles which are often used in the pixel art.

The darker piston parts are intended to break up the red with something of a darker value.

The rifles and grenades are based on the designs in the game. The head is just some kind of average of all
the different portraits in the game though.

I made the drill sergeant a human because I like to add a familiar scale reference. The design is pretty much
made up by nonsense and needs some work. The torso clothing splits in two around the abs, just like on the
3D robots. The beige color comes from the drill sergeant. The rifle is a modified version of the sniper rifle in
the game.

The sketches are the exploration thumbnails which I haven't explored further, but I wanted to try and go for
light, medium and heavy designs.

Starflight

I have a Starflight page.

Jetpack

Here's a Jetpack lass. Jetpack is an old DOS game. I have never played it.

Other old computers

Endless War / Kagirinaki Tatakai

This is an old Japanese game with interesting game mechanics. It might be based on the Starship Trooper
book and its Japanese covers and surrounding toys. Check out Hardcore Gaming 101's article on this game.

Mid 90's and forward

StarCraft

I was always more of a TA guy, but SC had its moments. The sprites didn't quite feel like the characters in the
video sequences, so I wanted to interpret them. This image is still a WIP and I'm using ref. Sometimes I keep
the ref on the same canvas that I draw on. It's a good idea to get ref showing many angles, animations, etc.
This way the average look can be approximated.

The Dragoon was fun to use because I don't like micromanaging and prefer 'fire and forget' units. I tried to
match it primarily with the sprite which looks quite bulky to me. The Goliath seems to be a mix between ED-
209 and a beetle (I liked the beetle look). Messed up the feet placement. The Zealot appears to have a long
alien skull of some sort on the sprite. The details on the body are kind of haphazard, but since I didn't really
like how the Zealots looked up close so I wanted to try a different approach. Since the units are seen from
above, I chose to put some brown team color on the shoulder arcs.

The Marine is one of the best designs in StarCraft. I think the red version appearing in the Ghost trailer is
very nice looking with the simple barrel arms flowing nicely into the shoulders. I didn't really do much
redesigning with my version.

This Dragoon based on the old sprite in terms of general color masses. I'll have to do something about my
Kerrigan design since I don't like it. Edit: Updated 2011. Changed the Dragoon around a bit too.

After having finished the SC2 campaign, a brainfart like this was inevitable. There's no robot species and I
like the Borg-like adjunct, so, I played around with the idea of a new faction.

Green isn't taken by any of the main factions afaik, but I went for white instead.
Not ancient (Zerg and Protoss probably are). The Adjunct here would be some kind of SkyNet. Could be
one that came in contact with some old artifact though...
Pure robots (maybe cyborgs if they capture people).
Amazons.
Tentacle legs.

Yeah, that's a Goliath. I like their beetle look in SC1. I was thinking they could have these transparent black
canopies, a bit like Alien's head, or those old Bionicles.

Here's my take on some of the new SC2 units for HotS, not yet released, writing this.

TA and Mecha

Old stuff, new stuff not scanned yet. Actually, you might see some of the new stuff at the bottom of my
Mecha game page, but I'm filing off the serial number, so to speak.

Misc FPS

Kawaiik is my take on the Quake setting. Also check out my Tribes page for some Gloom sketches.

I was trying to do some of the Unreal characters, but they give me absolutely nothing to work with. Nearly
all have the same big-hand-feet muscle bodies, same silhouettes, and some variation on the head and minor
texture bits. Normally I try to find some prominent feature then I exaggerate that and use it as a theme for
the figure.

These were the only characters that I felt like I could do something with.

X-COM

Just poking fun at the new game (it's a paintover of a screenshot). It looks like a scene from a sitcom :o

I have an X-COM page somewhere.

Cave Story

I liked the idea of a robot war on the surface. I didn't play through the entire game so what actually happens
in the game is still a mystery to me.

Fantasy Zone

Colored pencil thumbnails.