Why I Love Pixel Games, and Why You Should Too!

(A piece of Background Art I did for a personal project)

Anyone who was born before the year 2000 has probably at some point played a video game console that wasn't capable of rendering polygons. Whether it's the Nintendo Entertainment System/ Famicom, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the Atari 2600, The Genesis/Mega Drive, early arcade cabinets... You have some memory of videogames before the glorious age of 4K Gaming at 144FPS. Back when we measured the fidelity of games by how many colours could be shown on screen at once, not how high we can set the resolution, anti-alias, particle effects, field of view, shadow quality, texture quality etc. etc.

And there's a genuine nostalgic feeling that spurts butterflies into your tummy and fairy flutters into your heart when you pick up one of these games and you're like "Man, I played this so much as a kid!"

And while everyone might get a different feeling, for me, playing the Metal Slug arcade cabinet, along with Daytona or 1943 or the various incarnations of Pacman gives me that feeling.

So imagine my surprise when I got my first computer, I was told, hey, people still like games like that! Hell, we've made an art form out of using small images and pixel based graphics!

(Insert Shameless Plug)

My mind was blown. At the time, Grand Theft Auto and Need For Speed were at the height of their popularity but my shit munching calculator of a PC couldn't even handle that. Eventually I got my first rumblepad and a copy of the PC port of Bubble Bobble. I think that solidified my love of gaming.

I bring this up because, well, old games have a special place in my heart. From the NES knockoff consoles they sold in the toy aisle of our local supermarket, to the various ports of old games, these were an important part of history. Super Mario Bros on the NES is a classic. It's not just a classic, it's a landmark. It's as important to the history of gaming as the Mona Lisa is to the history of art.

It bugs me when people just write these games off. Yeah, things were done that way because of technological limitations, but those limitations brought real innovation. And a lot of developers could learn a thing or two by imposing some of those limitations on themselves. Not only that, a lot of first time game developers get their start in classic 2D pixel games.

And some manage to make games that rival the R600 ($60, roundabout) experiences we get today in Triple A titles by simply emulating old games.

So let me talk about that!

The sphere of Indie Games is bursting at the seams with games that emulate older, more classical games! From Shovel Knight, to Momodora; Reverie Under The Moonlight, to Axiom Verge, to Owlboy, to Cave Story, to Crypt Of The Necrodancer, to Downwell, to Hyperlight Drifter, to Stardew Valley, Sonic Mania, Disgaea, Terraria, Undertale, Hotline Miami, Nuclear Throne, Luftrausers and the list goes on! Seriously, you don't have to look hard to find quality games made with a hi-bit pixel art style.

Hell, Flappy Bird was a game using retro aesthetics that got everyone and their mother to play videogames, some even for the first time! I think that's amazing! A game made in a fraction of the time it takes to market games like Call Of Duty or Fifa got non-gamers to play a video game!

Of course, Flappy Bird cheats. For starters, it can scale images, and most of our phones are capable of displaying 1080p pictures. Flappy Bird rotates sprites, which you definitely couldn't do on the NES.

But there's this emergent art of making games that look like the could have been made for the NES or SNES, but look much, much better. I say emergent but it's actually been going on for a very long time. It's just that we've only recently figured out that these games, that are made for a fraction of the price of a Triple A experience and that the end user pays a fraction of the price for, are actually really, really good.

One thing that always annoys me is people assuming that pixel art games are done as a nostalgic cashgrab, which couldn't be further from the truth. It takes love, and patience, and passion to make a good pixel game. And another pet peeve of mine is writing of a style as "retro". Modern pixel games are made with modern sensibilities in mind (most of the time, you'll get a couple that haven't fallen out of love with the golden age of gaming, bless them). These are games meant to be played today, by today's gamers.

And pixel art is definitely not a lazy person's art. It takes time. any given artwork on Pixel Joint will show you how incredibly difficult it is.

One of my favourite pixel artists of all time, Paul Robertson, even does little animated shorts for adult swim (you can check one of those out here!)

And I think there's something that pixel games have that other games just don't.

Modern games will do everything in their power to show off the spectacular feats that the latest hardware can pull off, but when that spectacle fades, the game ages considerably faster. By emulating an older art style that's much less demanding on hardware, pixel games age considerably slower, simply by looking unashamedly retro from the get-go. Pixel games also... Well, they remind us of when videogames were videogames.

Videogames nowadays are multi-billion dollar productions that aim to immerse with graphics that are near photorealistic. So much time, money and effort is spent in trying to trick your mind into thinking the computer generated images on screen are actual things and people from the real world that sometimes, a lot of game design just gets skipped over. Pixel games are usually, unashamedly, videogames. They do videogamey things. Platforms float in the air because you need something to jump on. Enemies have AI about as intelligent as a comatose toddler, but they're super satisfying to bop. And don't get me started on how generic orchestra music has invaded everything. With the sound hardware limitations of the NES and such, composers had to work really hard at creating themes with strikingly memorable melodies. Think about Green Hill Zone, the Super Mario Brothers theme song, the Bubble Bobble theme song, the Zelda Theme, the Megaman 2 theme, or that bass line of the Final Fantasy battle music! Music had to be memorable to disguise how legitimately poor the hardware was at emulating real instruments, and how few audio channels the composers had to work with. Wanna hear a timeless song? Listen to Vampire Killer from Castlevania. Want to hear exactly how goddamn timeless that theme is? Listen to the modern mix of Vampire Killer from Castlevania Harmony Of Despair. Or something more modern? Roller Mobster from Hotline Miami 2. Damn, that song is a jam. Or if that's not your thing, how about Megalovania from Undertale? UGGGH, SOOO GOOOOOOOODDDD.

Videogames don't make songs like these anymore. Want evidence of that? Just compare the soundtrack of the first Ratchet and Clank with it's 2016 reboot.

So I guess what I'm saying is, Pixel games are awesome. Pixel Games are fun. And if you've written them off, give them a try again! Hell, a brand new pixel game is going to cost you less than a second hand Triple A title, god damn, if that isn't enough reason to invest in these smaller, more awesome games, I don't know what is!

Indie Games deserve love too. And I don't just mean games like No Man's Sky or Mighty No 9, I mean, fuckin look how disappointing those were. I'm also talking about the little ones. The pixel ones.

Go give them love.

Check out this vid from PBS Ideas Channel!