Making Great Pixel Art with Free Graphics Tools

[In this guest post supplied by Chris Denyer, he discusses simple ways that anyone working on an indie title can make their game look prettier with some sleek pixel art techniques.  His article originally appeared on The Daily Click.]

There is absolutely NO excuse to make an ugly game.

NONE whatsoever.

So often, we see examples of games that are just plain ugly. There’s so little attention to detail, it’s nauseating.

In art circles it’s a fairly established fact that ability isn’t a huge limiter. Obviously some people have more talent than others, but talent is simply a jumpstart. Like some people can do larger, harder sums in their head because math is their talent. For the rest of us mere mortals, we learn techniques that enable us to work out that same sum on paper.

At the end of the day, the answer is the same, just worked out using rules and logic as opposed to natural ability.

The principle with making a good-looking game is similar. Not everyone is going to make a game with glorious pixel art and smoothly framed animations. However, when you look at some of the games posted here, the authors simply have no idea.

This article’s purpose is to rectify that situation, and point out a few hints and techniques that should enable anyone to make a game that looks PRETTY!  (wooyay) WAIT! There is more to read… read on »