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Unreleased Way of the Exploding Fist (just titled Exploding Fist) prototype by Beam Software, NES

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Legend of the Exploding Fist. Ian Andrew’s 1998 updated #Amiga version of Way of the Exploding Fist on the #C64 . Features loads of game modes like IK+ with 3 Karatikas, 5 man battles & more.

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Everyone seems to be working on their own pixel art editors these days, specialized for one or another trick to optimize game asset production (or just because it’s fun :)). Dan Fessler’s been teasing new features of IndexPainter, a native implementation of his HD Index Painting scheme, ENDESGA has open-sourced the development of his minimal EDGITOR, and now the latest tool that came across my radar is Nevercenter’s Pixelmash.

The main feature that Nevercenter showed already back at the end of 2018 is non-destructive layer transforms, allowing for easy rigged animation. Plenty of features made it into Pixelmash since then, but the basic premise is that the software allows mixing of pixel and HD layers, the latter of which get subsequently pixelized. This allows for turning high-res shapes (of sub-pixel precision, relative to the end result) into much cleaner outlines when brought to low resolutions. Further, layer effects such as clean procedural outlines that get applied as the last step keep that feel of manual pixel crafting.

A time-limited demo is available on Pixelmash’s website to test the tool and if it seems useful to your projects, you can get a full license for $25 (macOS, Windows).

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World Championship Super Fighter 8″ action figures. Bootleg Blanka does not dissapoint.

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Double Dragon II: The Revenge commercial (Technōs, 1988)

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“PONDER THE QUASTION” - 

Assault City (Sanritsu Denki -  Master System - 1990)  

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The Driver Syndicate is a very authentic feeling spiritual successor the classic PS1 Driver Games!

Read More & Play The Alpha, Free (Windows)

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Mr Red’s Jolly Balls is a delightfully weird and adorable festive platforming adventure where a sock puppet sets out to save Christmas for a bunch of Snowball Kids!

Read More & Play The Alpha, Free (Windows)

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Here are some of my favorite indie games in the running for 2019 Indie of the Year award over at Indie DB.

Top to bottom:

The StoryTale

Blazing Beaks

Noita

A Legionary’s Life

Hypnospace Outlaw

Pushy and Pully in Blockland

Starmancer

Chinatown Detective Agency

Eight Dragons

Ion Fury

In fact, I went over all 100 nominees and picked out the pixel art(ish) ones and put them all in one big beautiful article in Retronator Magazine. There’s still one day to vote for the winner, so check out my full selection in Indie DB 2019 Indie of the Year awards.

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Andy Green is one of the most prolific ZX Spectrum artists of late with over 100 screens produced in the last 3 years. But it’s far from just quantity that puts him in the top 3 most popular artists list of the ZX Spectrum graphics archive ZX Art—any developer in the 8-bit era would be delighted to have his careful recreations of 80s artworks accompany their gaming creations.

While Andy’s drawing roots do go all the way to the Spectrum era, he mostly sharpened his skills in the Amiga scene back then. It wasn’t until decades later that he started producing his invaluable body of loading screens that never were, usually ZX renditions of cassette inlay or poster artworks that back in the days just didn’t receive the budget (or skill) to be properly translated to the trademark limitations of the Spectrum’s 8-color, attribute-clash video output.

Richard Langford, a developer of retro games (amongst other things), was similarly impressed with Andy’s colorful renditions of Spectrum nostalgia. So much so that he produced a hardcover book, Better Late Then Never, with all of Andy’s loading screens to date (and then some). Together with contributions from Shaun McClure and John Davies, the four of them navigate across the memories of ZX Spectrum games, with many comments from Andy on the production process of the artworks themselves.

The beautifully-designed 140-page coffee table book will be a welcome addition to any ZX Spectrum fan’s living room. It was produced from pure admiration of Andy’s pixel art skills, with all proceeds of the sales going to charity. If you’re looking for a (Christmas) gift for yourself or a fellow gamer from the Sinclair camp, you can grab a copy on Amazon (hardcover, $45).

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Batman and Robin … ^_^ … DC comics

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blasters - General Chaos (Game Refuge - Genesis - 1993)  

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My new ZX Spectrum artwork, Road to Spectropolis, done for the Chaos Constructions demoscene party. As always with ZX Spectrum, the limitation is every 8x8 pixel square can only have 2 colors. And of course the color palette.

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‘Brute Force’

[ARC] [USA] [FLYER] [1991]

via The Arcade Flyer Archive

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Surprised nobodies thought of this until now. Can’t wait to play it

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Screens from Nitro Ball - Data East Arcade - fantastic music throughout this game