Some Retro FE Art for your Enjoyment
Published on October 26, 2012 By ScottTykoski In Elemental Dev Journals




With Fallen Enchantress cooling the sting that was 'War of Magic', I'd like to look back on one of the things I enjoyed most from the original Elemental: the 'retro' intros made for the beta builds (you can still see these videos here and here).  They only took half a day to produce, but got a great fan reaction (there were even major news outlets that posted about them).

We had discussed doing something similar for FE, but deemed them far too silly at a time when our efforts needed to be as sincere as possible. That was half a day to get some real work done, and there was so much to do.

Luckily, Brad was very true to his word about "no more crunch time", and with us working 40 hour weeks again, I had the free time to do some pixel art on the side.

And while we never made additional videos in that retro style, I still wanted to show off what they could have looked like. Enjoy!




Take 1: Went for a NES Zelda1 style, with every sprite only using 3-4 colors. You have a Hoarder Spider in there, some golems, some demons, a naja, and even a little 'Frogboy'.



Take 2: Went old-school Ultima on this one. Look at those 2 bit world sprites!  Yikes




Take 3: A fun 16-bit style, where Relias, Procipinee, & Magnar III team up for a gildar collecting...or something.


Comments (Page 1)
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on Oct 26, 2012

Haha, awesome!

on Oct 26, 2012

on Oct 26, 2012

You really should have gotten these into the game - much better graphics.

on Oct 26, 2012

should put little pixel movies in as easter eggs

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

on Oct 26, 2012

I would love to  Unfortunately I've moved onto other projects. Perhaps I can jump back on around April 1-ish to slip something good in

on Oct 26, 2012

Kongdej
should put little pixel movies in as easter eggs

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Honestly it would probably have added a little something to the game that feels missing for me at least.

FE is a lot of fun but it can feel pretty detached from the player at times. You get all perked up with that initial, and very cool, scene when the Capital city flag is placed then things kinda just drop off - you're left entirely to your own devices and get a weird little scene(???) if you win. Things like this would be like an inside joke between the players and the devs, something to make you smile and remember the game when you finally get bored and walk away to do something else.

Assuming of course the name of the game is to promote brand loyalty to Stardock? Which I'm guessing is the case by all these Stardock-hosted ad assets AdBlock+ is cutting off at the knees on this and every other forum page =p

BoogieBac
I would love to  Unfortunately I've moved onto other projects. Perhaps I can jump back on around April 1-ish to slip something good in

Oh cool. Sins could use some love too!

Love the game but my god it's so quiet in the dead of space.

on Oct 26, 2012

Please no... let the pixels sleep in their earned rest. It's 2012.

on Oct 26, 2012

Boogie, you're great at making retro art. I love it! Those shards look great, and you kept a great theme with the various styles (Ultima, Zelda, etc.).

Thanks for sharing!

on Oct 26, 2012

Lord Reliant: +10 Karma for you!
Heavenfall: -50000 Karma..sorry

on Oct 26, 2012

I enjoy pixelart ... one of the few things I found I can actually do, but I never stuck with it, unfortunately.

on Oct 26, 2012

Chibiados: It's tons of fun...you should pick it back up! Though I'll admit theres little to no application for it in modern game development  Perhaps for making small icons, or determining the most important features that make a character read properly.

I was a Nintendo kid, so I love the stuff  

on Oct 26, 2012

I love stuff like this- I'd love to see Stardock come out with a new sprite game.   Sprite art is still the best art.

 

 

on Oct 26, 2012

Professional designers still spend a lot of time at the pixel level.  The reason projects take more time and money now is because there are more pixels.

on Oct 26, 2012

The program I used to use to put together animated .GIFs, JASC's Animation Shop, no longer works on current versions of Windows unfortunately.

on Oct 26, 2012

So when will the "Pixel Mod" art remake for Elemental be released? That could be awesome ... and also reduce the system requirements of the game!?

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