"Blaster-Master Zed" pixel stuff (Patreon)

This is the last post I prepared for today, it contains some pixel-art things I was working on in parallel with my Dirty Dog drawing. I just couldn't resist my craving to let these fantasies out despite Spooktober plans are much more urgent and despite the fact I should focus on Volk project which I'm going to continue in November after Halloween plans stop being something so urgent.

I got the mood to play old arcade games again and I mean REALLY old. Most people know arcade games as awesome with outstanding graphics which console games couldn't compete with but what about REALLY early arcade games made in times when there were no game consoles besides Atari 2600? Arcade games from what is known as a 2nd generation of arcades lasting from late 70s till early 80s, "8-bit era" which gave us such iconic classics like Pac-Man, Space Invaders or Donkey Kong which were actually also ahead of their time in their decade as much as some Street Fighter or Metal Slug were ahead of their time a decade later. I really love these games aesthetics, the way they use extremely bright acid colors, crude 8-bit graphics, eye-straining flashing images and a chaotic mess of 8-bit sounds feels somewhat really appealing to me. I tried several of them in a distant past using MAME emulator and now I decided to revisit them again and go a bit deeper.

You can check out few playthrough videos of the games I consider the most prime examples of my favorite early arcade aesthetics if you're interested:
Blaster (my most favorite)
https://youtu.be/Pq0v8-rk9VA?t=67
Robotron 2084
https://youtu.be/l800GL6NQPY?t=199
Scramble
https://youtu.be/3Vc-RIkpk40?t=50
Donkey Kong Jr.
https://youtu.be/GmOJN-zq6yg
Zoo Keeper
https://youtu.be/Hut_TAlrF5Y
Blue Print
https://youtu.be/0GRBE3Wj_lg?t=72

Considering my Zed Vector character's palette fits early arcade colors perfectly I got a craving to imagine a title screen of a Zed Vector arcade game. I did it in one sitting and was very proud of the results. Not sure how well it follows technical limitations, maybe it's a bit too complicated but at least I nailed main cues: specific resolution, color palette, black background, fonts and flashing elements. I even made a logo for a fictional company called BR Games, you might already guessed it stands for Bazil Raccoondog. If I ever finish at least one video game in my life I will much likely use this logo cause I think it turned out well.

But being a person who is never satisfied by small things of course I couldn't stop on just one title screen image so I went further and started thinking about how the game itself could be arranged and how its sprites could look like.

If it was a game I imagine it being a platformer about Zed's boyfriend Mark Spothound (that dalmatian guy I drew along with Zed and other edgy 90s guys) being kidnapped by aliens and you're up to rescue him with gameplay similar to arcade Donkey Kong where you're trying to reach the top but less linear with each level having different layout with hazards and enemies not being spawned by somebody on top, more like Bubble Bobble with blaster shooting. Mark will appear rope-tied hanging from a small UFO on a top of each level (or maybe each 3-5th level), like Mario's princess on a screenshot here, and once you reach him you save him and get a short cutscene of Zed fucking Mark and once they're done UFO kidnaps Mark again and the cycle repeats.

So I scribbled a bunch of random pixel stuff, just trying what kind of patterns and objects I can draw on a 8x8 pixel grid, having no clear idea for level design with the only thought that it should be aliens related with Zed as the main character and Mark tied to a UFO. I wasn't intended to follow all the early 80s arcade limitations strictly since it's simply hard to find any information about them so it's wiser to make it more just a tribute to this visual aesthetic but still I wanted Zed's sprite to follow some rules. I checked out three iconic arcade games, Donkey Kong, Mappy and Burger Time and saw that all characters fit a 16x16 pixel square and I'm not sure if there's any limit for colors but Mappy uses whole 9 colors which was more than enough to give Zed as many colors as needed. He had a longer body, head and one more row of pixels for hair but I had to cut it as much as possible. Resulting sprite still turned out nice and I made a simple walk cycle animation for it and as you can see I have tied Mark image already done too.

Just to make it clear, despite I put more thought and effort in it than I expected, it's still more just playing around with my fantasies. I still keep in mind that Volk mini-game project should be my #1 priority and I shouldn't let myself to get thorn between two things, especially since I have a clear image of how the rest of Volk project should look like and only have to draw the rest of the visuals and find a person who can help me with programming in the end while here it's still more just vague fantasies. So, enjoy this stuff but perceive it like nothing but more just a game-styled pixel art, well, just like the rest of all the pixel art I do actually.