Tile based game art

When I set out to make Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso I never realised how much fun I'd have rising to the challenge of creating the tiles for the game's locations. Even though this style has been around for a long time, this is actually the first time that I've created tiles for a game.

Part of the initial experimentation was in working out methods to make the tiles join seamlessly where appropriate and how to apply shadow to give them depth, even though perspective is non-existent. As I work through the game and fefine my techniques, I find that I often return to earlier tile sets in order to improve them and ensure a consistency.

Sometimes the creation of unique tiles and game objects means that I have to call up knowledge that I first learned thirteen years ago when I joined Revolution. There's an awful lot to be said for manipulating individual pixels to get the effect you desire.