Pixel Art: RPG Sprites Thug

Just a random thug that I imagine could be used in a Beat 'Em Up. I was playing some River City Ransom and Double Dragon last night. Level 3 of Double Dragon continues to plague me. Why? Why doesn't the game have any continues?

Pixel Art: RPG Sprites X2

Once I get started doing these things, I can't stop. The dude on the left is based off of the legends of people with faces on their chests popular in early European reports of the Americas. The others are just weird.

Pixel Art: RPG Sprites X

It's been way too long since I've done some Pixel Art. I like how these dudes turned out, and it's good to be back in my preferred mode of single-color-on-black. 

Pixel Art: Ultimate RPG Concept Art

A Fighter, Doctor, Wizard, and Warlock. The in-game sprites are much smaller, but these were the original battle sprites. I'm now using the overworld sprites for battle graphics, even though these would have been awesome.

They might look nice on the sidebar....

Pixel Art: New 8-Bit RPG Sprites

My newest pixel art; these dudes and dudettes are from a current project code-named "Ultimate RPG." Each one is animated to walk in place (similar to the Ultima games and the Japanese Dragon Quest 1). Also, each sprite has multiple pallet-swaps. Each sprite is being set up to have a variety of outfits in both black and white skin tones.

I have run into a development problem with hair color. Blonde hair looks like garbage on the yellow backgrounds (sandy areas), so those have to be changed. Similarly, I use a lot of black backgrounds so black characters don't look good with dark-brown hair.

I'm still in pre-alpha stages, just making some sprites, polishing the maptiles, and gearing up to create a full-on retro-style RPG. The battles and equipment systems will be similar to Dragon Warrior, but I want to offer some of the character customization of the roguelike genre. I also don't want to spend a lot of time animating multiple characters for battles, but perhaps that feature will get added. I'd rather spend the time drawing/creating great, memorable, and wacky monsters as well as having fun, trippy battle backgrounds.

Allowing the player to visit towns out of order will be a prime design. You could then pick up characters in the same manner as Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. Either way, I'm off to play some Mother 3 and Lufia & the Fortress of Doom as inspiration.

Pixel Art: RPG Sprites 10

The latest in my long-going series of 8-Bit RPG Sprites. Some of these are inspired by Realm of the Mad God, an MMORPG/twin-stick shooter that I plan to review very soon.

The sprite "classes" are:

Knight, Mage, Rogue, Hero
Ranger, Gladiator, Skeleton, Space-Warrior

Pixel Art: TI-Calculator Sprites

This is the first part in a TI-83 (or whatever) RPG sprite sheet. These sprites were created with the utmost in limitations: each sprite is no greater than 8x12 pixels, and all are rendered in 1 color + transparency.

Unused Ultima: Exodus Sprites

Here's something interesting I found today: some unused sprites from the NES Ultima: Exodus ROM. There was apparently a Jester and 3 enemies cut from the game. The colors pictured are examples of how the palettes could have been used.

Many NES and SNES roms have unused graphics hidden on the inside, but these guys were news to me. Thanks to the Sprite Database for posting this originally.

I recently beat this game, and it was epic. Haven't gotten around to writing up my notes into a blog post, but that should happen soon. Thankfully, finals week is over.

Pixel Art: RPG Sprites 9

A final set (for now) of RPG Sprites. Some of these are palette-swaps, but I really like the magenta + aqua + white combo. Reminds me of old EGA games for DOS and Apple.

Pixel Art: RPG Sprites 8

Here are 8 sprites for the 8th "official" entry in this series.

These can be palette-swapped to great effect.

Pixel Art: RPG Sprites 7

This is the seventh post of untitled RPG sprites that I've made and posted. These are from a game I'm working on, but not sure if I'll finish it. The sprites are cool, and I'll be posting more sprites this week.

Pixel Art: Single-Color RPG Sprites 3

Another set! These are my favorites of these recent sets of sprites. I'd like to use them in some Ultima-style RPG or Dungeon Crawlers.

Pixel Art: Single-Color RPG Sprites 2

Another set of 4 sprites. This group of characters is starting to shape up. These might even make a cool game.

Pixel Art: Single-Color RPG Sprites

Trying to capture the feel of really, really old RPGs like Ultima.

Pixel Art: Tiny Sprites

This was an experiment to see how small one could reasonably create a diverse set of sprites. I'm pretty happy with the results; these guys are awesome.

Pixel Art: RPG Sprites 3

An RPG Party inspired by Ultima: Quest of he Avatar on PC. You've got your hero, guard, druid, wizard, and a boss guy at the end.

I've got final exams this week so updates my be a little crazy but keep checking back, I should update every day.

Pixel Art: RPG Sprites 2

An 8-Bit RPG Party complete with (from right to left), a hero, cleric, monster (no equipment, but strong physical attacks), soldier, and wizard.

I tried to make them as small as possible, but I wasn't very strict about this.

Pixel Art: Surreal RPG Party

An RPG party; somehow I find this picture creepy.

Pixel Art: RPG Sprites

I wanted to make all the sprites one would need for an RPG. A Template that could be used in different ways because it had enough RPG variety to get the job done. For example, the top row could be your party members (Fighter, Healer, Elf, Wizard); the second row are the town NPCs (which of course can doubled as an important townsperson with a palette-swap); The third row provides some bad guys; and the forth row can be used for important NPCs (the Green Guy at the bottom I imagine as the "doppelganger" or "rival" to the main fighter sprite), generic soldier-type NPCs.

Or, the shepherd at the bottom could be the party healer and the priest could just be an NPC. Or the priest could be the Final Boss and he uses 2 types of goons (the shady-looking dudes). Alternatively, the Machine-Gun Man could be the Final Boss, and he only has 1 type of goon... the possibilities are endless.

Also, I use an artificial limitation of only 2 colors + transparency. This pushes the limits of the Atari (or similar computer), and I like working in it more 8-Bit (3 colors + transparency). Click 'em for the big version.