#programmer art

[prokopetz]

Historically, the high technical entry barriers to publishing one's own work has left indie video games vulnerable to allegations of "programmer art": that is, a tendency for the audiovisuals to be created by people who don't know what they're doing because "real" artists are barred from the medium by lack of technical know-how.

In this sense, it's heartening to see that coding one's own game has become sufficiently accessible in the past decade or so that we're finally seeing the fruits of the natural yet historically largely unattested-to counterpart to programmer art: artist programming.

[maisies-kittens]

If you haven’t looked through the level editor sprites category on the Mewgenics wiki, you absolutely should (assuming you’ve beat the game/don’t mind spoilers). They range from…

“That’s about what I’d expect for programmer art”

“Design changed, but I get the idea”

“Sus amogus”

“That’s just an existing character”

“:3”

[aphyray]

The default Ren'Py title screen is kind of clinical and stale, so I fired up the old point-and-clicker and composited and traced some stock photos to make a temporary stand-in with a little more life.

[kawaoneechan]

I figured just now, what if I made an integrated height map and tile type editor for Project Special K?

Free camera.

Wherever you point on the top-down map, a box appears in the 3D model whose bottom should be at the height you're pointing at.

Any part of that cube that's obscured is rendered in a contrasting color.

Maybe when you point at the slider, a whole-ass plane cuts through the model?

Perhaps have a list of sub-meshes so you can toggle their visibility, good if there's a roof in the way.

(Mockup made in Blender and Paint Shop Pro.)

[kaywuff]

[regrowal-the-game]

I literally have no idea how to caption this, but hey- we've got a working engine now!

@andeditor7 has been hard at work getting our engine running and being a cyberwizard in general, and by the holy gods above- his work is paying off. Now we've just to do the new models, proper lighting/shadow engine, day/night cycle, survival mode, GUI, updated textures, animations, character model implementation, block gravity, world gen-

P.S. - Here's some new dirt types too! Grass, Leaf Mould, Dirt, and Mud! I forgot to include the fertilized soil/manure block in the above screenshot so here's the manure item. You're welcome 💩

[vadapega]

That certainly was an adventure, 5 hours passed fast, plenty of concept art to work off of and ideas to execute!

definitely something we outta do more often to brainstorm ridiculous stuff~

[numa-smells]

more pico 8 tweet-cart shenanigans! this time its a pretty aesthetic looking fade transition inspired by seigaiha patterns sourcecode here :)