The layout of the Seaside Slime Cove will be posted next week! …that’s all I’ve got for now. =P

(Yes, really. Without conceding any side of the “are games art?” debate, it certainly can’t be argued that they contain art—and it’s so much more challenging to work with real pixel art assets than placeholders that I had no emotional investment in. It’s one thing to put together the basic layout of an area to test and see if everything is even functional. It’s another thing to make real beauty with it, designing and redesigning…

Epiphany: better to design areas too big and tweak movement speed than design them too small and tweak the areas themselves. #gamedev

— Jelly Paladin (@JellyPaladin) March 20, 2015

…and then it’s still a third thing when it hits you that not only have you moved past placeholder pixel art, but you’ve moved past placeholder layouts—that here and now you’re making something final and lasting. The little details matter. Everything matters. Gold and platinum aren’t good enough; give me diamond or bust.

To be honest, I don’t know how Flora and Becca do it: how actual artists can ever feel truly satisfied with their creations. I’m not even drawing per se, but piecing together areas with the building blocks that have been provided for me, and it’s still nerve-wracking. I almost understand why many indie developers opt for procedural generation (random world creation handled by the computer with formulas and algorithms) instead of manually creating areas. I’m not sure that there’s a “right answer” with how to design a cave—or a forest or anything else—so I mostly tweak continually until I hit upon a “right feeling.”)