Hidden Stories

Today was the first out of our three exams. I initially thought it would be the hardest exam, which it probably was, yet one of the questions was basically primary school algebra with some complicated words around it to make it look difficult. This question was also about Minecraft, which I find very amusing.

I’m not sure how I feel about this exam, but I think it went generally well. Then again, when you are expected to write code on paper without any means to use a compiler to check for errors and debug it, it’s very hard to know.

I decided to take the rest of the day off and work on Miku RPG (despite my next exam being in 1 week). I haven’t really made that much progress, seeing how the exam finished at 2:30 and I had to sort out a couple of household things as well (mainly killing ants, which seems to have stopped being against my morals now that these creatures are trying to invade my kitchen).

There’s a certain feeling that comes with pixel art, a feeling I would define as being rather close to magic. It’s amazing how sometimes something with such a low resolution can look so much better than something with a higher resolution. There’s a feeling of nostalgia behind it, but it’s also due to our own imagination. If we have less detail, our brain seems to have a tendency to fill things in, I have come to realize. And that means that everyone sees pixel art a little bit differently, making every pixellated world feel so much more personal.

But there’s something else to pixel art, that can only be seen by the people creating it (or by the people who look at it very very closely). It’s the factor of story and narrative. With every little pixel piece I draw, my mind has a tendency to wander off to the regions of the pixellated world, where this story can be found. Of course, this feeling is much stronger with some pixel art than with other, and the experience of drawing a bush doesn’t quite compare with the experience of drawing a graveyard.

Saying that, I have been working on a graveyard today. And in the mean time, so much story has happened in my brain, I don’t think I will be able to fit all of it into the game. But that just makes Miku RPG even more personal. I want every pixel to be oozing with story, I want there to be a backstory to every character, every tree, every creature, every stone (okay maybe not every stone). I want to create a wonderful world full of story, and if some of the story manifests itself only in my brain, I think that’s okay. And maybe if this story is happening in my brain, it can happen in the player’s brain too, making it a different experience for everyone. Giving you exactly the story you were dying to hear.

Have a wonderful day.

-Marta

Chained daisy-thoughts

When I opened my eyes this morning and noticed the rays of sunshine shining through my window, I instinctively knew today was going to be a good day. So as any normal person would on a good day, I jumped out of bed, washed my face, looked into the mirror and entered the comfort and warmth of the covers one last time, mumbling something about me having made dinner last night. Guilt-tripped, Matt went off to make me breakfast, giving me a few more minutes to enjoy the company of my toy sheep, Fluff.

With exams just around the corner, I seem to have gotten myself into some form of work-routine, where I do several hours of uni work first and then attempt to work on Miku RPG when I’ve almost run out of energy. This doesn’t always go well, but due to a fortunate turn of events, I managed to get most of my uni-work done before my only “important” lecture, then hang around the lake for an hour, since this “important” lecture was cancelled 20 minutes after it was supposed to begin, and get home feeling fully rested and ready to do copious amounts of pixel art.

I’ve also been wearing a daisy chain on my head ever since this cancelled lecture, which of course is a boost of motivation every time I look into the mirror.

Nature has a way of inspiring me more than anything else does. It’s so beautiful, it makes me wonder why I try so hard to replicate it in my own pixel art. I could never draw something as beautiful as the real world is. But I can draw a different world. And I can fully immerse myself in it. And then when I’m back in the real world, I can appreciate all it’s beauty and wonder.

In a way, trying to develop a small world inside my computer, makes me appreciate the real world so much better than I ever used to. I’ve learned to notice every little detail, and these details tend to make me incredibly happy.

This is why looking at the flowers on my head makes me want to try harder and harder at everything I do. It also makes me want to implement a daisy chains crafting mechanic into Miku RPG, but I don’t think Matt was very convinced with the idea.

Either way, it’s been a wonderful day. I’ve done a lot of progress on my little witch house, even though there are still so many more details to be added. According to Matt it still looks “too clean”. He’s probably right in saying this, but at the minute, it looks like a house I would love to live in, so everything in me is dragging my fingers away from my mouse as I try to add more cracks on the walls and dirt on the windows. Maybe drawing the inhabitant of this house will make me stop feeling so attached to the lovely clean river look of this little forest house. I might try doing that tomorrow.

For now, I’m going to keep trying to convince Matt to let me have a daisy chains mechanic. And then I’m going to have beautiful pixel dreams.

-Marta