The Vision

“There was worldwide outcry when the Notre Dame cathedral was on fire. Why is there not the same level of outrage for the fires destroying the AmazonRainforest?”

The world is beautiful and so are you

Last Encounter is a stylish new twin-stick shooter with roguelike elements, in which players can team up and do battle with alien ships with highly customisable weaponry.

In my last year’s article Independent in pixels I talked about pixel art games in the Independent Games Festival, the award ceremony that take place at the Game Developer’s Conference each year. I subsequently visited GDC and reported on close to a hundred (pixel art) games I bumped into there. This year my finances (and focus on Pixel Art Academy) meant I would be watching the ‘Oscars of video games’ on livestream again, but I still wanted to give a rundown of how pixel art fared at this year’s chase of the IGF trophies.

Celeste (@celestegame) was the big winner as far as pixels go, claiming the IGF audience award. The crowd rightfully cheered for the precision platformer that captured so many hearts, not only with its fine-tuned gameplay, but also delightful looks crafted by @noelfb and @studiominiboss, meaningful narrative, and not-the-least its sound design. In fact, the game was mainly at the awards as a nominee for Excellence in Audio. As no nominees are announced for the Audience award, it came as a complete surprise to the team. Unexpected, but also well deserved.

That was a funny thing to notice this year: no pixel art games were nominated for Excellence in Visual Art. However, besides Celeste also Tormentor X Punisher and Rain World impressed the judges more with their sounds than art. Not sure if they’re trying to tell us something, but I for one remain deeply in love with this aesthetic and tip my art hat with respect to all the nominees.

A game in pixels that did win—and not only once, but twice—was Baba Is You.

Snagging Best Student Game and Excellence in Design, Baba is You convinced the judges with its clever world manipulation mechanic that lets you see and change the rules of the game as part of its gameplay.

One more pixel art game that I haven’t had time to talk about on the blog needs highlighting. Even though it didn’t win, Into the Breach was a finalist for both Excellence in Design as well as the Grand Prize itself. Night in the Woods eventually won that one.

One last mention, Tooth and Tail was represented in the Excellence in Narrative category, which is quite a feat for a real-time strategy game if you ask me.

Mortal Kombat Outworld Assassins is a brutal fan made old school beat ‘em up in which Sub Zero, Scorpion and Noob Saibot go on a quest to recover a sacred amulet (while beating enemies to a pulp!)