About pixels

I've recently come across a very good pixel art tutorial, created by Derek Yu, the guy behind the awesome graphics of Aquaria.

Character created in Derek Yu's tutorial.

Aquaria, one of the few games from independent developers available on Steam.

One may think text-mode game developers might have little interest in such technology. But the upcoming libtcod features make it possible to use real graphics on the console as seen on TCOD's portraits. I wonder how the portraits would look, once converted to pixel art sprites (while keeping their current realistic look).

I would even be interested in using this in other parts of the game (mostly in user interface, where it would allow to stuff more information on this little 80x50 console). I'll probably experiment a bit with it in the next days/weeks. I started TCOD with the idea of following strict ASCII layout but I cannot resist the mermaid song of some bitmaps here and there...

If you're interested in such art, also check these two amazing pieces of work...