So I woke up in the middle of the night and realized I wasn't heading back to bed any time soon so I figured I'd dig into the pile of Steam demos I've been stacking up wanting to try. First up is Pixel Art Academy: Learn Mode, a game designed to help you learn the art of sprite art with interactive tutorials and challenges. First thing to note is that the presentation is cute. Your save file comes in the form of a floppy diskette, complete with head thrashing noises. All the tutorials are organized in a little filing cabinet while your progression is laid out via a notepad. One thing I wish the presentation had was some music. While the main menu has some, once in the game proper it's just ambient sound effects of like a school art lab.
So you begin with the tutorials which get you familiar with the tools. At first it's merely a 1x1 brush which is the most essential, before being introduced to the eraser and the fill bucket. At first you're required to click on them atop the desk but soon the game introduces you to shortcut keys which match up with popular art programs like Aseprite. The first tutorials involve you creating the sprites from Taito's iconic Space Invaders. At the end it introduces a little color as well as the concept of drawing with a reference.
After the basics, the game asks for you to do one of it's challenges. Essentially you're presented with a deck of cards featuring sprites from other games. At first it is locked down and you can only pick monochrome and small sprites but after completing the first challenge (or beating the demo, unsure) it opens up. The sprites include characters and objects from games like Celeste, Owlboy, Fez, Despot Dungeons, and I assume many more. Once you pick on the sprite you want to work on, it's all about recreating it with the tools you have.
With you're first challenge complete, it's back to the tutorials so you can be introduced to more tools. Color is now a thing, asking you to complete sprites from Namco's Pac-man. You also get an eyedropper and undo/redo shortcuts. After that set you begin to work on bigger sprites which require you to become familiar with the zoom & move tools. You also get a much needed line tool as you work on sprites from ZX Spectrum sprites from Outrun and 720. I actually liked the line tool tutorial because I think I've always been using the line tool inefficiently and this actually cleared some of it's use up for me.
Last in the demo is the Pico-8. Yeah, there's a Pico-8 included in the game, complete with it's own version of Snake. You're asked to get 5 points in it which is easy but the actual task now is to modify the game's sprites. You have the snake section and the food, both 8x8 tiles that do not rotate in game. Once you finish your sprites you get to play the game again with your new sprites inserted. After that you're free to keep touching up the sprites or you know, just play Snake forever. That's where the demo currently ends.
Overall I really think Pixel Art Academy is shaping up to be a great little educational tool. The demo is only the beginning baby steps but we all have to start somewhere and even though I have made sprites in the past, these tutorials managed to help me reconsider how to use my tools in smarter ways. They present everything step by step and make it really easy for someone who hasn't picked up an art/sprite program to get up to speed. Just needs some music.