We've decided to start up a fun game project to work on as we develop Pixelmash (nevercenter.com/pixelmash), our pixel art/animation tool. Pixelmash Ghouls is a simple side-scrolling game, inspired by one of our favorite series of the retro era. All the art assets for Ghouls will be made in Pixelmash, and we'll release all the asset files for anyone to play with and modify, and submit their own art if they desire. At the moment we're not aiming to make a full releasable game; our main goal is to develop and refine Pixelmash (and to help get the word out about it). We find that working on a real project brings out all sorts of ideas to make the tool better. Project updates may be a little irregular as this is not our primary focus, but we'll be sure to post new assets as they become available.

Let me emphasize something here: WE ARE NOT ARTISTS. We're developers, so our art may be a little on the programmer-y side. But that's also part of the point: we have a lot of fun using Pixelmash, and we think others of all skill levels will too.

As you can see in the video above, we've already made some good progress. We've created a simple platformer in Unity with some custom physics in order to easily run our character around on curved surfaces (getting the movement right while standing on the turtle was trickier than it looks), with jumping and double-jumps. We've got in some projectiles which aren't shown yet. We've added a few key animated art assets made in Pixelmash, and for the moment we've made it so levels loop indefinitely.

We'll start posting assets, dev updates, and maybe a playable build soon!

Again, we're not intending this to be a full released game, just a fun side project for people to play with. If you want to follow along or contribute, you can subscribe/follow in all the usual places.

Facebook: facebook.com/nevercenter
Twitter: twitter.com/nevercenter
YouTube: youtube.com/nevercenter
Newsletter: nevercenter.com/pixelmash/#newsletter

-John