Growing up around the arcade fighters of old, the art styles and characters of those games were like my bibles. In recent years the artwork of CAPCOM (who created many of these games including Street Fighter) has been collected and published in lavish art books by the company UDON (who started out as a bunch of fans themselves.) Among these books, my favourites are always the fan art tributes to specific games- where fans and artists from across the world attempt to get their work seen alongside that of the original artists and Udon’s own dedicated art teams. So, when the latest Capcom fighting tribute art competition came around I decided to give it a go. I didn’t think about it too much, I just dived in with a vague idea of the image I wanted.


Here is the rough of the final image before I added any colour (the final image is on my deviant art page)

Agreeing to help Shaun make Mudlarks was certainly an eye opener for me. I perhaps foolishly said I could find a way to knock out graphics quickly and effectively to bring his vision of a mysteriously subdued and quaint London jaunt to life. Prior to Mudlarks, Shaun had created a one room game for an art show using AGS, so essentially this was our first game.

If memory serves, the original aim was to bring a short ten screen game to life. A month later I was facing 30 screens and 60 characters as Shaun’s story had blossomed. The instant challenge was how to create so many sprites in as short a time possible. There were only a handful of hours I could devote to the project each week and so some early decisions were taken to use photos as the basis for the games look.

Shaun would take most of the settings pictures while out and around London. Where no picture was possible, backgrounds were constructed from components. Most of the character sprites involved us taking pictures of friends in hilarious poses- few had any clue what on earth was going on. Again, when no one was available characters were constructed in makeshift poses, creating hilarious monstrosities and some very questionable limb proportions! 


I’ve enjoyed the fuss that the graphics have caused. This cheap digitised look hit heights with Mortal Kombat and then became known as no go area for graphics. It’s not a style I’ve seen used much in modern gaming at any level. No other technique would have got Mudlarks done in that time frame. I grew up around Mortal Kombat arcade cabinets and magazine articles explaining the techniques- I’d always remembered the development team emphasising the time saving factor of graphical digitisation and the concept stuck with me- wow this worldwide hit was created by a handful of people! Does that mean anyone can make a game? Enjoy the silly graphics or hate them, they are definitely part of the satisfyingly unsettling Mudlarks experience. I also feel that somehow the quirky look and feel of game (though audio as much as anything) was able to capture the mood of London’s rare quiet hubs in quite a unique way- which I have not seen before. My Grandmother stuck with it and that’s a triumph!

To say Mudlarks encountered a few graphical hiccups is an understatement. Let’s take resolution- the first sprites I cut out were large full size images- big mistake, shrink them down to 200 pixels and it’s game over! It took me a while to get used to working in with images under 300 pixels tall. The early sprites of Winnie and Vincent had facial characteristic changes, such as bigger eyes and contrast variants. But as the game grew and grew, we began to lose focus with this look as we bunged more and more stuff in. We were saving to the wrong format (leading to further clean up), I was using a dodgy monitor and creating sprites ranging from amusing to truly awful. None of that seemed to matter though, a world was created and it was all great fun. The main sprite of Winnie was a test animation that made it all the way into the final game- absolutely shocking!

What I’ve really been impressed by is during this whole experience and it’s something I would never have predicted- is the communities passion and support to these sorts of games. I’ve grown to despise social networks, I think it’s dumbed down our society, yet I put my hands up and say Twitter allowed us to get a game out and for people to play it. The follow up release of the short 'A Date in the Park' no doubt cemented this digitised style as one of choice for our team- Cloak and Dagger games, the company who bring out disturbing photo manipulated graphics. Hopefully some of our future games will shake off this image- but don’t worry, we might address this style again someday.

I guess the point of this post is to emphasise the importance of getting something out there and not be afraid of its shortcomings. Sure, we could have tried to labour for hours and make the game look as pretty as possible- but would we have ever completed it? Would we still be designing the Thames shoreline? Who knows… It was our stepping stone into the bold world of game making and it was done from start to finish within a year. The feedback has given us confidence and desire to make new even more ambitious projects. So if you are reading this, whilst labouring over your own project, keep going until you get it done and get it out there for the world to judge.

Well, what a busy few weeks it’s been. We’ve moved on from the Game jams and are now back concentrating on 'The Legend of Hand’ project. Due to this games faint colour palette, we’ve come to the realisation that the text was too hard to read as things stood- the result is that Shaun is now doing a complete overhaul of the text system which is a mammoth job so far into the project . But I haven’t got off scott free- the new method will involve portraits for every character and there are quite a few. So, it’s just as well I’ve been doodling lots of faces at present to get me in the mood! More sleepless nights ahead.

John

“What is it?” I mused, blowing the dust off the mysterious slender slab with some sort of rainbow effect, nestling in my hands. “A computer”, my dad answered “someone at work was chucking it out, it’s yours.” I’d always had a unique fascination with game systems and computers born out of a sense of longing for that which I did not have and now here it was- my very own computer! I’d spent hours looking through the glass windows to arcade casinos to get a glimpse of the giant colour sprites battling it out, which I try to visualise and draw as soon as I got home. Visiting friends’ houses and getting to play their systems had left me with a buzz for days after. The Spectrum 48k plugged into an old black and white TV. The next day a new treat arrived- a cassette case boasting a most impressive cover to a small child- a martial artist kicking an Egyptian mummy, with a robot and beast creature also involved in proceedings- heaven! “Renegade 3: THE FINAL CHAPTER!”- well this was the opening chapter for me, my very 1st game and it looked like it would be fantastic! I still remember my excitement upon loading this game- the sound that played as lines frantically flickered across the TV before giving way to the games title image. 

I wasn't to know then that the game was actually rather flawed. It’s two predecessors ‘Renegade’ and 'Target Renegade’ (acquired later) were actually far better and became the backbone to my childhood love affair with the scrolling beat-em up. Renegade 3 was my first game, and it will always have a special place in my heart!

The Spectrum 48k supported me loyally for a couple of years. But the world outside was changing.

Through visiting the house of the friend who I use to create the card games and booklets with, I had become aware of a fascinating home computer and spent several years trying to convince my Dad (money was no doubt very tight and value had to be proved) that I needed one. The friend helped me, by creating a booklet selling the benefits of owning an AMIGA, which no doubt bemused the adult it pandered to- ha, such endeavour! Still I guess it worked- eventually I got one.


Scorned by 1200 owners, I didn’t care- the Amiga 600 (with 2MB I might add!) was my own, my precious. For the first time the playing field had narrowed. There was such a wealth of varied games on this machine, collections became vast. The magazines of those days are also remembered fondly. On occasion they served up real gems on their cover disks- demos of games I would not normally play and also public domain games. ‘The One Amiga’ and ‘CU Amiga’ were my favourites (I must apologise to Amiga magazine enthusiast James Tate here who might strongly disagree with my choices- sorry old friend but ‘Amiga Power’s’ rating system was too brutal for me!)

I feel that most of London is in a state of shock at the moment. Started this picture of Boris Johnson after seeing his delighted mop splashed across the Evening Standard following on from the UK election results. Make what you will of the slight alteration I have made to the tongue.

- John