A small view to the beginning of this journey...

What you see up here is the complete sprite sheet for the original Legend of the Wizard King game (you can watch it here: https://gamejolt.com/games/thewizardking/393543). As you can see, the graphics are just very basic pixel art, with almost no effort on it. I think the main reason of this was because I was so anxious on making and FINISHING a game I'd like to play, that I didn't care too much for graphics. 

I made LotWK in no more than 2 weeks I think. I was living in Stockholm by the time, and clearly remember going to work at the restaurant everyday and coming back home, lock myself in my room, sit on the bed (because I had no proper table) and use the GMS2 creator demo in a friend's old Lenovo Notebook. And it was a fantastic time ! I really enjoyed watching old cartoons mostly to get inspired into this game. I had been messing around with Game Maker a long time ago, but never be able to finish a single project. So my goal was that, the only purpose of publishing a game I would like to play, and by the time I finished, I totally loved it ! And started working on a remake.

Actually this is where the journey begins. 

I remember I was working in this restaurant by the time I receive an e-mail from a random person I didn't knew. This guy introduced himself and send me a link to his publisher page. He said that he liked the game and if I wanted to work with him, he could help me publish a better version of it on Steam. I WAS TOTALLY SURPRISED ! I couldn't believe it. I check the publisher page and see some others indie games like mine. It was real ! Totally shocked ! So I return home, I start e-mailing this guy and we both agree for a new remastered/remade version of the game. I had to give 110% of my efforts for this to work.

Just before my visa finishes, I start mocking around with the new graphics, and how the game will look like. I knew I could learn everything I needed to make a really good game, so I only focused on what I think I needed the most: The Graphics, and the chance to make this project look awesome.

Some small concepts I made, mostly using the old NES graphic style. 16x16 pixels squares, with revamped colors but keep using the "only 3 colors" per square. Tried to play with some Link and Mario mixing but still, I thought something was missing.

Then started to mess around with the GBC colors palette, but found it too bright, and at the time I was trying to avoid any kind of brightness to the game. As the artwork grew, I was learning what I really wanted to show with this game, but trust me, it was a really long and hard journey. You can see now that the UI started to look more modern, fitting in widescreens and leaving all the 4:3 ratio behind. I guess I wanted to use square ratios to mantain the nostalgia factor, but screw it !

As I said before, the GBC colors where too bright, so I swapped for another color palette, I think was basic Aseprite color palette (DB32 I think). I liked this style, I worked probably a couple of weeks on in, until decided I was still too bright, and the game looked like a mix of Zelda and classic JRPG, wich was the opposite direction of what I tried to show. SO, started over again, but with a new concept.

Dark enough ? Totally. I was amazed by the old Ultima series and everything that you could do on those games. "I can totally make something like that!", I was wrong, but not in the sense I though. Anyways, this was the first style that I liked and felt mine. Dark, desaturated, perfect for some grim Diablo-styled adventures. 

And this was the mock it started a new path. However, this will continue in the next post.

Hope you like this, and keep tuned for more !