Where does any ultimate grunge rock dude's journey begin?  The same place as this game's design: in this music shop.  Where did you think the guitars would come from?!  Lying around the world in guitar cases??  {that's a good idea, actually...}

Anyway, I thought I'd share some of the process behind this particular background.

There are two restrictions to be aware of for backgrounds for the GameBoy.

1. The image can only consist of 192 total 8x8 tiles
2. The colour palette is limited to only these four colours:

With most of the pixel art that I've done to date, there's limitless scale and an infinite palette!  So this project came together a little differently.

Talking Tile Count

It probably seems obvious, but the key to working within a tile count is simplicity in the overall design.  Pixel art is always about simplifying, but GameBoy pixel art is next level simplifying!!  The thing to keep in mind from the beginning is that if you proactively cut back on the details in some areas, you're making space for more valuable, eye-catching additions later (like the guitar on the roof - it's entirely made of unique tiles!).

I used this online tile-checking tool a lot to keep on top of the total tile count, and to pick out where I could best consolidate some repetition: 🖼️ GB Tile Counter - GB Workshop (wow you don't have to count them by hand!)

This really quickly indicated that a lot of tiles were able to be reused and I made all of the windows, ledges, ground tiles fairly uniform.  Of course I still kept some unique!  You can see from this heat map where all of the unique tiles ended up (the reddest hue indicates tiles that are only used once).

I had considered showing some guitars or other instruments on display in the windows, but ultimately keeping these a solid colour made for a far cleaner composition, and allowed me to focus the unique tiles on other features (and put a whomping great big guitar on the roof instead).  The skip bin in the alley wasn't really necessary, but what it does do is add depth and detail in an otherwise bland area of the scene.

Palette-Limited Shading

As for the palette limitation, this made shading particularly tricky.  The limited options meant it was fast - but it meant every surface had to be treated as three-tone at best, and with multiple surfaces connecting (windows with walls, walls around corners) a lot ended up being two-tone.  The danger here was that things could end up looking really flat and dull.

To combat this, I found inspiration in a handful of Brandon James Greer's pieces (like this one: Pixel Art Coffee Shop (Timelapse + Commentary) #coffee9) and added the sort of drippy/wear and tear shading you see around most of the edges.  This series also inspired my approach to the shop's signage, which I think adds a lot of character to the building.  Without the texturing this is what our music shop would look like:

Which is fine, I guess.  But it doesn't exactly feel PUNK!  And if this music shop is going to sell guitars to the ultimate grunge rocking dude, it's going to need to feel punk 🤘

That's all on the greatest grunge-rock GB game for this week.  Keep your strings tuned.

conoro