Pixel Art

Intro Sometime in June 2023, my son Leon brought from Köln a mid-90s laptop with Windows 95 installed. The only game it had was a version of the famous Chinese solitaire Mahjong called “Shanghai II”. Leon didn’t know the game, and he got really excited about it. When I saw the game, I told him: “But that version is terrible, it looks horrible. There was an older version, on the Commodore Amiga, that I used to play with my dad that was much better.” Seeing the connection I had with that game, he said: “Why don’t you program it? So it’s available on modern computers?” ...

Some time ago I saw this joke and it seemed as cruel as it was real: Dead Pixel Joke Last year, for some reason, I found myself playing Final Fantasy I on the PSP 3000 and the fact that I could see the pixels on that small 480x272 screen filled me with happiness. Final Fantasy I PSP Pixel art is that. It’s being able to see the pixel, being able to enjoy it, it’s part of the art. What was once a technical limitation today determines a wonderful aesthetic. More and more sophisticated games and media will continue to come out, but those that are left behind don’t disappear, they’re not discarded, they don’t die… they generate a specific aesthetic. ...