Posted by Kim on July 6, 2023, 12:00pm
As we gear up for the lemonade stand, I'm going to be publishing a series of posts explaining my thoughts so far on avatars and maps. I know the biggest question people have is, "What might it look like?" so let's start by talking about that.I intend to utilize the Liberated Pixel Cup assets as a starting place, specifically the branch of edits created and being expanded by Eliza Wyatt.
What is the Liberated Pixel Cup? The original Liberated Pixel Cup was an event held back in 2012, where pixel artists both collaborated and competed to create as much high-quality free culture licensed artwork as they possibly could. The idea was that they'd create sets of pixel-art assets that would work in a wide variety of games and gaming genre, and send it off into the world, free to use for whatever programmer wanted to make something fun and cool with it. It was an attempt to expand the number of unique games in the world, and a fun way for artists around the world to collaborate with one another.
And then it just... kept going. In the eleven years since, not only have many great indie games and apps been generated with the Liberated Pixel Cup content, artists have continued to add and add to the collection of art assets available for game designers to work with.
You've already had a taste of what maps & avatars in the Liberated Pixel Cup style might look like; I exclusively used LPC assets in our first round avatar builder and in the farming game that was used in Epic Weeks 2021 and 2022!
It's still going strong -- the past two years have seen some of my favorite-ever contributions to Liberated Pixel Art content, especially the expansions in diversity of avatars!
There are a lot of ways in which the Liberated Pixel Cup feels like a great match for the RPR, one of the most prominent being that the LPC project is all about trying to support creativity across a wide variety of genres and systems. Every genre, any system used to be the RPR's tagline!
It also fills me with great excitement to think that artists working on items for the RPR might choose to also release their items and assets under the open game art license and we could become an engine for even further expanding the Liberated Pixel Cup content, and help new and unique games of all sizes be created throughout the world. Supporting creativity and collaboration feels right in line with the ethos we've cultivated together.
Pixel art in general is a great match for this project for a few reasons. The first reason is technical: it is lightweight and works well even on phones with lower processing power. The second biggest reason is accessibility: It has the lowest barriers to entry for fledgling artists who decide they want something specific for their map or avatar and want to attempt creating it themselves.
Starting with LPC assets means that we will be able to launch with more than bare-bones assets that I could draw or commission in the time between now and first release. We'll have assets from all over the world, meant for a wide range of genres and purposes, that are still cohesive because they were all designed with the same guidelines.
Post tags: Lemonade Stand Fundraiser
Comments
This sounds so cool! Very exited to see where it goes!!
It kind of reminds me of RPG Maker! 
Looks neat!
Looks neat!
I kinda speed read through all of it, it's to early for me to have woken up and read it. But it looks cool, I like pixel art. I need to get back into it.
I'm so excited and so happy to see more about it!
I love that; giving me Link to the Past vibes!
I am so incredibly stoked about this because reason number three for me is the nostalgia of pixel art. Old folks like me can't seem to get enough of it. I am on the edge of my seat to keep this project going. I look forward to seeing how RPR transitions into this and how it will all look. This is going swimmingly! Keep up the good work!
Interesting.
That actually sounds really awesome! I can't wait to see where it goes.
I hope to have a lot more to say about this in future posts, but essentially:
There will be a map builder
There will be an avatar builder
Once you have a map, you could optionally designate it as the map for a particular forum topic, including forum topics in groups. I would also like to make it possible to designate a map for a particular inbox conversation. You will then see the map above your chat, and everyone involved will be able to move your avatars around on it to provide a visual reference for the people participating in that role play.
There will be a map builder
There will be an avatar builder
Once you have a map, you could optionally designate it as the map for a particular forum topic, including forum topics in groups. I would also like to make it possible to designate a map for a particular inbox conversation. You will then see the map above your chat, and everyone involved will be able to move your avatars around on it to provide a visual reference for the people participating in that role play.
I'm not familiar with any of this, so I'm trying to figure out what the actual application for this is going to look like. Is it going to be the new UI? Is it going to be like a Doubutt game that you can launch and play as you wish? Will it be connected to RPs or groups?
Thanks for enduring all my questions
Thanks for enduring all my questions
I've definitely played a few phone games made with these assets. They're pretty invaluable in small hobbyist gamedev discords as placeholder art as well, until someone can find an artist. Also glad to know we'll be able to modify them, since lately, modifying sprites has become my go-to for things like tabletop maps over drawing them from scratch myself.
oven
July 16, 2023
11:02pm
comrade rpr ♥