ANCIENT HARD-CORE: Atari pixelling

[Helm]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU4exraUg3Q

interesting videos (more than one) for many many reasons. But check out primitive atari pixelling on about the 7th minute. Rocksome to the radcore max.

[ptoing]

"I like it, looks good." 

[fil_razorback]

Hehe so retro...back in time when pro gfx where done in less than thirty seconds ^^

I wish I were born earlier

[Evil-Ville]

What's stopping you from programming an atari 2600 game now? :)

[fil_razorback]

Macromedia Flash 8 =)

[Zolthorg]

mmm mmm good

[Soup]

mmm mmm good

Possibly the greatest graphics ever.

Also in the second part you notice the kid who is testing the game says
"I like how it is detailed."

[Lackey]

Did anyone notice the programmer wore a matching beige outfit?  He dressed like a computer.

I thought it was strange that they identified the pixeller as a graphic designer.  Did they employ people specifically for that job back then?  It seems like the programmer could have done it just as easily.

[Helm]

Yeah I wondered the same.

[big brother]

I'm not used to seeing the words "ancient" and "hard-core" together, but thanks for sharing the video!

It's crazy how much money a designer could make off a single game back then. Annual salary plus commission from GROSS sales? Modern publishers would laugh. From the documentary, it seems that the designer of Atlantis made over a hundred thousand dollars off it (a few month's work) and had the stock gone public, would've been worth about $12 million. You can live on that, especially during the 80's.

[robotriot]

The actual pixeling doesn't seem to be so "hard-core" though. Looks pretty comfortable actually for the time.

[Skull]

Man.. thank goodness we've moved on..

[AdamTierney]

As far as I've understood it, there was really only one prominent pixel artist in the 2600 scene: Jerome Domurat. His work is pretty cool. Check out this background from E.T.



Given the system limitations, it's at least above par for creativity for that time. Of course, people working in the scene now are coming up with far more impressive art, just because they're coming into it with a far more developed understanding of the fundamentals of pixel art.

- Adam