every time i play fred pohl's Gateway (Legend Entertainment, 1992) i'm always struck by how much the art style varies throughout the game.

each planet has its own particular art style, which probably means that every planet had a different artist assigned to completing that planet's assets

but what really stood out to me this time, and is very *uncommon* in games, is that two entirely different art processes were used.

the water planet (top two screenshots): the luscious greens and aquamarines are pixel-perfect. zoom in, and you'll see the extremely careful handcrafted dithering to mix colours and create texture. the lighting makes objects lift off the page. this was drawn entirely digitally (probably in dpaint)

the desert planet (bottom two screenshots): ignore the change of palette towards warm browns and yellows, and instead focus on the dithering patterns. these were almost definitely painted traditionally with watercolour or acrylic, and then scanned in to the computer. notice how the mechanical, randomized pixel patterns both soften and muddy the picture. the contrast is weak, and the objects feel flat and lifeless.

in the early 90s, 256-colour adventure game backgrounds generally were painted, scanned in, and then received pixel-by-pixel touchups to improve the dithering and contrast. gateway's desert planet never received that last polish pass, and it shows.

#pixelart #art #retrogaming #dosGaming #adventureGames

@ThreeOhFour a game you should have found fading in the window at a Cunderdin gas station in 1998 for $1.99

#adventureGames