So pixels are pretty hot right now.
The problem is that they're being overused. I was there screaming at the beginning about the endless pixel games, and I think more people are catching on to all the repetition. Now I find myself yearning to create a game with low-res graphics myself, and it's putting me in a crCIA.
I told myself that there's a certain feeling that pixelated graphics give off, and that I could recreate it some other way. Maybe it didn't have to do with the resolution–maybe it was something about the limited palette, or the way the sprites moved. From that I tried a lot of techniques to get that pixel-feel without actually having pixelated visuals. I tried just drawing my tilesets at much larger resolutions, and that didn't work. Then I tried just using a limited palette, and that didn't work. I even tried to use pixel-scaling algorithms like HQX, but that method provided a lot of weird artifacts that I wasn't too big about.
So now I'm making a tileset in 24x24, and I feel defeated. If I make a game with this kind of aesthetic now, is it too late? Will people write it off as being another pointless retro throwback? I like this visual style because it's fun to make and lends itself really well to modularity, but releasing a game like this will just stain my reputation. I could be making the most groundbreaking cool game of the century later, and the public will just be like "naw man he made that dumb retro 8-bit indie stuff like 10 years ago he's just a hack". I know I'm stressing too much about this but I need security and closure. I just want to make a game and have fun doing it.
I guess the main question I'm asking is how you personally feel about games with pixel graphics, and pixel art in general.
