Interview | Super Icon Discuss Life of a Pixel Wii U

Cubed3: Please introduce the team at Super Icon for our readers.

Claire Hill-Whittall: Super Icon is small; currently there are the 3 of us - Claire who is in charge of business development, Rich who is the head of development and also lead art/design/audio and Steve who is our coder. 

Cubed3: What other projects had the team worked on before Life of a Pixel?

Claire Hill-Whittall: We've worked on over 30 games together so far - most recently several PSP Minis (Arcade Darts, Air Hockey&Bowling, Pool), MegaBlast for PSM, Golf Mania, Family Games, Vertigo and Bashi Blocks.

Cubed3: Please tell us a little bit more about the Life of Pixel concept

Claire Hill-Whittall: Life of Pixel is a game dedicated to the brilliance of classic gaming machines. The game is comprised of 72 levels, which are spread over 9 different game machines.

We thoroughly researched the graphics capabilities, pixel resolutions, colour palettes & scrolling of each machine and our aim was to recreate these limitations as closely as possible.

Each machine features 8 levels, and the machines included within Life of Pixel are Atari 2600, ZX81, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, BBC Model B, Nintendo Gameboy, NES and Sega Master System.

Cubed3: The pixel character looks adorable! Does he/she/it have a back-story?

Claire Hill-Whittall: Pixel is a little green pixel. Tired of being part of the crowd, he wanted to see more and learn about his background. Luckily, he happened to live right next door to a videogame museum and under the cover of darkness he sneaked in to take a look…

Pixel found a World of Retro joy; a time when the humble Pixel ruled!

Cubed3: What classic games have helped inspire the gameplay mechanics in Life of a Pixel?

Claire Hill-Whittall: Wow… Lots! Here is a quick run-down; this isn't all of them though; we want to leave a few surprises…

Uridium, Castlevania, Jet Set Willy, Exolon, Ghosts'n Goblins, Rick Dangerous, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario Bros., Monty Mole, Blagger, Exile, Pitfall, Chucky Egg, Citadel, Mega Man and more! 

Cubed3: Retro-inspired titles are increasing in number, what is it about the classics that interest you?

Claire Hill-Whittall: I never really got to do pixel art the first time around as I was too young - so I missed out professionally on the entire 8-bit era. I really wanted to explore the old systems and work within the graphical limitations of the machines and immerse myself in the classic games that I spent many hours playing when growing up.

Cubed3: Have the technical aspects like palette size and memory restrictions helped or hindered development?

Claire Hill-Whittall: Helped! I have LOVED doing those GFX, just so much fun. The C64 and ZXSpectrrum GFX were especially good to work with, as those were the machines I loved most back in the day. 

Cubed3: How will Life of a Pixel look on bigger screens and resolutions?

Claire Hill-Whittall: The extra screen space will be used for marquees designed to each machine - I don't want to scale the pixels up more or make them super chunky. We're looking to do something similar to what Retro City Rampage did - marquees, old TV surrounds, etc…

Cubed3: Would there be a possibility of multiple co-operative features, for example the two player mode in classic Sonic the Hedgehog games?

Claire Hill-Whittall: Yes, most definitely. Every pixel needs a pal!

Cubed3: What would be your favourite retro system in Life of a Pixel to work with?

Claire Hill-Whittall: Definitely the Commodore 64 - I have such a soft spot for that machine - not just the GFX/games but the wonderful SID music. So in Pixel we made sure the main title tune was a SID track J 

Cubed3: Why did you chose Kickstarter and why should gamers pledge towards the project?

Claire Hill-Whittall: We see Life of Pixel as a long term project we would like to evolve and expand until we have covered as many retro game systems as we possibly can! Right now over on Kickstarter we've started a poll to choose the new machines we include in the game. The options are Apple II, Atari 400/800, TRS-80, TI-99/4A, MSX, MSX2, Intellivision, Vectrex & Wonderswan.

We're looking to address the current European bias on the machines in Pixel, hence the US & Japanese machines on the list.

Why pledge? If you love retro gaming, and in particular the 8-bit era this is the game for you!

Cubed3: It's great that you're considering the Nintendo Wii U, how would you plan on using the GamePad controller?

Claire Hill-Whittall: Possibly more of an interactive feature on the various machines - i.e. you play the game on the TV and at any point you can get more info on the machines themselves on the GamePad. Definitely would like a map in there too - but not JUST a map - we want to make good use of the GamePad.

Cubed3: If you could work on any Nintendo game, what would it be any why?

 Claire Hill-Whittall: I'd love to do a PilotWings game - something about the freedom to explore and fly around and experience a huge world full of secret sights and sounds really appeals to me. I've wanted to do a game like that for a long time.

Cubed3: What are you plans for the future? Could Life of a Pixel become a series, say spanning more recent but still retro consoles like Playstation and Nintendo 64?

Claire Hill-Whittall: We have planned a 16-bit sequel to Pixel - focusing on just the 16-bit systems like Amiga, Atari ST, SNES, Megadrive, NeoGeo, Atari Lynx, PC-Engine, Apple IIgs, EGA/VGA PC.
Just typing that list makes me excited!

We are also experimenting with Unity - so hope to do a few Unity Nintendo Wii U titles, and we are also working on some mobile projects for iOS and Android.

Support Life of a Pixel on Kickstarter