9 years after Kickstarter debut, Pixel Art Academy launches into Steam Early Access on August 5

If you’re reading this, chances are you came across one of my articles in Retronator Magazine sometime in the previous decade. That is to say, if your interests shifted in the 2020s (and who would blame you—what a start of a decade it has been) you can safely skip this newsletter. If you’re still interested in pixel art, however, you will not want to miss this.

While I haven’t written any new magazine articles, I continued working on pixel art education through my game Pixel Art Academy. After many years of hard work, it is finally seeing its debut on Steam in a couple of days.

In particular, the version launching into Steam’s Early Access program is Pixel Art Academy: Learn Mode, a focused version that includes just the interactive tutorials, challenges, and projects for the fastest way to start learning pixel art.

Early tutorials teach you how to use pixel art tools before you dive into deeper theory and fundamentals.

The first release is all about pixel art lines, covering the topics of jaggies, perfect diagonals, smooth curves, and line width styles.

Once you’re done learning the fundamentals, you will put theory into practice by drawing fan art of your favorite characters.

Tutorials are always paired with bigger challenges where you can test your newly learned knowledge.

Finally, you get free reign in the Pinball project where you will creatively use the rules of pixel art lines to make your own pinball machine.

The Pinball project mimics working on the 1985 Macintosh release of EA’s Pinball Construction Set.

As I’ve written in my editorial Learning with video games, I think games have such a huge potential as a medium for learning. Nothing beats an amazing teacher, but when it comes to accessible education at scale, learning by doing through interactive experiences can be the next best thing. Games can react and adapt to your particular strengths and needs, offering a multi-modal mix of try, show, and tell.

If you want to support learning with video games, you can wishlist Pixel Art Academy: Learn Mode on Steam as that helps with the visibility leading up to the launch. And if you’re still (or newly!) interested in learning pixel art yourself, get yourself a copy on Monday, or share it with someone who would appreciate a creative trip back to the 80s.

Have a great one!
—Retro

Pixel Art Academy: Learn Mode key art