Worlds with a limited palette

March 9, 2012 11:43 AM

When kevin wins, the planet loses! is a tumblr that collects pixel art from a variety of videogames to showcase the beautiful work that lies in the background of the action.

The blog looks at sprites, scenery, and cutscenes from a wide variety of console, PC, and arcade titles.

posted by codacorolla (14 comments total)

There's something about looking at pixel bits like that that just scratches some itch deep in my brain. Just feels like the good ol' days of my adolescence. Makes me wanna point n' click.

I wish the images had sources on them, though.
posted by whitneyarner at 11:52 AM on March 9, 2012 [4 favorites]

Yeah, this is really neat but I'd love to see sources.
posted by brundlefly at 12:00 PM on March 9, 2012

yeah, I wish I knew what games these were from. I vaguely recognize some of them. A lot of them look like Japanese games from the 1980s/1990s. Some of them are from some kind of Marvel adventure game for the PC that I remember playing, it came on a floppy and cost like $5.

I was many, many pages into it before I saw one and said, "Hey, that's A-Train!"
posted by smoothvirus at 12:08 PM on March 9, 2012

Related.
It's from Penny Arcade. Talks about why pixel art is Art™.
tl;dr. Every Pixel Counts.

Great post!
posted by hot_monster at 12:23 PM on March 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

yes

i agree
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 12:31 PM on March 9, 2012

Damn I feel like I almost recognize so many of these.

Also, I'd wear any of those tee shirts.
posted by cmoj at 12:50 PM on March 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

I would love to be able to order huge prints of these (legally, I mean).
posted by en forme de poire at 12:55 PM on March 9, 2012

This has been one of favorite tumblrs for a while, and, as a lifelong barely-even-casual-gamer, I only infrequently recognize stuff. I actually find a lot of it more powerful out of context.
posted by Rustmouth Snakedrill at 1:58 PM on March 9, 2012

I would love to be able to order huge prints of these (legally, I mean).

I had a friend who used to do videogame sprite paintings on commission, using different sized square stencils. Doesn't necessarily take a lot of talent, just a lot of time.
posted by roll truck roll at 2:34 PM on March 9, 2012

I was looking through the tee shirts, and although the designs are neat, this is still copyrighted art isn't it? Unless there's a legal hole that I'm unaware of. I'm guessing the game art is covered by the respective companies, but this is Conan as drawn by John Buscema which is being reprinted, I'm guessing, without the artist's permission as it's missing the signature of the artist. So. Nice site, interesting graphics/ideas and stop making money off of other people's art and being really obvious about it, you dickhead.
posted by Zack_Replica at 2:46 PM on March 9, 2012

The blog's art looks nice, but I don't care for the title.
posted by Kevin Street at 3:52 PM on March 9, 2012

there should be more of this on tumblr and less black & white artsy people-fucking gifs.
posted by ninjew at 4:19 PM on March 9, 2012

Wish the site didn't feel the need to take over my arrow keys. I already own a perfectly functional set of PgUp and PgDn keys
posted by Space Coyote at 5:02 PM on March 9, 2012

this is still copyrighted art isn't it? Unless there's a legal hole that I'm unaware of.

There is no such loophole, as the guy who pixelized Miles Davis can attest to.
posted by arsey at 9:54 AM on March 10, 2012