Motion Design, 2D Animation & Illustration
Services
Myself
Client
Year
2024
Is my cartridge good to go? Have I tuned my TV to dodge those classic glitches? That's right, I took a nostalgic leap back to the '80s for my latest passion project... And it was a wild ride – full of fun and a few bumps along the way!
Retro Gaming
Retro Gaming brings us back to the era of big hair, bold colors, 8-bit gaming, and bustling arcades. A time when consoles were loaded with multiple cartridges, tuning the TV was a test of patience, and setting up a new game felt like a challenge only MacGyver could handle.
Role: Illustrator/Motion Designer/Animator
My short film dives into the thrills and frustrations of that era, revisiting the common video game challenges of the time and offering today's fans a nostalgic journey. The film's premise centers on how these limitations were almost game-like themselves – where just getting a game to work became a challenge, like leveling up. This often sparked creative, out-of-the-box solutions for technical problems, proving once again that limitations can inspire innovation.
My creative approach followed the same principle: we embraced limitations to fuel our creativity. The entire film was crafted using PETSCII art, relying solely on 8-bit character sets as graphic elements to illustrate and bring the story to life.
Originally used for character encoding on Commodore's 8-bit computers, PETSCII offers a rich set of graphic symbols and even allows for color, unlike the more popular ASCII. However, it’s also far more restrictive than using pixels. In this "text art" style, everything hinges on details, with small geometric shapes forming images on a fixed grid, much like a retro digital mosaic. Upon closer inspection, you might notice a letter "C" becomes a thumbnail, or a monster's hand is formed from the number "3." Like in classic video games, we embraced these limitations as opportunities, using a few simple elements to craft fantastic worlds and reimagine an old graphic language in a fresh, contemporary way.
In terms of storytelling, I embraced a "game within a game" concept: my protagonist is eager to play the latest and greatest video game, but along the way, she faces all the typical challenges of trying to finish it on her old console. The narrative structure mirrors a video game, with story chapters instead of levels, enhancing the overall experience. Each issue and its solution unfolds like a retro tutorial within the main plot, as my character overcomes each problem to advance to the next, just like in a video game.
The film itself is a visual nod to the 80s video game era, employing the PETSCII art style to transport viewers back in time. This low-fi aesthetic brings a playful charm to the film, where the graphics are both minimal and surprisingly expressive, capturing the essence of the decade with a hint of humor.
Working within the geometric constraints of PETSCII allowed me to craft more
intriguing shapes and patterns. I used built-in symbols and letters from the PETSCII character set to form these geometric designs, enhancing them with colors and 8-bit mapping techniques to create depth and texture. To add more expression, we visually incorporated character dialogues into the compositions. By utilizing frame-by-frame animation with the LVLLVL software, I brought every element to life in true
PETSCII style.
To fully embrace the video game vibe, we added text mosaic glitches between scenes, giving the animation a smooth, nostalgic flow that echoes the experience of playing classic games.
Because let’s face it—there’s nothing like the joy of leveling up, only to have your dog unplug the cable and send you back to square one. Game over? Not quite—just another challenge to conquer!