Sword & Llama

Post #6

From programmer art to real fish

This is the stretch where the game started to feel like itself. I began replacing the flat-shape fish with actual illustrated sprites.

Before: fish as flat ovals.
Before: fish as flat ovals.
After: real sprites with species identity — a striped Zebra Danio, tetras with fin detail, a finned betta.
After: real sprites with species identity — a striped Zebra Danio, tetras with fin detail, a finned betta.

The new fish were more detailed than the flat-vector plants around them, which forced a decision: flatten the fish to match the world, or push the world up to match the fish? I went up — committing to a more illustrated look across the whole tank. More expensive, but richer.

And then there’s this guy. I wanted an axolotl, and the placeholder made me laugh, so it earned a spot in the blog.

The axolotl, in all its programmer-art glory. The gills and tail already read right.
The axolotl, in all its programmer-art glory. The gills and tail already read right.

Crude as it is, it’s unmistakably an axolotl — the red gill fronds and paddle tail do all the work. When it gets real art, those are the features I’ll exaggerate (and the perpetual little smile, because cute creatures are what this whole game runs on).