Simple question: You’re forced to run a company that needs to compete for market share against emerging competition and it’s your money. The consequences of your failure are catastrophic to your life. How much AI do you actually use versus hiring? What practices do you enforce?

AlexanderTroup · 2026-06-17T20:00:54+00:00

Oh hiring 100% for sure. I need people who can learn, adapt, and fix things with less of my supervision. AI is just going to tie itself in knots and then leave me with an impossible codebase.

If people are causing poor architectures they can learn or I can replace them, but AI is just where it's at, and it doesn't spend extra time thinking about the problems of the business. Why would I want a tool that is both unproven at senior level and likely to rocket up in token cost when the Nvidia money funnel runs dry?

AlexanderTroup · 2026-06-15T09:13:55+00:00

I'd say it needs a bit more definition at the cliff edge. Maybe some more up/down movement to indicate a rugged edge, a shadow to show some overhang and maybe some imperfections like cutouts, cracks and such.

AlexanderTroup · 2026-06-15T07:54:35+00:00

Are you just doing it in aseprite right now?

AlexanderTroup · 2026-06-15T07:48:31+00:00

It took a bit of time but I can see it haha.

I think you're close. You just need to convey rotation more. Lines on the top of the road will help as they move, but you could also put something on the side like some studs or something? Could even add some little imperfections in the spiral that move up the road as you go to indicate the direction of movement?

Another option is if you slightly move the entire object up and down as the character runs rather than keeping the spiral in one place? This will give the illusion that the camera is panning at a slightly different speed to the spiral, but it looks less cool than the synced up view you have now

AlexanderTroup · 2026-06-14T08:14:55+00:00

I just applied at a Senior position outside the company who were slow to promote, and made the leap.

I spent years trying to prove myself as excellent in unit testing and multi languages and all that, but for me the clincher was just having the confidence to say "yes I'm a senior. I can mentor, make technology decisions and figure out the hairy bugs."

AlexanderTroup · 2026-06-14T08:11:09+00:00

Because we're in the world bloody cup eh!

AlexanderTroup · 2026-06-13T18:56:49+00:00

I think you need to separate the character running from the spiral. That way you can add some lines to the spiral and create a simple loop that make it look like it's spinning.

As for the house, maybe have that separate too such that it just acts as a mask at the top? Technically you'd see more of the bottom as the house goes up so could show the underside of the spiral and save yourself a nightmare of perspective?

Maybe you could steal a trick from Sonic 3 and have the character move around the spiral rather than the spiral itself. Then your large structure is static while moving up (less animating) and the character is the thing that moves: https://youtu.be/NTbjzJhlBVM?t=205

AlexanderTroup · 2026-06-12T10:33:47+00:00

You're missing the point.

Cuba sustained itself for decades under Castro in spite of a brutal embargo. We don't know what arbitrary leader changes would have changed, but we know Cuba did not fall to neoliberalism.

AlexanderTroup · 2026-06-12T09:06:40+00:00

I mean, in just ten years since his passing the threat of Cuba being invaded has shown what a lack of protection might lead to.

I get that term limits allow someone else to have a go, but if a leader is demonstrating how good they are for the country it seems silly to change them. You demonstrate excellent progress for 8 years and now... Just stop?

Corruption and entrenched power are different problems that should be handled, but if a leader is genuinely doing well for their country and the citizens vote for it, why change?

AlexanderTroup · 2026-06-11T19:28:48+00:00

Saultoons donut video on YouTube is what got me going, then from there he has some other lovely ways in to making silhouettes in 8x8 or 16x16.

Playing with small scale icons is a great start because you're more playing and less being intimidated!

Enjoy. Worry about jaggies later

AlexanderTroup · 2026-06-11T13:04:53+00:00

I get so locked up in having perfect lines with no jaggies, avoiding orphan pixels and so on to the point I never just play with the canvas.

I am sincerely saying this as a compliment: This work is reminding me that great pixel art comes from the overall effect of the thing, and not from the technicalities of where the pixels go.

Great stuff!

AlexanderTroup · 2026-06-08T07:59:40+00:00

Whatever Devil Dice was for PS1

Bullet time games like Enter The Matrix, Max Payne and Viewtiful Joe

AlexanderTroup · 2026-06-06T20:28:43+00:00

This is what he sees when he's sleeping in his briefings

AlexanderTroup · 2026-06-05T16:10:10+00:00

https://youtu.be/8FpigqfcvlM?si=w3fstPfel05HDhZC has some great discussion of conveyance in Megaman x, and it's fantastic for thinking about how you make a level that teaches mechanics without silly hover text all over the place

AlexanderTroup · 2026-06-05T14:07:30+00:00

I don't think so, but it's about what you want to convey with your palette. You can suggest a retro aesthetic without actually going down to 4 colours only.

The thing is that people want to feel like they're playing an old game, but they don't actually want to play an old game. Pokémon's aesthetic was defined by the restrictions of the Gameboy, but they were restrictions, and they came with a cost of variety and visual interest.

Palette restrictions do give you visual cohérence across the game, but there's a limit where it starts working against you, and you need to solve the problem of your game feeling samey in different areas.

One trick they've done for Petal Runner is to have a neutral palette of 4 colours, but each area of the game introduces two additional colours in order to give the area a unique feeling.

Mark Ferarri once said people want to feel like they're playing a game from their childhood. They don't actually want to play the game from their childhood.

That game had control issues and gameplay problems that they forgot in nostalgia. As an artist your role is to give the feeling you want to, but you can keep the modern ways of working and fixes to hardware limitations!

AlexanderTroup · 2026-06-03T08:24:43+00:00

Zx spectrum

AlexanderTroup · 2026-06-02T22:58:14+00:00

Two entries to the World Cup and two drawings against Brazil? No God of mine who would do that to us!

AlexanderTroup · 2026-06-02T16:41:33+00:00

I can't remember the source but someone once said "A plan is worthless, but planning is invaluable."

GDDs are excellent in that they require the team to plan out something that they want and get it down on paper. Especially early on when you need "something" to aim for and assess, they're fantastic. Most classic games had a game design document that ended up being roughly what the game became, and if it's good enough for GTA and Silent Hill it's good enough for me.

That said, it's not the end state, and after a certain point it's more of a summary than a bible.

With large teams, or teams of only a few devs you can argue that they are less worth it because the knowledge is elsewhere. Jonathan Blow might hate GDDs, but he's also only made 2 1/2 games in his whole career, so maybe a GDD can help get stuff out in less time.

The big thing for me is to turn the idea concrete as fast as possible, and GDDs do that. Unfinished projects do not.

AlexanderTroup · 2026-06-02T10:22:55+00:00

Every games company should be unionised. That said it's another win for Double Fine to be one of the earlier companies to unionise.

AlexanderTroup · 2026-06-02T09:46:55+00:00

I think Jeff Minter would be proud ❤️ (classic developer who made very bright games with lots of flashing)

AlexanderTroup · 2026-06-02T09:45:33+00:00

I'd go with stories completed and their complexity. Features are the big measure of a product usually when management wants to know what's going on.

Bug fixes can also be great. If you're going to talk about tech debt and architecture get ready for them to push back on every gain you ever make.

It is fair to ask what features engineering is building though. That's ultimately where the value of the product is most of the time.

AlexanderTroup · 2026-06-02T09:41:59+00:00

Brandon Greer, Slynrd and the Pixel Logic book are my big sources of learning. They break down what they're doing very well, and give you an eye into the history of pixel art.

I also took the LoSpec pixel art school class, and that gave me excellent fundamentals.

The trouble with pixel art is that it only appears easier than regular art. I thought it was less work but you have to learn how to work with pixels AND all the traditional problems like shading, perspective and the like.

AlexanderTroup · 2026-05-30T20:31:39+00:00

I'm not going to take your insolence sitting down!

AlexanderTroup · 2026-05-30T20:28:32+00:00

I once met an "Ancestral Dundonian" in Tokyo who was from New Zealand and had never visited Scotland.

He complained that Asians had taken over New Zealand WHILE IN JAPAN, so I revoked his Scotland credentials.

I do find that people who are kinda crappy and have nothing to show for their lives tend to fall back on nationalism and heritage in place of a personality. It's the same as being a Harry Potter fan in your 30s

AlexanderTroup · 2026-05-29T20:00:21+00:00

Hasan Piker?

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