These rule! I love the style they're made in. It gives me a very warm and fuzzy nostalgia for some of my favorite RPG Maker resources from the rm2k/rm2k3 era of circa 2002-2006.
If these had been available 4-6 years ago when I was working on Live Free Or Die/Spirt of '76 I would have used the hell out of them and the project would have been greatly enhanced thereby (the latter was using these, which are great but extremely limited in variety of characters available and quite stylistically distinct from any other sprites available).
Wow. Thank you so much for the compliments! The positivity is very appreciated right now.
I was inspired by the same era of RM2K/3 as well as the pixel art games I grew up with. Do you remember Don Miguel’s 2k and 2k3 edits? Loved those. Haha. I’m so old.
I get what you mean about the assets you wound up with, they are very nice but don’t have that classic pixel feel. I feel like my stuff is pretty easy to edit and work off of for budding pixel artists or just ppl who can cut a few pixels or copy/paste a hairstyle when push comes to shove.
Keep you in mind? I absolutely will! Yes, I am the same Legion that's been around since about 2002 (Iron Gaia, Backstage, etcetera, in around 2006 at the age of 20 I helped judge the Misao awards) so I remember that era quite well. Actually I ran into Don Miguel himself on Twitter last year and we followed each other. What a blast from the past! Specifically, your stuff reminds me of the "future" assets for OG rm2k used in the 2k thru XP era Japanese sample game KNight-Blade, which were famously used in A Blurred Line (which I still venerate and adore).
I can't pixel from scratch to save my life, but at this point I have over two decades of experience with what we used to call "frankenspriting", so I've become a deft hand at that pseudo-skill.
I remember A Blurred Line! Unfortunately I don’t remember a lot of the names from back in the day. I was in a satellite RPGmaker proboard community, but not the main one(s). Do you remember The Way? That game was like this specter that haunted me for years but I lost track of it and couldn’t find it anymore (if it ever updated past where I was – long time ago now haha). Such a cool idea.
I also started w/ frankenspriting. Perfectly valid skill that a lot of pixel artists just happen to also have for the same reasons we do. I used to be a teacher (before COVID) and I’ve done a little teaching and tutoring w/ pixel art. I find the resources out there to help people learn are usually just the raw basics over and over. I used to try and see if other pixel artists would help me develop a curriculum (lessons, activities, etc) to create a free and open source pixel art course. No one bit – probably because a lot of them were developing paid courses. I don’t know how good or worthwhile those are, but I can’t begrudge most peoples’ attempts to get paid in this space. It’s not easy.
I do remember The Way! I remember having my mind blown by it in like 2004. I also mentioned it on r/rpgmaker just the other day.
At this point after decades of RM obsession, my collection of other people's pixels is so vast and well curated (organized not just by type, format, and style but also by what I have the rights to use commercially and artist credits) that learning to pixel myself would almost feel like wasted effort. Also to be honest I've never had even the slightest artistic aptitude or inclination, no drawing experience whatsoever outside of doodling (very, very badly) in grade school, some people can draw a more or less perfect circle freehand but I'm one of those people in the other extreme who genuinely struggles to draw a straight line using a ruler. I did take five or six months last year to finally learn GODOT, and that WAS a good investment of time.
I can cludge together just about anything I need from my archive of (*checks notes*) 23.1 GB in 292,012 files across 23,481 folders of game dev assets plus the stuff on here (with new stuff coming out all the time, this website is pretty great) I haven't yet hoarded. My current project is the first one in recent memory to not use either character sprites nor tilesets at all as it's a first person turn based dungeon crawler/JRPG/VN hybrid, but I'm still (enjoyably) spending tons of dev time "frankenspriting" the VN style busts and front view enemy graphics.
Amen to the rest of what you've said. The people actually making something like a living in this space definitely seem like the ones selling assets, not the ones actually making games. It's a real "if you want to make money during a gold rush, don't pan for gold, sell picks and shovels" type deal. Anyway sorry to fill up your page with mostly irrelevant words, but thanks for chatting!
I am enjoying our chat. If you wanna talk more, I’d be happy to connect over email or discord sometime.
I can relate to the organization you describe. I’m the same way. I don’t have the breadth of resources you do, though. I have lost stuff over the years, burnt out HDDs or stolen laptops, and rebuilt or refound portions but never all and kinda limped around until I started doing it myself again during COVID. This time, for whatever reason, it stuck. Coding has never stuck like that for me, but I’ve spent a lot of time trying to master that skill too. Not in the cards.
What’s funny about it is I have experience in pretty well every other aspect of game dev. Some of it professional. But I’ll never be a coder.
I think that would be fine. You wouldn’t have to change much on any given sprite to make them unrecognizable as characters from an IP. Some already had to be reinterpreted enough that no one would recognize them without my labeling. I just release these for free and include my usual usage agreement to cover my own butt.
Wait a minute, were you asking if YOU could use these in commercial games or if AI can?
I obviously can’t stop you but I am heavily against the use of generative “AI” in all forms of art and would appreciate it if people respected that or download something else.
You probably meant you, but I feel like I better say this anyway for future reference.
I don’t mind and would definitely appreciate credit if only to get more eyes on my stuff. Haha. I’ve actually got some updates coming to this pack, including characters from The Matrix series. If you do wind up using these, let me know if there are any cyberpunk characters you think I should add to the pack. Cheers.
awesome! I actually sent you a email about buying and using all your cyberpunk character packs as well as the item pack. As stated before I’ll make sure you’re credited and link to your itchio or whatever as well if that’s that’s okay.
I’ll definitely keep suggestions in mind and adding matrix would be so cool. If this all works out and is successful with my few fans, would you also be interested in commission work later down the line?
Nice! I’d love to see what you do with the material! I appreciate any plug you wanna do for my stuff, it all helps. Also, definitely down for commissions if you need anything in the future.
Here's a Clip of the sprits added to my stream. My viewers absolutely loved them. I can't wait to see more of what you make in this theme, instant buy from me.
Wow. That’s very cool. Had a look and what a neat way to use sprites! I also noticed the sprite you made of yourself after the Retro Cybercity style. Nice work. Fits right in with the rest with that street ninja look!
I’m very happy to hear that your viewers liked these. I’m currently working on a “corpo” themed tileset and character set. I also have a merc/fixer/security/police character set in the works.
Here’s a sneak peek:
Oh and the vehicle pack I’ve been working on for ages. Vehicles are hard and I’m never happy! Likely I’ll have something new out by the end of this month.
When I release a new pack, I typically do a sale and bundle discounts. If you have viewers who are on a budget but are interested in grabbing this stuff, that would be a good time to do so and I believe you’ll get a notification when I do a sale or update. Up to you if you’d like to mention my work again in the future, of course.
Anyways, lovely to see what someone ends up doing with these assets. Truly special feeling. Let me know if you have any requests or ideas for future content.
I have stuff! My issue is I always try to have a “complete” pack ready and I’ve got like 5 in some state of near-completion but haven’t finalized any. I decided recently, partly thanks to your enthusiasm and patience, that I should just release what I got and add to it if I still have more I think I need to do.
It’s nuts, because that’s exactly what most asset-creators on itch do. I am just stubborn and old-fashioned in some dumb way though. Thanks again for sticking with me and reminding me there’s at least one person who is eager to see more of this stuff!
Okay buddy, now you’ve done it. I’ll be releasing the “Vendors” pack tomorrow and oh boy it’s a doozy. Decided to combine a few ideas into one pack and it’s gonna be pretty big, on par with the other ones I’ve done for interior (apartments) and exterior (streets).
Hope you’re ready for it. There’ll be a launch sale of course!
I really like your characters! Also the Panam jacket sprite is missing the jacket on the down facing sprite. It was an easy fix but I thought you should know
Haha sorry, sorry. Holidays, my friend! They’re coming. Thanks for your patience and I appreciate the reminders. This is a side-gig for me and it’s nice to know that people want this stuff, encourages me to stick with it!
My exterior packs have some options, but probably not enough for a whole city with good variety. Is there anything in particular you’d like to see? I want to do more exteriors but have been distracted by other stuff. You’ve seen the Streets Pack and the “Apartment Complex” pack does have some assets that can be used as “exteriors”. What’s missing? Maybe I can whip up something smaller and release it quick to help you out.
Thank you for your patience, "Retro Cyberpunk City Streets" is really good, but the types of buildings in it are still a bit small. I hope you can make more kinds of buildings, like cyberpunk 2077
In case you didn’t know, the wall pieces in that pack are extendable. They are laid out as 9x9 tiles where each tile is 16x16 pixels. The upper row is the top of the wall, the bottom is the bottom, and if you try to extend them past 3 tiles high, it won’t look right. But the middle row is designed to be extendable as much as you want. So for example, the buildings in my mockup are not tall because I wanted to show as many pieces of the tileset as possible. But you can totally make taller buildings with the pack as is. If you own the pack, please try it and let me know if you run into problems.
I should do an additional mockup with a taller building to show what I mean! I should also add more exterior architectural details like cantilevers and struts, both of which are used a lot in games like Cyberpunk 2077 to give buildings a sense of scale.
Good notes. Thank you for being so interested and giving me feedback.
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These rule! I love the style they're made in. It gives me a very warm and fuzzy nostalgia for some of my favorite RPG Maker resources from the rm2k/rm2k3 era of circa 2002-2006.
If these had been available 4-6 years ago when I was working on Live Free Or Die/Spirt of '76 I would have used the hell out of them and the project would have been greatly enhanced thereby (the latter was using these, which are great but extremely limited in variety of characters available and quite stylistically distinct from any other sprites available).
Wow. Thank you so much for the compliments! The positivity is very appreciated right now.
I was inspired by the same era of RM2K/3 as well as the pixel art games I grew up with. Do you remember Don Miguel’s 2k and 2k3 edits? Loved those. Haha. I’m so old.
I get what you mean about the assets you wound up with, they are very nice but don’t have that classic pixel feel. I feel like my stuff is pretty easy to edit and work off of for budding pixel artists or just ppl who can cut a few pixels or copy/paste a hairstyle when push comes to shove.
I hope you keep me in mind for your next project!
Keep you in mind? I absolutely will! Yes, I am the same Legion that's been around since about 2002 (Iron Gaia, Backstage, etcetera, in around 2006 at the age of 20 I helped judge the Misao awards) so I remember that era quite well. Actually I ran into Don Miguel himself on Twitter last year and we followed each other. What a blast from the past! Specifically, your stuff reminds me of the "future" assets for OG rm2k used in the 2k thru XP era Japanese sample game KNight-Blade, which were famously used in A Blurred Line (which I still venerate and adore).
I can't pixel from scratch to save my life, but at this point I have over two decades of experience with what we used to call "frankenspriting", so I've become a deft hand at that pseudo-skill.
I remember A Blurred Line! Unfortunately I don’t remember a lot of the names from back in the day. I was in a satellite RPGmaker proboard community, but not the main one(s). Do you remember The Way? That game was like this specter that haunted me for years but I lost track of it and couldn’t find it anymore (if it ever updated past where I was – long time ago now haha). Such a cool idea.
I also started w/ frankenspriting. Perfectly valid skill that a lot of pixel artists just happen to also have for the same reasons we do. I used to be a teacher (before COVID) and I’ve done a little teaching and tutoring w/ pixel art. I find the resources out there to help people learn are usually just the raw basics over and over. I used to try and see if other pixel artists would help me develop a curriculum (lessons, activities, etc) to create a free and open source pixel art course. No one bit – probably because a lot of them were developing paid courses. I don’t know how good or worthwhile those are, but I can’t begrudge most peoples’ attempts to get paid in this space. It’s not easy.
I do remember The Way! I remember having my mind blown by it in like 2004. I also mentioned it on r/rpgmaker just the other day.
At this point after decades of RM obsession, my collection of other people's pixels is so vast and well curated (organized not just by type, format, and style but also by what I have the rights to use commercially and artist credits) that learning to pixel myself would almost feel like wasted effort. Also to be honest I've never had even the slightest artistic aptitude or inclination, no drawing experience whatsoever outside of doodling (very, very badly) in grade school, some people can draw a more or less perfect circle freehand but I'm one of those people in the other extreme who genuinely struggles to draw a straight line using a ruler. I did take five or six months last year to finally learn GODOT, and that WAS a good investment of time.
I can cludge together just about anything I need from my archive of (*checks notes*) 23.1 GB in 292,012 files across 23,481 folders of game dev assets plus the stuff on here (with new stuff coming out all the time, this website is pretty great) I haven't yet hoarded. My current project is the first one in recent memory to not use either character sprites nor tilesets at all as it's a first person turn based dungeon crawler/JRPG/VN hybrid, but I'm still (enjoyably) spending tons of dev time "frankenspriting" the VN style busts and front view enemy graphics.
Amen to the rest of what you've said. The people actually making something like a living in this space definitely seem like the ones selling assets, not the ones actually making games. It's a real "if you want to make money during a gold rush, don't pan for gold, sell picks and shovels" type deal. Anyway sorry to fill up your page with mostly irrelevant words, but thanks for chatting!
I am enjoying our chat. If you wanna talk more, I’d be happy to connect over email or discord sometime.
I can relate to the organization you describe. I’m the same way. I don’t have the breadth of resources you do, though. I have lost stuff over the years, burnt out HDDs or stolen laptops, and rebuilt or refound portions but never all and kinda limped around until I started doing it myself again during COVID. This time, for whatever reason, it stuck. Coding has never stuck like that for me, but I’ve spent a lot of time trying to master that skill too. Not in the cards.
What’s funny about it is I have experience in pretty well every other aspect of game dev. Some of it professional. But I’ll never be a coder.
Can a i use it in comercial games if i edit it to make character of my own?
I think that would be fine. You wouldn’t have to change much on any given sprite to make them unrecognizable as characters from an IP. Some already had to be reinterpreted enough that no one would recognize them without my labeling. I just release these for free and include my usual usage agreement to cover my own butt.
ok thanks
Wait a minute, were you asking if YOU could use these in commercial games or if AI can?
I obviously can’t stop you but I am heavily against the use of generative “AI” in all forms of art and would appreciate it if people respected that or download something else.
You probably meant you, but I feel like I better say this anyway for future reference.
Pretty sure it was just a typo.
I think you’re probably right but I figured I better tap the sign anyhow.
Hi, can I use this for Stream Avatars for my live streams? I can also credit this page on my channels about area
I don’t mind and would definitely appreciate credit if only to get more eyes on my stuff. Haha. I’ve actually got some updates coming to this pack, including characters from The Matrix series. If you do wind up using these, let me know if there are any cyberpunk characters you think I should add to the pack. Cheers.
awesome! I actually sent you a email about buying and using all your cyberpunk character packs as well as the item pack. As stated before I’ll make sure you’re credited and link to your itchio or whatever as well if that’s that’s okay.
I’ll definitely keep suggestions in mind and adding matrix would be so cool. If this all works out and is successful with my few fans, would you also be interested in commission work later down the line?
Nice! I’d love to see what you do with the material! I appreciate any plug you wanna do for my stuff, it all helps. Also, definitely down for commissions if you need anything in the future.
Here's a Clip of the sprits added to my stream. My viewers absolutely loved them. I can't wait to see more of what you make in this theme, instant buy from me.
Wow. That’s very cool. Had a look and what a neat way to use sprites! I also noticed the sprite you made of yourself after the Retro Cybercity style. Nice work. Fits right in with the rest with that street ninja look!
I’m very happy to hear that your viewers liked these. I’m currently working on a “corpo” themed tileset and character set. I also have a merc/fixer/security/police character set in the works.
Here’s a sneak peek:
Oh and the vehicle pack I’ve been working on for ages. Vehicles are hard and I’m never happy! Likely I’ll have something new out by the end of this month.
When I release a new pack, I typically do a sale and bundle discounts. If you have viewers who are on a budget but are interested in grabbing this stuff, that would be a good time to do so and I believe you’ll get a notification when I do a sale or update. Up to you if you’d like to mention my work again in the future, of course.
Anyways, lovely to see what someone ends up doing with these assets. Truly special feeling. Let me know if you have any requests or ideas for future content.
Seeing you updated, I almost jumped up excitedly
I have stuff! My issue is I always try to have a “complete” pack ready and I’ve got like 5 in some state of near-completion but haven’t finalized any. I decided recently, partly thanks to your enthusiasm and patience, that I should just release what I got and add to it if I still have more I think I need to do.
It’s nuts, because that’s exactly what most asset-creators on itch do. I am just stubborn and old-fashioned in some dumb way though. Thanks again for sticking with me and reminding me there’s at least one person who is eager to see more of this stuff!
Okay buddy, now you’ve done it. I’ll be releasing the “Vendors” pack tomorrow and oh boy it’s a doozy. Decided to combine a few ideas into one pack and it’s gonna be pretty big, on par with the other ones I’ve done for interior (apartments) and exterior (streets).
Hope you’re ready for it. There’ll be a launch sale of course!
I really like your characters! Also the Panam jacket sprite is missing the jacket on the down facing sprite. It was an easy fix but I thought you should know
Oh man, that’s embarrassing. I really appreciate the head’s up and will fix that ASAP.
EDIT: Fixed. There was some weird stuff with that sprite in general and it should be good now. Please let me know if you notice anything else similar.
everyday I am waiting for your new assets (●'◡'●)
Haha sorry, sorry. Holidays, my friend! They’re coming. Thanks for your patience and I appreciate the reminders. This is a side-gig for me and it’s nice to know that people want this stuff, encourages me to stick with it!
Thanks replay.
I'm making a game using your assets.
Nice! I can see why you’re eager for more!
Also: nice use of the cleavage poster. I made it for a diff. project and then left it in the pack for the laughs.
Nice, 5 stars.
Annnnd thanks x3!
nice work!!!
Thanks! I hope people have a lot of fun with these. I’d love to see a Cyberpunk fangame made w/ my stuff!
My exterior packs have some options, but probably not enough for a whole city with good variety. Is there anything in particular you’d like to see? I want to do more exteriors but have been distracted by other stuff. You’ve seen the Streets Pack and the “Apartment Complex” pack does have some assets that can be used as “exteriors”. What’s missing? Maybe I can whip up something smaller and release it quick to help you out.
In case you didn’t know, the wall pieces in that pack are extendable. They are laid out as 9x9 tiles where each tile is 16x16 pixels. The upper row is the top of the wall, the bottom is the bottom, and if you try to extend them past 3 tiles high, it won’t look right. But the middle row is designed to be extendable as much as you want. So for example, the buildings in my mockup are not tall because I wanted to show as many pieces of the tileset as possible. But you can totally make taller buildings with the pack as is. If you own the pack, please try it and let me know if you run into problems.
I should do an additional mockup with a taller building to show what I mean! I should also add more exterior architectural details like cantilevers and struts, both of which are used a lot in games like Cyberpunk 2077 to give buildings a sense of scale.
Good notes. Thank you for being so interested and giving me feedback.