How it works
Real light, square pixels
We wanted pixel art that sits in a believable world, with real shadows and light that creeps around corners, and we wanted it on an ordinary laptop. Here’s the idea, without the jargon.
Every frame, in five steps
-
01
Draw the scene in pixels
The world is drawn small, at around 270 lines, the size of a classic console screen.
-
02
Work out the light
For each little square of pixel art, the engine follows rays of light to the sun and lamps to see what’s lit and what’s in shadow.
-
03
Add the bounce
Light that bounces off walls and floors was worked out ahead of time, so dark corners get a warm glow without slowing the game down.
-
04
Add the atmosphere
Fog, glow around lamps and a touch of colour grading set the mood.
-
05
Blow it up, crisp
The finished picture is scaled up by a whole number to fill your screen, so every pixel stays a perfect square.
Sharp on any screen
Pixel art goes blurry when it’s stretched by an odd amount. We always scale by a whole number instead, so each game pixel becomes a neat block of screen pixels, whatever you play on.
| Your screen | Each game pixel becomes |
|---|---|
| 720p | 2 × 2 screen pixels |
| 1080p | 4 × 4 screen pixels |
| 1440p | 5 × 5 screen pixels |
| 4K | 8 × 8 screen pixels |
A world that changes
The light in our games isn’t frozen. The sun moves through the day, street lamps switch on at dusk, and when you open a door or knock down a wall, the light in that room updates a moment later.
That works across a whole city with thousands of rooms, and on worlds that go on forever, where new stretches arrive already lit.
No special graphics card
Lots of games with this kind of lighting need a card with ray-tracing hardware. Ours doesn’t: it runs on gaming laptops, everyday laptops with built-in graphics, and desktops alike.
It can also run in your browser. The demo on this site is the real game, not a video, with the same lighting as the version you’d install.
Browser play is tested on one desktop graphics card in Chrome so far. Laptops with built-in graphics, Firefox and Safari aren’t tested in the browser yet.
Where it stands
The engine works and our games are being built on it, but it’s still in development. The art you see today is a stand-in until the final pixel art is drawn, and the speeds on this site are our own measurements on our own computers. We’ll share more as it grows.
Build. Play. Share. Repeat.
Help us make more of them.
Become a GOOD BUILD Supporter and play every game we make, including the ones built with Good Vibe Engine as they arrive.
€1.99 a month or €14.99 a year. Cancel any time.
