Super Pixel Quest

[PeterisP]

Somehow the pixelart/animation style reminds me very, very much of the old Gobliiins games (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobliiins) - the artists seem to be different (Emannuele Spinasse and Pierre Gilhodes) but the detail and movements seem to be very close in feeling.

[archagon]

YES! First thing I thought of, especially after seeing the wizard dude in panel 12. I am very much reminded of the level in Golbins Quest 3 where Blount is eaten by the wolf and has to put the three lights into the bowl to escape death. That game is an underrated a classic, in my opinion.

I love how this comic conveys the old adventure game feel of discovery and exploration.

[flanbiscuit]

This is great! I clicked all the way through to the end.

Instead of 164 separate html pages I would have just 1 and used javascript to step through the panels. Could even lazy load the other images so initial page load is faster. But that's just how I would do, the artist might not be a web developer and the way it's setup works.

[hansy]

Works beautifully with NoScript installed, so I'm definitely a fan of individual HTML pages; although, admittedly, the experience would probably be nicer with AJAX.

[archagon]

I like that this old school comic is put together with old school technology.

[hoektoe]

thank you i just skipped to 164

[Artemis2]

It's in French, but you just have to click the right arrow to make your way through the story.

Very nice work!

[szatkus]

He could map arrow to keyboard.

Also, spoiler: http://superpixelquest.com/164.html

[Monkeyget]

This reminisced me of Apple LC times big time. Marcel Proust's Madeleine style. Dithering, games such as Beyond Dark Castle[0], HyperCard games.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISP9su7okHo

[aresant]

You may be excited to learn about Lucas Pope (Papers Please) starting on a new 3D / B&W dithered game here:

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.0

[bbayer]

For those who wonders the author. http://www.emmanuelespinasse.com

[th0ma5]

Reminds me of IBM Big Blue Disk Alfredo Series (eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5zeEkRCr44 ) ... which I managed somehow to get working on Hercules Graphics using an EGA emulator I think. Anyone have all the old Big Blue Disks by chance? :D

[Zecc]

(I know this in one day old already, but...)

In case anyone else is wondering, frames 112 through 115 are exactly the same. Frames 125 and 127 differ only on focus (the invisible #ici element). Frame 129 is the same as 127.

I saved and ran diffs.

[ikecube]

A similar adventure in scope and implementation: http://www.deltaattack.com/2011/04/10/mario-pipe-puzzle/

[agentultra]

This is great. Scott McCloud and others have said that this is what comics would evolve to on the web for a long time. I appreciated the clever use of pacing and space. A great work and I hope it inspires more creators! So cool!

[Hemospectrum]

Worth pointing out that this type of experiment has been playing out for years already. The most popular type, usually called an "adventure comic," borrows from interactive fiction[1] to present itself as a dialogue between the author and the audience, complete with narration in second person. Among these, the most influential/notorious is Homestuck[2], which goes completely off the rails incorporating animation, music, and different types of gameplay into its narrative. Less ambitious uses of the same format, like Prequel[3], have followed in its wake.

---

[1]: http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/FAQ

[2]: http://www.mspaintadventures.com/ (NB. Homestuck is the fourth adventure comic by this particular author. It's on hiatus while he writes and animates the last few chapters.)

[3]: http://www.prequeladventure.com/

[archagon]

The time-slicing in particular is very clever. I've never seen anything like it before. (For example, when the knight moves at same rate, while protagonist wiggles faster and faster. Or when you click forward three turns and nothing happens to indicate the protagonist being stuck. The animations frequently represent the state of the world during each step rather than showing the literal passage of time, except for when doors open and stuff.)

[_random_]

Naked guy, naked HTML :).

[knowaveragejoe]

Interesting how this inadvertently showcases modern browsers redrawing the page content based on what has actually changed. Even though each "frame" is a new page, you only see a flash where the new image is being shown or replaced.

[guywithabike]

Incorrect. You see a flash because the new image has't been loaded yet, but all the other images have been previously loaded and cached, so your browser can display them almost immediately.

Try going back to page 1 — each page will appear to load instantly if you have all the images cached.

[prawn]

Curious to know how far the average visitor bothered clicking.

[xwintermutex]

I clicked to the end because I appreciate this work of art.

[tlrobinson]

I gave up after about 15 because the images were loading a little slowly (a few hundred milliseconds is too much) and driving me crazy. It would be nice if it prefetched the next few images.

[stkni]

Clicked on first 10, then skipped to 100 by tweaking the URL.

Then jumped to 150 (when jumping to 256 didn't work) and then finished the last few.

Very reminiscent of 1980s adventure games on the Spectrum but my French isn't good enough to tell if that's the point of it.

[__xtrimsky]

Although I had a lot of work to be done, I still clicked to the end :(

[steanne]

reminds me of when i am king.

http://www.demian5.com/

[enesunal]

cost me 165 mouse clicks. worth it.

[plicense]

Had to binary search to find 164.

[ricricucit]

worth clicking, nice work.

[phkahler]

Aren't pixels obsolete? I mean in the sense that you have to use scalable graphics these days.

[sspiff]

Isn't oil on canvas obsolete?

Pixel art (and pixel-based graphics) may be obsolete in the sense that you no longer need to work within the constraints of large pixels making up an image.

But content creation is still not vector based in many scenarios. And even if vector-based graphics would be the universal standard, pixel art could still be used as an art style or for a retro look or to invoke nostalgia.

[recursive]

If they are obsolete, pixels can still be represented as rectangles in your scalable format for aesthetic reasons. What's your point? Aren't quests obsolete too?

[_random_]

Fill the modern culture knowledge gap:

http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/3/5865849/pixel-art-is-here-t...

[samweinberg]

It's a stylistic choice.