Indie game devs and pixel art are a match made in Switch heaven. We’ve certainly had some standouts over the years, including the recent Keep Driving, but Bionic Bay is something a little different – grandiose with a nod to past games but timeless in its own art direction.
In an indie game scene awash with retro homages and pixelated throwbacks, Bionic Bay stands apart as something unique. Made in game development software Unity, the game blends physics-based animation with epic pixel art vistas.
Bionic Bay Reimagines Pixel Art
Development on Bionic Bay began in 2019 and Juhana tells me he "hadn’t touched pixel art in nearly a decade" before starting on the game. Returning to pixel art, Juhana says he sought to be something new to the medium, to modernise the art style without losing the raw edge associated with the retro art form.
Instead of the hard-edged limitations of 8-bit pixel art Juhana worked with a broader colour palette for Bionic Bay – working with eight ten colours in a scene – along with a more fluid approach that blends the feel traditional painting with the precision associated with pixel art.
Crafting Animation with Character
Though visually arresting, Bionic Bay’s art isn’t just there to look good – it moves, it zooms, it pans and animates. Juhana is behind the art and design, while Xiao-Fong Huang and Kevin Lai from Psychoflow in Taipei look after the programming in Unity, together they’ve created a unique physics-based platformer.
The team had already built a lot of the game around the small, flea-like character size, so changing the hero’s design meant reworking substantial parts of the game. "Suddenly we could give him more personality. His movement felt better. The game instantly felt more alive," says the artist.
Bionic Bay is Built on Surprise
After a moment of thought, Juhana tells me the game’s design philosophy is based around a sense of unpredictability. "The part I’m most proud of is that the game never stops throwing new stuff at you," Juhana says. "There are no filler moments. No recycled ideas. I want players to feel like anything can happen."
The idea behind Bionic Bay is to constantly evolve the world and how players will experience the adventure. Over 10-12 hours of platforming, puzzle-solving and physics-based experimentation, Juhana tells me gameplay and visual design constantly evolves and never settles into repetition.
A Game That Doesn’t Repeat Itself
This flexibility in its approach to art and design means Bionic Bay doesn’t look or feel like too many other pixel art platformers. This is, of course, by design. As previously touched upon, Bionic Bay draws on cinema as much and other video games and makes use of digital tools to push a pixel art style that feels modern while playing on our nostalgia.
For Juhana, the visual design of Bionic Bay is the culmination of years of trial and error, iterating on an idea, and the stubborn ambition keep pushing for perfection. "We never stopped being creative," he says. "That’s the thing I’m most proud of; we could probably keep going forever, but I’m glad we didn’t run out of ideas before finishing."
Conclusion
Bionic Bay releases 17 April for PlayStation 5 and PC (via Steam). Read more on the Bionic Bay website.
FAQs
Q: What inspired the art style of Bionic Bay?
A: Juhana drew inspiration from cinema, particularly the work of Roger Deakins, and wanted to create a unique pixel art style that blended traditional painting with precision.
Q: How did the team approach animation in Bionic Bay?
A: The team used a combination of hand-keyed animation and physics-based animation to create a unique and dynamic visual style.
Q: What sets Bionic Bay apart from other pixel art games?
A: The game’s unique art style, unpredictable design, and commitment to never repeating itself make it stand out in the indie game scene.
Q: When will Bionic Bay be released?
A: Bionic Bay releases 17 April for PlayStation 5 and PC (via Steam).
