Pill #2 - PixelArt Tilesheet for our 2D Prototype
A tiny boilerplate spritesheet to kick off your first platform game.
Hello, my fellow gamedevs! 👾
Here we go again with our Gamedev Pills, #2 — ready to sharpen our skills and boost our solo-dev motivation. This time, we’re focusing on Pixel Art to create our very first tileset for fast prototyping, no matter what engine you’re using.
What You’ll Need
Motivation fully charged
Aseprite / LibreSprite
A color palette → I recommend browsing Lospec Palettes to pick one you like (here)
Step 1 – Define the Canvas
Like any traditional artist, we start with the basics: canvas size, scope, and tools.
Open Aseprite (or LibreSprite).
Go to File > New…
Set the canvas to 64×64 pixels.
This size gives us room to fit a character, an enemy, and a platform tile, side by side in one boilerplate spritesheet.
Step 2 – Plan the Sprites
For a prototype, we don’t need dozens of animations or perfectly detailed tiles. We just need the move fast and prepare our main ingredients:
Character (16×16) → our player
Enemy (16×16) → a simple obstacle
Platform Tile (16×16) x 3 (left-side, middle, right-side) → the ground we’ll stand on
Palette
Keep it simple. This is about testing ideas fast, not creating final art, adjustment and fine tuning at our art piece will be executed on later stage.
Colour Palette (You can use your own!)
The Character
The Enemy
The Platforms
Step 3 – Export & Test
Export your 64×64 spritesheet as a transparent PNG. (File > Export > Export Sprite Sheet)
Slice it into 16×16 tiles in your engine (Godot, Unity, etc.).
Drop your character on the platform and place the enemy.
Congratulations! — you’ve got the very first prototype version of your platformer!
Food for Thought
With just this simple boilerplate, you can already:
Prototype levels quickly
Test jump physics, collisions, and enemy behavior
Reskin the sprites later without breaking your prototype
Later, you can expand with:
Idle/walk animations for the character
More enemy types
A full tileset with coins, spikes, ladders, etc.
That’s it for this pill…
On our next learning pill (Remember, every wednesday!) we are going to focus on create an initial Godot scene with the resources created here, to understand fundamentals as:
Collision
Gravity
2D Movement
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