Six months without an artist, and what we do about it

MushRog’s artist joins in April 2027. Until then the prototype uses free art from the internet, and we settled the rules for that before downloading the first sprite.

Why

The temptation to grab sprites from an old game is big, and the outcome is predictable: it shows up in a video, becomes a takedown, and the artist inherits a tainted project. So the rule is simple. Open licenses only (CC0, CC-BY, OGA-BY), everything recorded in a credits file, and nothing from third parties without credit.

How it works

The prototype is based on the Liberated Pixel Cup, a set of layered characters that the OpenGameArt community has maintained for more than ten years. It does exactly what the game needs: body, hair, helmet, armor, pants, boots and weapon as separate layers, in four directions, with walk, slash, shoot and cast animations. Swapping the helmet in the inventory and watching the sprite change already works with it. What the LPC doesn’t cover comes from other free packs: monsters and effects from Ninja Adventure, scenery from Tiny Swords and Mystic Woods, the dungeon from 0x72, the interface from Kenney.

The technical decision that matters most is that the code never assumes the LPC’s numbers. Frame size, the list of animations and layer order all live in a spec file. When the artist shows up with a character of a different proportion, we swap the file and the sprite folder, and the LPC goes away.

We also settled the camera: three-quarter top-down, Zelda style, with four sprite directions. Ragnarok, our visual reference, is actually 3D with sprites on top, and reproducing that would double the art. If we ever want that look, the client can change without touching combat.

Next step

Build the layer pipeline with the LPC and watch the first helmet swap on the character.