# Mission: Top-Down Pixel Art

## Why

I am a solo developer building a western horror game — bleached, sun-scorched daylight
dread with an occult undercurrent — and I am making all of the art myself. I need to be
able to produce a consistent, atmospheric 16×16 top-down art set fast enough that art
never becomes the reason the game doesn't ship.

## Success looks like

- I can draw a 16×16 top-down prop that reads correctly at 1× zoom, without reference.
- I have a locked project style guide (projection, palette, light direction, outline rule)
  that every asset obeys, so a sprite drawn in month six sits next to one from month one
  and nobody can tell.
- I can build a seamless, tileable 16×16 terrain set with transition tiles between
  materials (dust, cracked earth, boardwalk, rock).
- I can animate a 4-direction walk cycle for a character sprite.
- I can produce props and set dressing that carry the western-occult read (graves, gallows,
  troughs, bones, sigils) without them looking like generic fantasy assets.
- I can control mood through palette and light — making a scene feel oppressive in
  daylight, not just dark at night.
- My art imports into Godot cleanly and holds up under Godot's 2D lighting.

## Constraints

- **Solo dev, whole game.** Art must be fast and repeatable, not gallery-quality. Technique
  that scales beats technique that impresses.
- **Tool:** Aseprite.
- **Engine:** Godot.
- **Base resolution:** 16×16 tiles.
- **Experience:** has dabbled — made some sprites, followed tutorials. Shaky on palettes,
  shading, and consistency. Not a total beginner.

## Out of scope

- Isometric projection.
- High-resolution / HD-2D pixel art (32×32 and up as a base scale).
- Portrait and key-art illustration.
- Non-pixel art pipelines (vector, 3D-to-2D rendering).
- Godot gameplay programming, except where it directly constrains how art is authored
  and exported.