28 November 2012

Free Art: Winter Holiday Icons!

This is free art – it is under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Download the art here!

Winter Holiday Icons for Apps and Games!

Are you thinking of creating a holiday or winter-themed app? Maybe you want to release a special holiday version of your existing app or game?

This icon set is ready to help you do this!

free game app art winter holiday icons

Free icons for you to use in your projects!

 
Ideas for using these icons:

  • Prizes to collect in a game
  • Thumbnail icons for profiles in an app
  • Images for the cards in a memory game
  • Populate the background scenery in a game

I’m sure you can come up with more!

What’s Included

You get the ten icons shown above as PNGs, in the following sizes:

  • 100×100 pixels
  • 500×500 pixels
  • 1024×1024 pixels

This should allow you to use them in a variety of ways, as thumbnail images all the way up to app icons. Just choose the size closest to what you need (larger than the size you need), and resize it to fit your app.

Enjoy!

If you use these icons in a game or app, let me know! I will include your app/game in a special post featuring apps that use the art on this site :] It’s a great way to get the word out about your app!

Send me an email via my Contact page or direct message me on twitter!

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21 November 2012

Four Ways to Deal With the Longer iPhone 5 screen

designing for different iphone screen sizes

960 pixels + 176 pixels = designer headache

The iPhone 5 introduced a longer screen: the same width, but with an extra 176 pixels in height.

Most users seem to appreciate the extra space, but it poses a design challenge for app makers: how do you create a background for the different iPhones?

Note that we are talking about the iPhone retina and the iPhone 5 – the older unretina phones have screen sizes that are simply half that of the iPhone retina.

Here are four ways you can design for the longer iPhone 5 screen:

1. Different art entirely

designing for different iphone screens

option 1: two different background images

The obvious first option: use different pieces of art!

If your background is heavily illustrated or needs to be the exact size of the screen (for example, if you have borders or a scene, like in a game), you will need to make two different backgrounds sized for the two different screens.

Pros:

  • best customization
  • can create an illustrated scene or richly textured components

Cons:

  • uses up the most memory
  • have to create more art (which equates to a higher cost for the designer)

 
Read more…

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15 November 2012

Free Game Art: Repeatable Background – Night Meadow

This is free art – it is under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Download the art here!

Repeatable Night Meadow Scene Background

This scene is intended to be used for side-scrolling games – the background repeats, and has two variations to alternate between.

It is also a parallax background set – the foreground and the background are separated, so that they can scroll at different speeds if you so choose.

It has two clouds and a moon for you to use in the sky, and a tree and some flowers to use in the foreground.

It’s a simple set, but can get you started on a side-scrolling game!

free game art repeating parallax background set

A night meadow scene that repeats and can have a parallax effect!

Contents

The art is provided for both iPad and iPhone, in retina and unretina sizes.

  • Backgrounds: two versions to alternate between. The heights are sized for landscape mode on each device.
  • Foregrounds: two versions to alternate between. Again, sized for landscape mode.
  • Sky objects: two clouds and a moon to populate the night sky.
  • Ground objects: a pine tree and some flowers to add variety to the foreground.

 

Enjoy!

Please let me know in the comments if you would like more repeating background sets – if there is enough interest I can add to this one or create several other scenes!

And as always, I LOVE to hear about what games you make with the free art on this site – if you finish a game with it, send me an email via my Contact page or direct message me on twitter!

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8 November 2012

Free Game Art: D Pad and Buttons

This is free art – it is under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Download the art here!

D-Pad and Buttons

The iPhone has lots of ways to control characters in-game: tapping, tilting, etc.

Sometimes, however, you just want an old-fashioned D-Pad and some A and B buttons.

free iphone game art d pad and buttons

Everything you need to convert an iPhone into a retro game!

Allen Tan, who will soon be releasing an awesome starter kit on the raywenderlich.com site, is just such a person. He also used the art in a two-part free tutorial: How To Make A Side-Scrolling Beat ‘Em Up Game Like Scott Pilgrim with Cocos2D. Check that out if you’re interested!

His punch-em-out game really needed a D-Pad and buttons, and he couldn’t find any good looking ones out there for free.

So I made him one.

And now you all get to benefit!

free iphone game art d pad and buttons

Mockup of the D-Pad in action

 

How It Works

The D-Pad is a set of 9 images: one for when no buttons are pressed, and 8 for when the various directions are pressed.

There are three buttons: A, B, and a blank, for you to put on whatever you like. Each button has a pressed and unpressed image.

They are all sized for the iPhone and iPhone retina, though they would work well on any other device with a similar resolution.

Feel free to tint the controls with a color to better match your game! Check out this post to learn three easy methods of recoloring artwork.

The images are provided at 100% opacity, but you can set them to be somewhat transparent so that your game shows through. Below you can see a mockup of the D-Pad at 70% opacity.

free game art d pad and buttons

A mockup of how the controls look at 70% opacity

 

Enjoy!

As always, I LOVE to hear about what games you make with the free art on this site – if you finish a game with it, send me an email via my Contact page or direct message me on twitter!

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4 Comments

1 November 2012

iPhone iPad Desktop Wallpaper: November 2012: Stingray

A stylized stingray prowls in the depths…

november iphone ipad desktop calendar wallpaper

Is it really November already? I’m not sure I would notice the time racing by if not for the monthly challenge of creating a desktop wallpaper :]

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26 October 2012

How To Recolor Artwork For Your Game

Learn how to make these changes happen!

Let’s say you are making a game on a budget, and have found some free art somewhere (like on this site). 

Great! But often the free art is somewhat limited – you can’t really choose if you want an orange snake or a green snake, or if your robot has a blue head or a green head.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you knew how to recolor the artwork so that you can have a bit more variety?

Well, read on to find out a few easy ways to do this in Photoshop!  Which option you choose will depend on the artwork you are trying to recolor and the effect you are trying to get – if one doesn’t get the results you want, try another!

Download the files for this tutorial here – includes several PNGs and a PSD file.

 
Read more…

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18 October 2012

Roundup 9: Games Made With Free Art!

The monkey is the star of this set of games made with free art, but this roundup also features the first game to be made with the Checkers game pack! You’ll see two fun math games for kids, and two cute game where you are a monkey trying to survive! Also, promo codes for a couple quick readers :]

Read on to see how developers have used the free art from this blog:

Read more…

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12 October 2012

Free Game Art: Tower Defense Bunnies vs. Badgers

This is free art – it is under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Download the art here, or read on for an explanation.

Bunnies vs. Badgers Tower Defense

tower_defense_rabbits_badgers_top_down_game_art

These bunnies won't give up without a fight!

This is a little game pack created for an upcoming tutorial on raywenderlich.com. They let me come up with the concept, and perhaps regretted that ;] 

What they got was a honey badger braving the arrows of some archery-adept bunny rabbits. Because, you know, honey badger don’t care!

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1 October 2012

iPhone-iPad-Desktop Wallpaper: October 2012: Antlers

The crisp air and changing colors make my hikes even more beautiful this time of year. The deer are just as plentiful, only now half of them sport small racks of antlers as they prowl the neighborhoods for tasty nibbles out of unprotected gardens.
iphone ipad desktop wallpaper october

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27 September 2012

Free Game Art: Frogs & Lilypads Puzzle Game

This is free art – it is under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Type: iPad retina, iPad unretina, iPhone retina, iPhone unretina

Download the art here, or read on for an explanation.

Frogs & Lilypads Puzzle Game

free game art: frog & lilypad puzzle game

Puzzles? Frogs? Yes!

Two weeks ago I asked you, the readers, to submit ideas for a free game pack. Here is the first game pack I chose to make!

The request was for a top-down set of art suitable for puzzle games, with a frog that can jump, lilypads to jump around on, and some extras.

A cute frog and some lilypads? Sounds like fun to me!

Again, this art pack was made possible by your suggestions, so if you have ideas for future game packs, click here and leave your idea as a comment!

mockup of level: free game art top-down frog and lilypads

Jump carefully!

Suggested Gameplay

The idea is for a puzzle game – jumping the lilypads in a way that gets you to the end of the level. You can collect rewards (a fly!) and avoid bad stuff (snake, rocks).

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