MAZK Pixel Game Project

I can hardly believe it, but development is moving forward pretty well right now. Right now we are hard at work on the item system, and quite a few promising ideas have come together already. Making Items Matter So it was time for another round of mockups to explore a new idea. What if the inventory with all the items could feel a little more alive? What if the way you build your item deck could trigger unique reacti...

First Shield (Firewall) Animation Whenever Mazk touches anything related to 3D, my eyes start to sparkle because it gives me a reason to open Blender. Back then, when I was overflowing with motivation and pixeling every firewall-ring individually in Photoshop, I already knew this could not be the final solution. Sooner or later, I would need a smarter and faster approach. Two Tutorials to the Rescue Working with nod...

In my Devlog No. 10 about Magma.com, I already gave you a small glimpse into the pixel art worlds of Mazk on Magma. For the last two sessions, I was joined by my good friend Amadeus Waltenspühl. These jams can get pretty intense and need a fair bit of moderation — managing everything solo can be draining, especially when juggling everyone’s requests or, occasionally, having to remove someone who’s not playing nice. B...

In game development... things always take longer than expected 😅😅😅 BUT! I'm proud to finally share a quick video showcasing some of the gameplay loops that have been piling up over time. It's a mashup of isolated elements from the game – like a bot firing, a weapon test, some animation prototypes, and other little mechanics I've been tinkering with. I threw it all together to give you a sneak peek into the chaos, ...

My first encounter with Magma was years ago, back when it was still called aggie.io. I clearly remember those small, fun drawing sessions with friends — especially with my good friend Amadeus Waltenspühl. Back then, we had no clue where Magma would take us. Since Amadeus and I were already doing small pixel jams with a few friends, it made sense to start sharing my Mazk project on Magma. It helped me stay motivated ...

Back then, I honestly thought I could just paint the whole map like one giant canvas. Like, full-on cyber Bob Ross mode — no tiles, just the digital pencil strokes. Deep down, some stubborn little artist-gremlin in my soul refused to even look at tilemaps. I wanted every single pixel lovingly hand-placed, zero procedural stuff, nothing "generated," no sir. But then came the realization that maybe... just maybe... ti...

Mazk was just lying there—no direction, no plan, no future roadmap. And yet, there I was, still opening file after file from the Mazk universe like some sort of digital archaeologist. This project has hoarded more artwork over the years than most indie studios manage to publish in a lifetime—and I had nowhere to show it. I’ve been metaphorically pregnant with Mazk for almost seven years. And let me tell you: that’s a...

After we wrapped the initial development phase of MAZK, the project basically hit pause. Radio silence. For a few months, we honestly had no clue if or when anything else would happen with it. The dev energy tank? Pretty much running on fumes. Still, I couldn’t sit still. I jumped back in to breathe some visual life into the world of MAZK. I cranked out some fresh illustrations and artwork—mostly for my portfolio , b...

When I opened Blender for the first time, I had no idea what I was doing—I just knew Mazk needed 3D. So I started simple: a battery, some tiny robots, the Mazk spaceship, and of course, Mazk himself as a low-poly game piece. Thousand tutorials later i roughly knew the difference between edit and objekt mode and how to put textures on a surface. These first steps were clumsy, full of trial and error, but slowly the wo...

After a long radio silence, Simon reached out again. He had an idea, an exciting new twist on Mazk! A fresh game design inspired by the classic board game Labyrinth, but with a wild new mechanic. To explore the concept, we decided to go back to our roots: using some of my very first pixel art pieces to prototype a board game version of Mazk. A physical game! That’s when the question hit us—could Mazk become a board g...

Cool! Now our little MAZk is walking around the area in a strange alien world. But what exactly is he doing there? Maybe it's a game that works as similar as Zeld. Maybe it's also a puzzle and you have to solve crazy puzzles. Random Dungeons I didn't know anything about what makes a good game design. After many discussions with Simon, I ventured on my first idea for our game. A rough idea with some randomized spaces ...

Sketching was always my comfort zone. But pixel art was pretty new to me. And of course animation with pixelart was completly new to me. I always wanted to learn animation but i never had a good reason to just start. But learning animation with pixelart was some of the most grateful and fun things to do. Frames and Sprites Most pixelgames run with a tiny amount of animated frames. You can have super detailed animat...

Devlog #2: Worldbuilding – Carving Life Into the Forgotten There’s something profoundly fulfilling about building a world from nothing. Not bound by logic, genre constraints, or even gravity—worldbuilding is where we let creativity spiral. It’s where discarded metal becomes sacred relics, lost knowledge sleeps in the roots of alien technology, and old crash-landed engineers become reluctant heroes. This process doesn...

Maybe i start with introducing myself: My name is Artur Fast. I am a concept artist, illustrator, game designer, live painter and teacher. 7 years ago Simon Zeller called me. He just said: `We may not know each other, but I like your work. Do you want to make a game?´ I said: 'I don't know you, but cool! Let's do it!´ This was the beginning of a long journey into the vastness of unknown pixel worlds. I was exited be...