WIP Wednesday:WIP Wednesday:WIP Wednesday:February 18, 2026February 18, 2026February 18, 2026

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Hey, everyone! Just a quick Work-In-Progress Wednesday tonight. I’d like to show off the newest Atmocopter enemy:

Say hello to “Hopbot-L!” This is a large version of a planned small enemy. I thought I’d do the large version first and see how it felt first. The enemy design should speak for itself- It’s only vulnerable when it raises its face-plate to attack! It’ll fire three times, then pause for a moment and replace its face-plate. Then, it’ll hop menacingly towards Atmocopter!

In the true spirit of WIP Wednesday, above you can see how the robot design started. Originally, it was quite a bit simpler. I was still planning on having it fire at the player- As I was drawing, I thought maybe the purple dome could rise up, revealing a cannon of some sort. However, it was placed a bit too high to hit the player this way with a straight shot, so I adjusted the design and added the shield feature.

I think this will be a fun enemy to come up against in Atmocopter! Will you wait for the right moment to attack while the face-plate is up? Or will you hop over Hopbot-L and attack from the back where it’s vulnerable? I can’t wait to see how players will approach it!

That’s all for this quick WIP Wednesday- I’ll see you next week with another and with the next round of Gigapack effect animations!

-Will

New Gigapack Effects!New Gigapack Effects!New Gigapack Effects!(v1.8.0)(v1.8.0)(v1.8.0)

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Hey, everyone! On this heart-filled Valentine’s Day, I’m here with some heart-themed effects! Let’s check ’em out:

In addition to the rising hearts from last time, we’ve now got a “heal spell” animation, plus a few sci-fi themed EKG readings! The heartbeat readings come in three flavors: Slow, fast, and the dreaded flatline. They’d fit well with a horror or medical game, and would make for good background, menu, or UI elements in a sci-fi game.

See the changelog in the zip file for a complete list of additions and updates.

Ready to get it for your game?

Not into Patreon? Never fear- The Gigapack can also be purchased below!

New as of this version: You can now download just the new stuff, instead of re-downloading the entire asset pack! This was a good suggestion from a commenter on itch, who mentioned that the asset pack is getting quite big (60MB+) and that it takes a while to download when I update it. To upgrade this way, just download “New in Gigapack v1.8.0.zip” and extract the folders to your existing Gigapack folder.

Coming Up Next…

I’ve got a new tentative schedule through mid-April:

We’re going to squeeze in Gigapack v1.9.0 later this month, and that’ll give me time to complete version 2.0.0, which will be a larger update. After that, we’re going to slow down just a little bit as I ramp up work on Atmocopter ahead of VGM Con, where I’ll be exhibiting the game. I won’t be slowing down the Work-In-Progress Wednesday posts, though! I’m going to keep ’em coming and check in regularly with the latest I’m working on, whether it’s asset packs or SparkBolt Studio or Atmocopter. I think you’ll enjoy what I have in store!

Following the convention, I’ll take a short break. Conventions are so fun and rewarding, but always take a lot out of me! Then I’m planning on returning to the Gigapack and frequent updates.

That’s all for today- Happy Valentine’s Day! ♥

-Will

WIP Wednesday:WIP Wednesday:WIP Wednesday:February 11, 2026February 11, 2026February 11, 2026

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Hey everyone! I’m here tonight with another installment of Work-In-Progress Wednesday. Let’s see what I’ve been up to!

Gigapack: Effects Preview

The next Gigapack update is on the way later this week! Given the timing, I thought it’d be fun to add some brand new heart-themed effects for Valentine’s Day. More are on the way! ♥

Above, you can see another effect that will be coming your way in the version 2.0.0 update: A fancy magic smoke puff! It kind of gave me Aladdin vibes while animating it, as if a genie were about to pop out. Looking forward to drawing more!

SparkBolt Studio Progress

The latest from SparkBolt Studio isn’t anything super exciting- Lots of bug fixes, mostly. I do have a couple new features though:

It’s a dead simple feature, but you can now use input widgets to set the location, rotation, scale, origin, and name of selected objects. Pretty standard.

The thing I’m more excited for right now is that I’m working on the object placement tool, and you can now place point objects! They come with their own map-like location marker sprite, and are selectable just like any other object. You’ll be able to change their color from a few presets, to easily see which points are which at a glance. I’m also planning on showing the name of the point above each point. I use point objects in Atmocopter to indicate the player start location, which rooms are checkpoints, and which rooms have messages that will be read to the player upon entering. SparkBolt Studio’s points will handle this no problem, as they can have custom properties just like any other object.

Next up will be rectangle objects, which will mostly be a UI/presentation challenge more than anything else. I use those in Atmocopter to indicate to the game which rooms are “large rooms,” and must scroll either horizontally or vertically. I also use them in conjunction with point objects to indicate “camera focus rooms.” When the player enters a room like that, the camera focuses on the point object. Below, you can see how I have them set up in Tiled. The long room on the left is a horizontally-scrolling room, and the tall room on the right is a camera focus room.

It’s coming along! It won’t be too long (hopefully) before I can actually start using SparkBolt Studio for Atmocopter’s levels. Then things will really be fun, as I can start identifying what would help me make levels better and faster, and how I can make things more clear in the editor. After using Tiled, I have some cool ideas for improvements… But the basics come first, so I can get back to work on Atmocopter!

That’s all for today- See you later this week with the next Gigapack update!

-Will

WIP Wednesday:WIP Wednesday:WIP Wednesday:February 4, 2026February 4, 2026February 4, 2026

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Hey, everyone- I’m here for the first Work-In-Progress Wednesday of February!

Effects Gigapack v2.0.0: First Look

I’m happy to bring you the very first sneak peek at what’s in store for version 2.0.0 of Super Pixel Effects Gigapack! This update is still in the works, but I just had to show off this slick RPG-style ice spell animation. This won’t be the only RPG-style spell coming your way! Other elements will also be joining the fun.

I’m really proud of the detail on the ice- It looks especially frosty. I like the way the animation begins as well. By building anticipation, that burst of the ice block popping in is that much more powerful. Depending on the game, those anticipation sparkles would be a good warning for the player to dodge an attack!

Stay tuned for more Gigapack action coming your way all month!

Super Fighting Robot!

You may or may not know this, but Mega Man is my absolute favorite game series ever. Like… Of all time. I’ve been a fan for as long as I can remember, from way back on the SNES. (The NES was just a little before my time, but I enjoyed those games later!)

I also remember playing Mega Man 8 back when I was a kid, and when I beat the game the credits showed all these sketches of the robot master (boss) designs. That was when I realized that FANS got to design the bosses! That was so cool, and I always wished I could participate. The design contests were always Japan-only, unfortunately.

Fast-forward to 2025, and imagine how excited I got when Capcom announced a worldwide design competition for Mega Man: Dual Override! In late December, I gave it a shot myself. Here are the two designs I entered:

The prompt for the contest was a robot master with a powerful suction arm. I first came up with Aquarium Man, and then Seed Man second. Both bosses started with a pixel art version, and then I upscaled them and drew over them in Photoshop. I’m not well-practiced in the Mega Man character art style outside of pixel art, but I gave it my best shot and I think I approximated it pretty well!

Aquarium Man is ambitious- He has a whole ecosystem in his chest! I think he would have made a great boss, and the theme of scrubbing aquariums made for good use of the suction arm.

Seed Man is my favorite! I put a little more into the pixel art for him, giving him a fully-detailed sprite (below).

I like his body language and I especially like how punchable his face turned out, haha.

The design was modeled after a pinecone, and my theory was that he collects rare robo-plant seeds using the vacuum appendage and then blasts them out of the brown chutes on his pinecone-themed torso to plant them. Perhaps he would use the suction arm to grapple onto the ceiling and launch seeds down at Mega Man!

While my designs didn’t make the cut for the next phase of the contest (which is why I’m finally able to share them here), I’m really proud of them and I think it was an honor to be part of the Mega Man design process! As you know, Atmocopter is directly inspired by Mega Man’s gameplay… So I’ll still get my Mega Man-esque design fix!

SparkBolt Studio Progress

I’ve been focusing on SparkBolt Studio, my work-in-progress pixel art / tileset / level editor, for the moment with the goal of being able to use it to develop Atmocopter levels. Last time, I mentioned that I’d like to have a property editor for objects.

…Well, now I do! It supports a wide variety of property types, and currently you can rename them, change their values, and delete them. Reordering them and copy/pasting them will be coming eventually, I just wanted to get the basics working for now.

Speaking of the basics:

SparkBolt Studio can now partially load Atmocopter levels! Currently, Atmocopter levels are made with Tiled. I have an importer set up for the game to load its own levels, and I leveraged that to allow SparkBolt Studio to do so as well. It’s a little trickier as Atmocopter is loading from its own packed archive file, while SBS loads from the filesystem and must correctly import any tilesets it finds in the Tiled *.tmx file.

The Tiled import process held together with mostly prayers right now, but hitting this milestone today was really encouraging! The next step will be to populate the objects of the level, and there are several UI improvements I also want to make for tile editing to make the whole experience smoother.

That’s all for today- I’ll see you next week with for WIP Wednesday and the next Gigapack update! In the meantime… Let me know who you like better: Seed Man or Aquarium Man!

-Will

New Gigapack Effects!New Gigapack Effects!New Gigapack Effects!(v1.7.0)(v1.7.0)(v1.7.0)

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Hey, everyone! I’m here tonight with new effects for the Gigapack! If you were around for WIP Wednesday, you’ve seen most of them… But there is one newcomer!

The new animation since last time is the humble directional smoke puff. It’s a simple but versatile animation that could fit in a lot of different spots in a game!

See the changelog in the zip file for a complete list of additions and updates.

Ready to get it for your game?

Not into Patreon? Never fear- The Gigapack can also be purchased below!

I’m excited to continue working towards version 2.0.0, which will include some top-quality animations to celebrate! For now I’m switching to a bi-weekly update schedule, so I think 2.0.0 will likely arrive near the end of February. There are a couple reasons behind this. First, I’m helping my folks out quite a bit as my mom recovers from her knee replacement surgery, which was delayed last time but was finally performed this week. Second, during the lead-up to VGM Con, I’ll be putting more time into SparkBolt Studio and Atmocopter. I want to bring brand new parts of the game to the table and get some feedback from players. That’s my favorite part of conventions!

I’ll be doing more Work-In-Progress Wednesdays to check in, so stay tuned for lots of neat animations, Atmocopter art + gameplay, and SparkBolt Studio progress coming your way soon!

-Will

WIP Wednesday:WIP Wednesday:WIP Wednesday:January 28, 2026January 28, 2026January 28, 2026

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Hey, everyone!

I got a little off-schedule, but I’m here today with a Work-In-Progress Wednesday and some brand new pixel art effect GIFs! Let’s have a look at what’s coming up next for the Effects Gigapack.

Upcoming Gigapack Effect Animations

Above are a couple animation types new to the Gigapack: Fire, and sparks! Fire is going to have a category all its own. Both looping fire like above and fire bursts will be included. This particular fire animation would also work nicely as a projectile! Sparks will be in the sci-fi category, and there’s sure to be more of them going forward.

New text symbols are also on the way! Above, we’ve got “warning” in the same style as the “danger” text symbol from the last update. Warn the player of big bosses in style!

Last but not least: A juicy smoke puff animation! I staggered the horizontal and vertical parts of the smoke burst to give it a little more oomph. Imagine an item poofing into existence, or an enemy being defeated and bursting into smoke, and this would be the animation for you!

SparkBolt Studio Progress

I’ve been steadily working on SparkBolt Studio, and I’m hoping to be able to use it to design and edit Atmocopter levels before VGM Con in April. Here’s the latest:

I’ve re-enabled tile editing! It’s still a work in progress, but you can pick tiles from a floating window and place them in the scene. As you can see, stamp tile placement is also possible, and it feels really nice.

It feels like it’s all coming together, but it’s missing a few major features like undo/redo. Object placement also needs some love. I’d like to make it possible to define “object prototypes,” which will be like your original versions of each object. You’ll be able to give the prototypes variables of any basic type, and then when you place those objects in a scene, the placed objects will inherit those variables and their default values. There’s lots more to do, but it’s well on its way!

I’ll admit, I’ve been kind of asking myself “Why work on this instead of just continuing to use Tiled for now?” …But I think I just need to prove that I can, and I think that even despite SparkBolt Studio being rough around the edges, it will offer me a cleaner UI and better design conventions. By using my own tool myself, I’ll also be able to identify shortcomings and things I can streamline and improve. Plus, the more I work on it, the closer it gets to public release!

That’s all for today- I’ll see you Friday with the above animations plus a little extra in the next Gigapack update!

-Will

New Gigapack Effects!New Gigapack Effects!New Gigapack Effects!(v1.6.0)(v1.6.0)(v1.6.0)

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Hey, everyone! Late-night update! I haven’t been getting a lot of sleep lately, so I’m looking forward to catching up on that soon. Let’s check out the latest effects for Super Pixel Effects Gigapack:

In addition to the music effects and the danger text effect that you saw in the WIP Wednesday post, there are two little “alert” symbol animations. As always, the effects come in both a large and a small size, and there are multiple color themes in the paid version!

See the changelog in the zip file for a complete list of additions and updates.

Ready to get it for your game?

Not into Patreon? Never fear- The Gigapack can also be purchased below!

Before we wrap up, I want to thank you all for supporting a Minnesotan artist. It has been tough to be creative during the current events. I don’t like mixing politics and work, but I want you to hear this:

I have neighbors who are afraid to leave their homes, and who now carry their passports everywhere even though they are citizens. Forceful and brutal arrests of peaceful US citizens have happened in my city, just down the road from me. We are all afraid of what’s next. If you are in the US, please consider sending your representatives a message calling for ICE to exit Minnesota. If you’ve been following the news, ICE is doing much, much worse than what you’re hearing. I spoke out against it at our county board meeting and at our city council meeting. It needs to stop.

Thank you for your support, and hoping for better times again soon. I’ll see you next week with more art. ☮

-Will

WIP Wednesday:WIP Wednesday:WIP Wednesday:January 14, 2026January 14, 2026January 14, 2026

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Hey, everyone! I’m here with the first Work-In-Progress Wednesday of the year.

Things are busy and frankly more than a little stressful, as things are very chaotic here in Minnesota. I’m not going to talk much about current events, but just… send MN your energy.

Let’s take a look at some upcoming pixel art effects!

The batch of effects above is all music-themed! We’ve got two directional music bursts, and one round music burst. I thought it might be fun to do something like this- It’s another type of effect that wouldn’t cleanly fit in my fantasy or sci-fi effects packs. (They will be coming in more colors of course, it was just easier to work with the same color for now.)

Above you can see a brand new type of effect- Text! This is a looping “danger” text symbol, which can be used in a wide variety of situations. Whether it’s a big boss approaching or your life meter running low, this danger sign is a strong indicator that something bad’s about to happen! I’m planning more text effects in the same style, including warning / alert / clear / complete, and so on.

I have some good news- Atmocopter will be at VGM Con! Assuming Minnesota is still here in April, I will be at VGM Con showing off Atmocopter to the public and getting in-person feedback on the game. I’m looking forward to working ahead a bit on pixel art so I can develop Atmocopter more in time for the convention. I’ll keep you posted!

Until then, see you on Friday with the next Gigapack update!

-Will

New Gigapack Effects!New Gigapack Effects!New Gigapack Effects!(v1.5.0)(v1.5.0)(v1.5.0)

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Hey everyone- I’m here today with the first Gigapack update of 2026! Let’s dive right in:

This update brings three slick new animations: A coin burst, light burst, and a stylized dual-shockwave impact! Also included but not shown in the GIF are place ranking symbols from 1st through 8th place.

See the changelog in the zip file for a complete list of additions and updates.

Ready to get it for your game?

Not into Patreon? Never fear- The Gigapack can also be purchased below!

What’s Next?!

More effects, of course! I’d like to make version 2.0.0 of the Gigapack special, so I’ve started working on effects for that already. I expect it to be ready in early February. Until then, more effects are on the way throughout January!

I’m continuing work on SparkBolt Studio, and am eager to return to Atmocopter soon. I’ve been accepted to demo Atmocopter at VGM Con, so I’m looking forward to making major progress on the game!

See you next week with a Work-In-Progress Wednesday and another round of Gigapack effects!

-Will

unTied Games:unTied Games:unTied Games:2025 Year in Review2025 Year in Review2025 Year in Review

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Hey everyone! I had a great holiday, and now that I’m back to work, I thought it’d be fun to look back on 2025 and see what we have to look forward to in 2026!

January 2025

We started the year off with a brand-new type of asset pack: Super Pixel Harvest & Crafting! I expanded my palette to add some less-saturated colors. I still use that palette today and am very happy with it! It was also very fun to draw all the different types of foods for the Harvest & Crafting pack.

Click “Continue Reading” to see the rest of 2025’s year in review, chock full of pictures and GIFs!