Dany Hsiao-Yueh Yu (National Taiwan University of Science and Technology)

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Abstract

Players’ characters are set in an aesthetic look that appears on popular platforms and in strategy and role-playing games. MapleStory players, who have an artist’s eye for their iconic characters, are immersed in this, delving into the customized, pixelated gaming world. Each character, with its pixels, conveys the developer’s creative idea for setting up detailed character artwork for players. Interviewing pixel art fans can help décor, art, and game psychology researchers discover why players’ brains and emotions can not stop playing 2D scrolling platform games. This research provides insight into how players pay attention to the gameroom with pixelated items inspired by computers. Computer graphics engineers can print amazing images to guide players in decorating their gameroom. We examine what game design is and how it is fairly difficult, and to amuse myself in Super Mario Bros. The originality and our contribution are to discuss the mechanics-dynamics-aesthetics framework to study game designs that produce players’ aesthetic experiences.

 

1. Introduction

Playable consoles, controllers, keyboards, computer monitors, game cartridges, polyvinyl chloride figures, and dynamic screens are connected to players and games. Different games require specific consoles, and players can upgrade their game consoles. Players’ interiors have spots called man caves in their homes that feature the ultimate male sanctuary (Bliss, 2017). Shelves are where players love to collect lots of assortment of 1.65-inch die-cast characters to play and display. A blocky aesthetic, which means slime cubes, players, and figures in the Minecraft game are pixelated texturing. JADA Minecraft metal figures are packaged in a single unit with a grid format for consistent designs.

In today’s modern era, a character with a pixel-style presence is truly an aesthetic value of older games, and this style is popular (Zufri et al., 2022). Super Mario Bros is an art game with a 2D aesthetic of vast side-scrolling, pixel-art worlds. Since it is revolutionary and the game world is a canvas, the aesthetic is successful. The definition of an art game is a worthy aesthetic form, focusing on ambiguity and interpretation in gaming culture, which places great aesthetic value on interactivity and nonlinearity (Parker, 2013). Players can observe aesthetics in Super Mario Bros. Although most levels present similarities, a high number of free spaces can result in more complex situations than just allowing greater navigation of the stage without too many jumps (Schaa & Barriga, 2024).

Computer graphics researchers explain that nostalgic emotion is stronger for older people, and age plays a key role for the gamer who pursues pixel art style (Bao, 2023). Art, as we have seen, shows that styles have no fixed images. For toy hunters, Super Mario’s friends and enemies, Pokémon, and MapleStory’s plushies are players’ favorite collections. If players have sufficient budgets, buying those may be addictive. The worst is that there is not enough space to display them. Interiors are not mobile, so they present particular problems in terms of display (Lees-Maffei, 2008).

A well-designed interior could make a user feel right (Evans & McCoy, 1998). How to properly display action figures? In a setting, interior environmental psychologists discover that people will leave additional interesting spaces for further continued exploration. Items will attract the occupant’s attention. In modeling a house, the builder knows how many items and the scale of items are consistent with the interior (Hobbs, 2013). What are an interior designer’s perspectives on creating a gameroom? This brings pixel art makers’ know-how about what kinds of items are users’ game assets.

 

2. Background

2.1 Pixel art maker

Game expert’s design-based gameroom is a classification to define who is the designer, pixel art maker, or pixel art fan. In a pixelated room, it all reflects the player’s style. Pixel art Tetris is a special game with rhythmic gameplay to create a visually appealing experience. The original, classic, and early console versions of Tetris are 8-bit  retro-styled block graphics. Gundam game enthusiasts also use pixel art in Gundam games and pixel Gundam posters. The gameroom displays the core pixelated nature of the aesthetic.

Consistent color and item display are elegant and have a visual cohesion because of a put-together appearance. Players who love yellow should arrange cartoon and animated characters with yellow color, such as Pac-Man, Veteran of Among Us, SpongeBob, Pikachu, and Adventure Time’s Jack the Dog. In line with the researcher’s discussion of color and design, this is how objects and spaces can fit the living environment (DeLong & Martinson, 2013).

Personal computer players and console players use different furniture and game products. Practically, a gaming lounge chair is suitable for console players; a gaming desk with a shelf or sofa is good for personal computer and notebook players. IKEA’s pixelated, simple, authentic, and aesthetic gameroom (See Figure 1).

2.2 Pixel art fans 

Pixel art fans’ gameroom features pixel characters and monsters. What kind of wall art is for the platform player? What types of games do players prefer? Inside the game, the pixel characters and monsters are cute with gender, in different colors, and are alive. Players understand that normal monsters are more manageable than tutorial monsters. Interestingly, higher-level players are willing to challenge to quest for higher-level monsters. Collecting drops of monsters, such as ancient coins, jewelry, magic stones, flaming feathers, and strange treasures in MapleStory, is a game mechanic used to reward players.

Being a Sonic the Hedgehog fan, mascots in the room are essential. SAN-EI’s plush toys of Amy, Tails, Knuckles, and Sonic, which are of different heights, should be displayed together. Kirby is a pink, spherical character with red feet. Kirby’s fans will decorate their room with Kirby action figures and model kits. To DIY a Kirby room is to make the room look very pink.

Beyond the realm of gaming, examination of case studies and notable projects is applied design, where pixel art has found its way into graphic design (Surabhi, 2022). To interpret pixels in a retro gameroom, entities include arcade machines, space shuttle toys, flags, and decorations. A girl’s aesthetic principle in this visual outlet is to use magenta to show attractiveness and color schemes to make the gameroom a cool aesthetic (See Figure 2).

 

3. Research Methodology 

The purpose of this research is to investigate how MapleStory is the highest design aspect of games that players in the imaginary world experience via aesthetics. In which the player inputs in-game dynamics, and the dynamics emerge from the mechanics, so that players can take rule in the game. Past results demonstrate that game aesthetics significantly influence players’ willingness to engage with games and their recommendations of these games to others (Mai et al., 2025).

We explore an interesting intersection between pixel art in games and interior design practices. The topic is engaging and nostalgic. We further confirm how the game MapleStory affects players in oscillating require ability that buffs in the unexpected dynamic between light and dark states, unaffected by attack reflection. A design-driven practice for understanding games from a methodological lens is to explore design-led thinking in games and how knowledge is generated in games research and practice, due to games needing to be practically self-evident (Pinto Neves & Zagalo, 2021).

MapleStory is considered a top design-based game with its iconic 2D side-scrolling pixel art and unique cutesy aesthetic that has kept it popular for over 20 years. Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics (MDA) is a formal, comprehensive framework to clarify and strengthen the understanding of the player, encouraging experience-driven emotions like surprise, fear, and anticipation (Hunicke et al., 2013). Consequently, we use the MDA  framework as a tool to understand how players experience the aesthetics of different games (See Figure 3).

4. Three Categories of Pixel-Art Games: Platform, Strategy, Fighting, and Role-Playing

The platform genre is focused on players hopping and bopping through adventures (Bertoli, 2017). In the Mario universe, game excitements are the factor that keeps players stick to this game. Players want to hit specific blocks to get a super mushroom to grow, a fire flower to launch projectile attacks, and the Starman to gain invincibility. The player represents Super Mario, the most important protagonist, who has three lives in each level. As stated by players’ opinions to play Super Mario Bros, they move pixels about a screen to solve pretend problems, and those moments stay with players as meaningful storytelling mediums (Allen, 2018). Players navigate through various worlds to save the princess and protect the mushroom kingdom.

From the phenomenon of what determines aesthetic sensibilities in platform games, there is an artistic medium in the whole game. If we did not use graphic design to explain the game character’s actions, Mario’s jump and fall from different heights would be a visual athletic effect. The player’s technique for high jumping in Super Mario Bros is to hold the A button longer. How to make a game character look dynamic and have a striking visual? The game’s physics explains that Mario’s jumping high in the air has a formula to calculate Mario’s acceleration.

Interface design is important for players who like or dislike playing video games. Graphic design is a method used to measure players’ aesthetic sense in games. Good graphic design is essential for player retention and engagement, while poor graphics often lead to negative experiences (Okur et al., 2024). The aesthetic of Super Mario Bros is characterized by limited color palettes, bold, rounded, and playful lettering for logos. Players have to choose between one or two-player modes. The Nintendo classic Super Mario Bros is shown on the game screen, where the font is pixel-based (See Figure 4).

The player will perceive that the strategy game is designed with frantic and addictive gameplay. Strategy games are aesthetic and highly popular because the genre is fast-paced action with casual strategy, and requires keeping an eye on the game’s items. Crazy Arcade is one of the funniest South Korean online multiplayer games, with an aesthetically animated landscape with trees and plants. These nostalgic gaming experiences are the player planting water balloons that blow up, and the opponent can get stuck in them and die. In the game mode, perceived higher competence to control the game is an explanation for why players love this game.

The game designer’s job is to create things in the sense of art and to design the model, or design a game’s idea, in the making of fun stuff (McClellan, 2018). More importantly, Crazy Arcade’s explosion is designed both vertically and horizontally. Players can reach each other through different paths and place bombs. The top-down grid-based visual style in Crazy Arcade is a distinct tileset (See Figure 5).

Color is important in games, and mint green is a wellness color for Mega Man to maintain his health. Players care about Mega Man’s score at the top of the screen and focus on his health gauge on the left. In Mega Man, amazing is reflected in the game character’s custom colors. Mega Man’s blue is particular and has a nuanced color setting according to the 64 color hues. To understand Mega Man’s blue color in variations, on the did-you-know gaming website, players will be amazed that Mega Man’s color is limited by the Nintendo Entertainment System. That is, Mega Man’s colors are awesome, and it is worth noting that aesthetic in-game design is important because game characters must be clear for players to control them.

Mega Man has been nostalgic among gamers and has been reimagined and evolved. The meaning of the nostalgia game is to make nostalgia attract a new generation of players, and old gaming consoles and arcade machines have been revitalised by gaming companies (Makai, 2018). CAPCOM’s image for Mega Man uses a slightly dark blue and a light blue. Mint green in Mega Man shows that the game-level scene is an aesthetic technique (See Figure 6).

MapleStory’s visual is reflected in design, such as the yellow ribbon pig inside the small forest, the red snail right outside Henesys, and the iron boar in the subway transfer area. In players’ experience when playing MapleStory, they love the gorgeous game audiovisual effects and the character’s spiky hair. Experts can create a personal avatar name and customize their character to shape self-identity. This is because avatar identification is a bridging factor between avatar customization and social behavior in the virtual world (Takano & Taka, 2022).

An epic, adventurous, and action-packed game style is MapleStory. MapleStory is a successful game that has over 100 million players worldwide. What supports players continuing to play MapleStory? By handling cognitive load better, MapleStory remains challenging, fun, and more manageable for players, especially beginners (Ang et al., 2007). Self-determination theory posits that the causal elements of autonomy, competence, and relatedness are essential in massively multiplayer online games to bring people from around the world together to interact in a real-time game world (Etchells, 2019).

MapleStory’s developers deliver experiences in discovering friends, discovering who you are, and discovering worlds that players have never seen, such as Ludibrium, where players feel fantastic, magical, and fairytale, driving players crazy through engaging gameplay. Thereby, the game will foster positive experiences.

MapleStory’s mushroom has different colors in the expression design. When players get to a higher level, they will see cynical orange mushrooms and crying blue mushrooms. MapleStory is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) in which players in the virtual world can transform into pixelated avatars of their characters with iconic two-dimensional charms (See Figure 7).

 

5. Video Game Fan’s Material Culture Value

Different colors of Game Boy consoles and MapleStory character cards are rare gaming items and collections. Rare game figure toys are never outdated, and they can add value. People who like Mega Man have been collecting a McDonald’s Rockman EXE warrior figure toy that was released in 2005. For Mega Man fans, they possess Mega Man’s background knowledge that the original Japanese name is Rockman.

 

5.1 Game cartridges and printing

The Rockman World 4 cartridge has its bright green color, and it looks fresh like the green apple’s color. Collecting Game Boy Rockman cartridges symbolizes why the Rockman game is reminiscent. Yet beyond collections of game cartridges, preserving large portions of old games’ files, disks, or cartridges and knowing how to preserve them to make them run is crucial (Barton, 2024). Looking at the printing of red color on the cartridge, Rush is Rockman’s faithful and robotic dog, and has a red helmet which is identical to Rockman’s helmet. Rockman World 4 was released in 1993 CAPCOM cartridge (See Figure 8).

 

5.2 Characters canvas and poster

Decorating the artistic items on the walls depends on the player’s gaming taste. Canvas for furniture, artwork, and accessories to make a statement that maintains a sense of harmony and balance for users (Enwin et al., 2023). To increase material culture value, Bomberman players must love Nexon’s Crazy Arcade game components that hang a poster of eight default playable characters in Crazy Arcade. The poster is a rare good for players to arouse their involvement memories when they get the Crazy Arcade poster at a game show.

Standard colors are the main aesthetic of a superhero’s color. Red and yellow were used for Iron Man, green and purple were Hulk’s primary colors. The pixel-styled superhero characters’ canvas wall painting is suitable for hanging in Marvel lovers’ gameroom (See Figure 9).

 

6. Results

Our results examine what and how we know about the terribly designed Super Mario Bros based on empirical research results. Scientific reports about Super Mario Bros is the childlike wonder induced by the game, which provides a joyful experience that acts as a therapeutic escape from daily pressures. In fact, players’ psychological capital in Super Mario Bros is the game’s adversity and quintessential that requires precise inputs and punishes the player when making mistakes (Mercier & Lubart, 2023).

Mega Man’s design is not like Super Mario Bros because Mega Man’s weapon system and the gameplay loop are deeper and more strategic. The game goal of Super Mario Bros is to move from left to right to reach the flagpole at the end of each level. Platform game design on motion is an element that players will give up on the game or spend more time to pass each level (Anthropy, 2012).

 

6.1 Obstacles

Defeating difficult obstacles in games brings a profound sense of achievement because it validates player dedication, skill, and persistence after numerous attempts. Overcoming the emotional burden of failure to achieve success requires persistence, and it is used to test players’ endurance of difficulty (Hefkaluk et al., 2024). Specific results to understand why humans play behavior in video games is to ensure Maslow’s hierarchy of needs when obtaining safety needs and health (Nguyen & Bavelier, 2023). Based on the desire-satisfaction theory, it can explain why players care about winning at games because doing so would be a valuable achievement (Baron-Schmitt, 2023).

 

6.2 Fatigue

Super Mario Bros fast-paced action and precision, which can be mentally exhausting. The competence to play Super Mario Bros is the player’s physical competence in terms of jumping, timing, and agility (Gandolfi & Semprebene, 2015). The player will lose a life whenever he fails to reach the flagpole, either because he is killed or because he runs out of time (Demaine et al., 2016). Moreover, the time limit increases a layer of stress, forcing players to act quickly rather than methodically, which increases the likelihood of errors. The game mechanic allowed Mario to die and lives repeat; the failure to cause Mario’s death for the player will be erased (Lahdenperä, 2018).

 

6.3 Frustration

Super Mario Bros forces quick reflexes and unforgiving design, including unexpected enemy patterns and instant-death hazards that lead to frustration. For well-versed players, it is also sometimes difficult to remember and control between the direction pad and character movement, causing the player’s in-game death (Newman, 2018). It is possible that Mario does straight-up fall into what seems to be an infinite void. Hammer bros are Koopas, and they are dangerous when they throw hammers at the player.

Analyzing cognitive nucleus level in Super Mario Bros, the easier method to defeat enemies or overcome obstacles is launching a small fireball (Sedig et al., 2017). Touching an enemy from the side or bottom results in Mario’s damage, shrinking, or dying instantly if he is small. Game over is terrible for players if they die on 3-4; they start at 3-1. Super Mario Bros is considered the ultimate platform hell and Nintendo is hard due to its difficulty.

To win, players often rely on extreme patience, memorization, and mastery of Mario’s movement mechanics, as many of these stages are designed to kill players several times before they learn the pattern. For a player, formulating a complete set of heuristic rules is challenging since game content is observable but less explainable and hard to abstract (Shi & Chen, 2017).

 

7. Conclusion

Video games and computer engineering have evolved into a dynamic medium, art, design, science, and marketing techniques used together, transformed into a meta (Okur & Aygenc, 2018). Specifically, games are valuable in many ways, and we can find art in them (Jancsovics, 2021). Supporting adults playing a loss and nostalgia video game does not mean that what we are doing is childish and meaningless. Our research implication is for those interested in game psychology, video game values, and game aesthetics. We discuss the enduring thrive of pixel art across different game genres and its transition from digital screens to physical environments.

These days, older game fans who stay at home spend more time playing classic nostalgia games. MapleStory’s game cards, bright yellow-green slime plush toys, poster prints, and game skill books are wonderful collections for those who love these classic games. Our research sheds light on why pixel art games remain immensely popular, driven by a blend of nostalgia, distinct artistic charm, and practical development advantages. Today’s video game characters look better because they have higher resolutions.

Recently, players prefer to play smaller nostalgic Tamagotchi game which are small egg-shaped portable digital virtual pet video games that were first released in 1996. Playing handheld video games became popular when there was increasing busyness at work, giving players not much time to play computer games or home video game consoles at home. Playing several times a day became a desire. Lightweight game machines for players that are easy to store and suitable for travel and outdoor activities. The suggestion for nostalgic and enjoying early design gaming experiences is to play the Digimon virtual pet digital monster game from 1997.

 

Disclosure statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding: The author declares that she has received no funding for this work.

 

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Authors’ Info

Hsiao-Yueh Yu
National Taiwan University of Science and Technology
cute_yu0703@yahoo.com.tw

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.