Mobile Game Graphics for Softgames

Ha, this is something different.

In 2004 or so, I worked as a freelance graphics artist for Softgames, creating artwork for mobile games during the Symbian OS/Nokia era. This was when mobile gaming was just beginning to emerge. And the games ran on the Java VM with underpowered harware, so they were slow!

I believe the Softgames founder noticed me on some art board or the German BlitzBasic forum where I shared pixel art and reached out. He was nice to work with and was so happy with the result that he forwarded me to other game developers, which resulted in this brief game artwork stint in my life as a 16-year-old.

Games I Contributed To in Chronological Order

Stealth Tank

Splash screen for the game in glorious 208✕320. For me, that was a huge pixel artwork back then.

I created the game’s splash screen artwork for Softgames.de’s “Stealth Tank” in the glorious resolutions of J2ME back then: 96✕52, 96✕54 (yes this is a different resolution requirement), 101✕80, 120✕130, 128✕128, 128✕160, 132✕176, 176✕176, 176✕192, 176✕220, and finally 208✕320.

In hindsight, all the explosions and the idea of a tank in the jungle doesn’t seem that stealthy.

Notably, for this project, I was actually paid – must have been between 25 and 150 Euros. I don’t quite recall. For a poor teen, that was a lot, and the recognition as a game artist felt great.

Hedoro

A J2ME beat ‘em up game where I was the sole artist. I designed all in-game graphics including:

Character sprites and animations
Background environments
Complete cutscene artwork for story sequences

Here’s the sequence of all cutscenes:

These still images were used during the intro escape sequence and to mark important story progress. Spoiler: the main villain escapes through the window

Lands of Gore

A dungeon crawler, but in the pre-roguelike era, and the gameplay wasn’t very refined.

Canvas with all sprite sheets and a demo dungeon

The small size was fun to work with. I remember the splash screen and the sprites in the dungeons fondly. I used PaintShop Pro back then, and large canvas files to organize all the tiles and sprites.

Keymaker – Ron’s Adventure

Game movie trailer from the crappy AVI version that survived the decades

I had no clue how game trailers were made. We wanted a cool intro movie for the Games Convention 2005, so I wrote a small visualization in BlitzBasic with parallax scrolling and character animation to capture some mood. The developer created that video from it.

Attack animation of the player character

An overly ambitious action role-playing game that got us a feature at a Games Convention booth in 2005. At the convention, the developer received some cash money by the publisher that he never shared. What a dick. I didn’t enjoy that part of the experience.

Splash screen still image without typography

The splash screen supposedly featured typography as well, but I don’t recall how that was applied eventually. I probably haven’t pixeled that.

Why on earth didn't we go with this much more powerful pose?

Technical Challenges

Artistic Approach

The constraints forced a pixel-perfect approach where every pixel mattered. I developed techniques for:

Creating readable characters with minimal pixels
Suggesting detail through careful color choices rather than actual detail
Animating with the absolute minimum number of frames
Designing UI that worked on tiny screens with physical keypads

Looking Back

Working on Symbian OS games meant dealing with:

Limited color palettes (256 colors or less)
Tiny screen resolutions (176✕208 was common)
File size restrictions
Multiple screen size variants for different Nokia models

This early mobile work taught me:

How to export graphics at weird resolutions, which would come in handy for iPhones years later :)
Freelancing – and that it’s actually a thing.
Also that contracts are important if you want to get paid.

The mobile gaming landscape has transformed completely since then. Wild times. I miss doing pixel art, but the foundational skills of working within constraints and optimizing for performance remain valuable in modern app development.