Game Style
The game's art stle is a 64x64 pixel art, a common staple of art seen in older video games where resolution was limited. Themes of surrealism and nostalgia influences the colour schemes and composition.
The genre of the game, Retrowave, can be defined by its suffix and prefix.
Retro: refers to something that is imitative of fashion/style from the past. In the case of this game, the era to imitate is the 80's, thus showcasing the appearance of a home which would have technology such as box TVs and NES consoles.
-wave: is a suffix that denotes a highly idealised/surrealist imagery of a certain theme. Therefore, retrowave is an aesthetic depiction of the 1980's. It sees the blurring of lines between reality and 80's tech.
(Lost In The 80's, 2021, Tumblr)
Early demonstrations of how pixel art can be created and animated.
The name of the genre - retrowave - is quite explanatory on inspiration. Like most retro games, inspiration is drawn directly from the attitudes, technologies and emotions of that time period. However, there is also rising popularity in the concept of 'aestheticism', the art of capturing certain concepts in a surreal, romanticised way (thus introducing us to -core and -wave). Therefore, this game is inspired both by the actual decade, and by other retrowave games.
The game's key concept of escaping your mother is inspired by a universal relatability to the sense of dread a child feels when purposely doing the wrong thing. While not everyone may have lived through the 80's, everyone has felt the end of the world was near as their mother's footsteps closed in on them.