8-bit pixel

How to use it

Play most of the clip as a tiny pixel world where a character moves through each stage like a level, cutting back to the speaker once or twice for the start and the new start.

Where the speaker sits

Full sceneSuits itSmallWorksSplitWorksSideSuits itDrawn overAvoid

Full scene: the scene fills the frame. Stock speaker from Pexels.

Palette

THIS IS A MOODBOARD, NOT A TEMPLATE. The style below is inspiration for the look and feel. Keep its materials, colours, textures and the way it moves, but invent your own scenes, characters and objects for this clip. You are not limited to anything shown in the preview, and nothing in it has to appear. Use illustration and animation to help tell the clip's story.

STORY FIRST. Read the whole clip before you design anything.
1. Write the clip's arc in one line: setup, tension, turn, pay-off. Name the one line that is the reveal.
2. Tag every sentence with its job: setup, context, tension, turn, reveal, example, number, contrast, list, quote, feeling, metaphor, callback, pay-off, aside.
3. The visuals carry the whole clip. If the clip shows the speaker's face, open on them (the first scene keeps them on screen) unless the person says otherwise. After that, never cut back to the speaker full-frame unless the person asks for it; if they do, only on the ending, never in the middle of an explanation. The speaker can still sit inside a scene (a corner, a split or drawn in) when the person wants to be seen.
4. Build one flowing visual story, not a new picture per sentence. Each scene covers a whole thought (one to three sentences), holds 3 to 8 seconds and turns into the next.
5. Start each scene on the first word of its sentence, or up to half a second before. Never cut mid-sentence.
6. Inside a scene, bring small details in on the words they show (an item, a tag, a tick). Earlier details stay.
7. Choose one or two recurring objects or characters in the first scene and bring them back changed. Callbacks beat new pictures.
8. Build up the same picture where you can (add to it, move the camera across it) instead of replacing it.
9. Energy: about 80 percent still, drifting or gentle. Allow one big move in the whole clip, on the reveal, for 1 to 2 seconds, then settle and hold.
10. Numbers sit on a scale (gauge, bar, table, timeline) and hold long enough to read. Contrasts are a still split or the same layout twice.
11. Feelings get a quiet image, or one of the cuts back to the speaker; never effects.
12. On-screen text names, labels or quotes; it never repeats the caption. Five words or fewer per label.
13. End every scene by settling or thinning out, or by turning into the next scene. No exit effects.
14. The style sets the look. These rules set when, how long and how calmly. If the style's own motion rules ask for more energy than this, use less.

VISUAL STYLE: 8-bit pixel
Slice style ref: sref-7HR5K8
LOOK: a tiny low-resolution game world, about 64 pixels across, scaled up with hard square pixels. A strict small palette: night #0E1A24, #16293A and #2E4E68 blues, dawn #E0533D and #F2B33D, day sky #4C8FC9 and #7FBCE3, greens #2E7D46 and #4FB25A, cream #F4E9D0. Never more than about 12 colours on screen.
LINE AND FILL: no anti-aliasing, no outlines unless one pixel wide. Flat pixel fills; sky gradients made only by bands with a checkerboard dither between them.
TEXTURE: the pixel grid itself; nothing smooth.
LIGHT: shown by palette swaps: the whole scene steps from one palette to the next (night, dawn, day) rather than fading.
CAMERA: locked side-on view, like a single game screen.
MOTION: stepped. Things move whole pixels at a time; sprites swap between two or three hand-made poses; stars blink; a stepped four-level fade to black at the end. One small hop or wave on the peak.
TYPE: blocky pixel caps typed out one letter at a time, cream with a one-pixel dark shadow, aligned to the pixel grid.
THE RULE: everything snaps to one coarse pixel grid and one small palette.
DON'T: no smooth gradients, no rotation or sub-pixel motion, no blur or glow, no real game characters or logos, no high-resolution details.
Treat these as the look, never a template: invent fresh pictures, words and compositions from what this clip says.
Accent: as in the palette.
Frame shape: ask me before you start (9:16 vertical, 4:5 portrait, 1:1 square or 16:9 wide).
Energy: normal.

TECH: one HTML file, one GSAP 3 timeline created paused as window.__timelines.main, duration = the scene's length, transforms and opacity only.

Look rules

• LOOK: a tiny low-resolution game world, about 64 pixels across, scaled up with hard square pixels. A strict small palette: night #0E1A24, #16293A and #2E4E68 blues, dawn #E0533D and #F2B33D, day sky #4C8FC9 and #7FBCE3, greens #2E7D46 and #4FB25A, cream #F4E9D0. Never more than about 12 colours on screen.
• LINE AND FILL: no anti-aliasing, no outlines unless one pixel wide. Flat pixel fills; sky gradients made only by bands with a checkerboard dither between them.
• TEXTURE: the pixel grid itself; nothing smooth.
• LIGHT: shown by palette swaps: the whole scene steps from one palette to the next (night, dawn, day) rather than fading.
• CAMERA: locked side-on view, like a single game screen.
• MOTION: stepped. Things move whole pixels at a time; sprites swap between two or three hand-made poses; stars blink; a stepped four-level fade to black at the end. One small hop or wave on the peak.
• TYPE: blocky pixel caps typed out one letter at a time, cream with a one-pixel dark shadow, aligned to the pixel grid.
• THE RULE: everything snaps to one coarse pixel grid and one small palette.
• DON'T: no smooth gradients, no rotation or sub-pixel motion, no blur or glow, no real game characters or logos, no high-resolution details.
• Treat these as the look, never a template: invent fresh pictures, words and compositions from what this clip says.

What it suits

Best for

Progress stories, small wins, gaming and tech nostalgia, a new start.

Avoid for

Grief, formal business or detailed data.

Content

Personal story, Nostalgia, Comedy, Wellbeing, Announcement

Tone

Nostalgic, Playful, Hopeful

Pace

Medium

Topics

pixel art, 8-bit, retro game, dither, low resolution, chiptune, sprite, palette

Colours

#0E1A24 #2E4E68 #E0533D #F2B33D #4FB25A #F4E9D0

For AIs: this style as plain text.