Learner Reviews & Feedback for Pixel Art for Video Games by Michigan State University

Aside from focusing more on which buttons to push and settings to change in Photoshop or Unity (which are admittedly useful tidbits) the course doesn't teach much in terms of skills or theory. I had to learn the skills on my own. Mostly what I got was a list of assignments so I didn't have to wonder what I should work on each day. @Pixel_Dailies on Twitter can do that too.

As soon as I watched the second video I realized that this course was just cobbled together from pre-existing courses and that the parts were not originally meant to go together. If the only result was comments like "last time you learned [thing they haven't coverered]" it'd be awkward, but fine. But then they have conflicting assignment details in the videos vs the written course material and that confusion can lead to a lot of wasted time or failing to complete an assignment properly.

Annoying as that is, it is not the worst part of this course. That would be the pacing. Week one: draw a single 32x32 sprite. Week two: draw at least 9 of those plus a huge background painting, which is hard enough, but then make sure it tiles too! Week 3: back to a single sprite, with a reasonable challenge increase from week 1. Week 4 do a bunch of animations with minimal animation instruction. I hope you've animated before! Week 5: a bunch more animation and new character designs and polish up all the older stuff you did and AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!

I realize it was a free MOOC, so I shouldn't expect too much, but you can do better for free. Google: Pixel Art Academy, Pedro Medeiros, Achebit, Heartbeast for a good start. Happy Pixeling!

I'm not normally a harsh person. Even when I'm saying something negative I try very hard to keep my emotions in check and see the other side as someone close to me; as someone needing my help to know what they're doing wrong so that they have the tools they need to improve. I try to be as kind as possible. However, this time I just can't give a review like that. I can find no reason, even through a mistake, that someone with a real desire to teach could make such a course.

I have no idea who this course is meant to be helpful to. The more difficult assignments would only be able to be completed by someone with a lot of experience, but the videos were clearly supposed to be for beginners. Saying that, however, implies that the videos were good for beginners, but sadly this isn't true in the slightest. They often presented material that was incomplete and often highly misleading to the point of being more damaging to a beginner's ability than an outright lie. They spent too much time on things that weren't very relevant, and completely glossed over or skipped things that were very important. It's such a bad course that it's making me angry for the sake of all the others who are duped into thinking they're going to get something useful out of this. Overall my impression of their abilities is passable in artist skills, beginners at pixel artist skills, and con artists as teachers. I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't artists at all, and are actually programmers who wish they could be teaching Unity. Either they're trying the "fake it till you make it" method of teaching and can't do better, or they felt forced to do this and phoned it in. It's disgraceful. The University of Michigan should think more carefully about the way they're presenting themselves as a school, and not just give us the dregs that they know they shouldn't charge money for.

If anyone actually wants to learn Pixel Art, I suggest going to Pixel Joint or Lowspec and getting information from real tutorials, real experts, and real feedback. Plus, it'll be completely free and without the pressure of a time limit. This course, however, is a waste of time.

This is amazing, helps a lot...especially when you are a programmer and you need some art support... Thanks Coursera, thanks Michigan University Staff...

I liked it waaaaay too much! Sometimes I found it hard to create the things you have to create, because they are difficult, but with effort and paying loads of attention you get a greaat result :)

Excellent course...

This was one of the most helpful courses I've ever done about game development or design. It is easy to follow and understand and it is also very rewarding.

Perfect!

game dev Michigan Spartens gone n broke the internet!

Very interesting and useful course. I recommend this for everyone you don't waste time.

It's a nice course, very intuitive and relax

Es un curso increíble muy completo te da todas las herramientas y bases que necesitas para el maravilloso mundo del Pixel Art. Recomendadisimo me Encanto, Muchas gracias por este curso tan Espectacular.

Love this course.

Cool course, though it needs a better explanation of map creation, and doesn't talk about the tilemaps ot worting layers, which are very important

It was really fun to make it. The last work was a little bit too much, but overall nice.