Is 2D Pixel Art a Safe Bet? (Part 2)

Case Studies: What Makes a Successful 2D Pixel Art Game?

In this second part of our deep dive into 2D Pixel Art games, we’ll look at specific games to identify what makes them successful or not. We’ll think not just about the game itself, but also the marketing and community building that goes into a successful release. Mirroring the analysis in Part 1, we’ll look at games that have been released since the start of 2023, a period that saw investment into the industry and consumer spending slow significantly compared to the years prior¹. We’re going to look at three heavyweights from this period and compare them to a game of similar quality that didn’t perform as well, dissecting what might have gone right or wrong in terms of design, marketing, and community building.

Please Note

Although we are comparing these games with a critical eye, our intention is to be objective so we can all learn from others. We're not here to claim any game listed below is better than the other or more worthy of its success. All the games listed, in our opinion, are fantastic examples of the game development art form.

Core Keeper and Tinkertown

Core Keeper is a mining sandbox adventure that combines elements of Terraria, Stardew Valley, and Minecraft in a top-down perspective³. The game takes place in an endless underground cavern where 1-8 players can explore, mine, build, fight, craft, and farm while unravelling the mystery of an ancient core.

Key Features:

Exploration & Combat: The game features procedurally generated caves with diverse biomes including wilderness, desert, and ocean areas. Players face increasingly challenging bosses and enemies as they venture deeper into the caves, with each main boss dropping items necessary for progression⁴.
Character Progression: Players gain experience and level up skills by performing related actions, from mining to cooking. The skill system allows for different character builds and play styles, with points earned every few levels that can be spent on various upgrades⁵.
Base Building & Crafting: The game offers extensive base-building options with customisable structures and decorations. Players can create elaborate underground fortresses, set up farms, and establish crafting stations for creating tools, weapons, and other items⁶.
Multiplayer: The game supports up to 8 players in co-op mode, allowing friends to split up and focus on different aspects of the game, from building and farming to exploration and combat⁵.

Things players loved:

Beautiful pixel art style with impressive lighting effects and animations⁵.
Extensive cooking system with over 2,000 possible food combinations³.
Freedom to play at your own pace and focus on preferred activities (building, exploring, farming, etc.)².

Things Players Criticised:

Tedious skill levelling system that feels like a grind⁷.
Lack of detailed tutorials or guidance for new players⁸.
Large biomes that can make travel feel slow and monotonous without proper transportation⁹.

Marketing & Community Building:

The game utilised a multi-platform launch campaign that carefully balanced engaging both a new and existing community, with key components including:

Public playtests and Steam Next Fest participation to generate early interest¹⁰.
Building and growing an engaged community before launch¹⁰.
Strategic creator partnerships targeting lapsed players with 10+ hours of early game experience¹¹.

The last point was critical for the success of Core Keeper. Fireshine Games worked closely with Fourth Floor Creative, an award winning video game marketing agency, who helped them strategically plan engagement tactics for both paid and organic creators, creating a sense that “everyone is playing Core Keeper”¹¹. This was driven by curated partnerships across Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok, coordinated content released at key development milestones, and a focus on creators who regularly played similar games¹¹.

This comprehensive strategy helped Core Keeper become Fireshine Games’ fastest-selling digital game, demonstrating the effectiveness of their community-focused marketing approach¹².

Tinkertown is a multiplayer sandbox RPG that combines exploration, crafting, and combat in a procedurally generated fantasy world¹³.

Key Features:

Large World to Explore: The game features diverse biomes including mystical forests, icy tundra, and arid deserts. Players can explore a large map that takes hours to circumnavigate, with randomly generated terrain ensuring unique experiences¹⁴.
Crafting System: The crafting system is intuitive and station-based. Players unlock new recipes automatically when discovering new materials. Different workbenches like the furnace, anvil, and outfitter each unlock unique crafting branches¹⁵.
Combat & Character Development: Players can customise their play style through weapon and armour choices, with options for melee, ranged, and magical combat. The game features dungeons with boss battles and regular enemy encounters throughout the world¹⁶.
Multiplayer: The game supports up to four players in online co-op mode, allowing friends to build, explore, and fight together¹⁷.

Things Players Loved:

Beautiful pixel art graphics and diverse biome designs¹⁷.
Extensive crafting system with continuous recipe unlocks¹³.
Freedom to play solo or cooperatively with friends¹⁶.

Things Players Criticised:

Basic and repetitive combat mechanics¹³.
Unclear instructions and guidance for new players¹³.
Clunky user interface with limited inventory space¹⁸.

Marketing & Community Building:

The game focused on a social media strategy combined with an early access launch campaign. They had an active presence on multiple platforms but with a particular focus on X, where they shared gameplay footage, development updates, and engaged with their community¹⁹.

In terms of content pushed on other platforms, they released trailers that featured on popular YouTube channels such as GameTrailers which showcased key features like multiplayer functionality, building mechanics, and combat systems²⁰. However, they didn’t expand beyond this, with no mention of any creator partnerships or community engagement strategies.

As with many games these days, Tinkertown also engaged with an early access campaign, which started as early as 2020 meaning they ran nearly three years of early access game play before their full release²¹.

How Did Core Keeper Succeed Where Tinkertown Failed?

In terms of game play, there appears to be evidence that Core Keeper innovated where others did not. The developers implemented innovative 3D rendering techniques while maintaining a 2D appearance, allowing for superior lighting effects and atmosphere²². This, combined with satisfying core mechanics, particularly the mining system that players would use frequently, helped to keep players engaged and coming back for more². Compare this to Tinkertown, which was accused of having basic and repetitive combat mechanics, and an empty feeling world lacking in NPCs and interactive features¹³.

Core Keeper and Tinkertown both released with early access campaigns to drive up interest and find early adopters. Core Keeper launched their early access a little over a year before their full launch and carefully developed the game with community feedback. They also conducted public playtests and participated in Steam Next Fest before releasing a polished 1.0 version that was well received by players¹⁰. Tinkertown, on the other hand, had a much longer early access period, starting in 2020 and running for nearly three years before their full release. This may have led to player fatigue and a lack of interest in the final product, as the game had already been available for a long time²¹. Tinkertown also released with numerous technical problems requiring patches¹⁷ and launched without fully implementing key features like NPC gathering mechanics¹⁸.

Finally, Tinkertown had limited market visibility and failed to build the same community engagement that was a significant factor in the success of Core Keeper. It is perhaps an unfair comparison given that the developers Core Keeper teamed up with Fourth Floor Creative, an award winning video game marketing agency, who helped them strategically plan out engagement tactics. Nevertheless, it demonstrates the power of a well thought out marketing strategy and the importance of building a community around your game.

Secrets of Grindea and Veritus

Secrets of Grindea is a charming action RPG that combines classic SNES-style game play with modern RPG mechanics, featuring both a story-rich campaign and an arcade mode. The game offers extensive character customisation without fixed classes, allowing players to freely mix combat styles while experiencing challenging boss battles and dungeons in either single-player or up to 4-player co-op.

Key Features:

Character Development: Customisable character builds with no fixed classes, extensive skill trees, and the ability to re-spec skills and talents for different strategies²⁴.
Multiplayer & Game Modes: co-op support for up to 4 players, with both a story-rich campaign and an arcade mode featuring randomised dungeons and challenges²⁵.
Combat & Boss Battles: mix of melee and ranged combat options, a guard system for defensive play, and various weapons including one-handed, two-handed, and bows.

Things Players Loved:

Beautiful pixel art and animations with attention to detail²⁵.
Deep and flexible character customisation system²⁴.
Engaging story with well-written characters and humor²⁴.

Things Players Criticised:

Significant difficulty spikes throughout the game²⁶.
Controls can feel imprecise, especially during challenging boss fights²⁶.
Some builds and skills feel unbalanced or underpowered compared to others²⁶.

Marketing & Community Building:

Secrets of Grindea had a relatively unconventional marketing and release approach, largely enabled by the Swedish government! The developers initially survived on very affordable and low-interest student loans before then launching in early access in 2015. They then continued a massive 9 year development cycle, built entirely in public maintaining development transparency through regular dev blog updates²⁷. This helped to build a dedicated community around the game, who were invested in its success and provided valuable feedback throughout the development process.

They eventually made a full release with a feature packed trailer on YouTube and launched a 98-track soundtrack alongside the game. They used the unusually long 13-year development time as a marketing talking point, but it was their focus on polishing the game and maintaining a dedicated community that helped them succeed.

Veritus is a Game Boy Color-inspired action RPG where players explore the mysterious castle of the god of shadows as Oran, a miner tasked with uncovering its secrets. The game combines classic Zelda-like puzzle-solving and combat mechanics with modern design elements, allowing players to explore dungeons, fight monsters, and uncover a mysterious narrative that connects to its predecessor, Prodigal³⁰.

Key Features:

Retro pixel art graphics inspired by Game Boy Color aesthetics
Combat system featuring pickaxe weapons and various tools
Puzzle-solving mechanics throughout dungeon floors
Resource collection and crafting system for upgrading equipment and items
Multiple play-through’s encouraged for discovering secrets
Boss battles requiring strategic combat

Things Players Loved:

Beautiful pixel art and character designs⁵⁰
Creative and manageable boss fights²⁹
Satisfying puzzle-solving mechanics²⁹

Things Players Criticised:

Lack of in-game maps for navigation⁵⁰
Story can be confusing without playing the prequel, Prodigal⁵⁰
Repetitive exploration between checkpoints²⁹

Marketing & Community Building:

Veritus is a fantastic game with beautiful styles and design and creative fighting mechanics mixed with engaging puzzles. However, the developers really fell short when it came to marketing this game. Instead of focusing on the unique aspects of their game their attention was spent on pushing a narrative that they were a spiritual successor to Zelda and inevitably forced an unnecessary comparison of their game to a giant franchise with a loyal fanbase⁵¹.

Worse still, although they recognised their community, they didn’t manage to nurture them. In fact, through some PR blunders in the form of some very public disagreements over the Zelda games they managed to alienate many of the fans (some of which could have purchased the game⁵¹). The failure here, in our eyes, is an inability to be objective about where their game sat in the market and how to best engage with their community. They were completely lost in terms of content because they did not review what people liked about the game or the features and benefits that did well in their social posts. Ultimately, what was a fantastic game with a lot of potential was let down by a lack of understanding of their audience and how to engage with them.

How Did Secrets of Grindea Succeed Where Veritus Failed?

The differentiator for Secrets of Grindea compared Veritus is not the quality of the game, both are exceptional in their own right, but the marketing and community building strategies employed by the developers. Secrets of Grindea had a long development cycle, but they used this to their advantage by building a dedicated community around the game. They maintained transparency throughout the development process, providing regular updates and engaging with their audience to gather feedback and build excitement for the game’s eventual release. This community engagement helped to create a sense of ownership among players who were invested in the game’s success and provided valuable feedback that helped shape the final product.

Veritus on the other hand had a shorter development cycle and launched without building significant community momentum. When launched, they struggled to differentiate themselves in the market and exacerbated the issue by focusing on comparisons to a beloved franchise like Zelda. When releasing into a crowded market without strong positioning or community engagement, it’s easy for a game to get lost in the noise.

Balatro and Bingle Bingle

Balatro is a roguelike deck-building game that combines poker mechanics with rule-breaking elements, allowing players to create increasingly powerful card combinations to defeat score-based challenges called "blinds." The game features an addictive progression system where players use jokers, tarot cards, and other modifiers to build synergistic strategies across eight increasingly difficult "antes," with each run offering unique possibilities for breaking traditional poker rules ^52,53.

Key Features:

150 unique joker cards that modify gameplay mechanics³¹
Eight difficulty levels (stakes) with increasing challenges³¹
Shop system between rounds to purchase upgrades and modifiers and multiple unlockable starting decks³²
Boss battles with special restrictions and challenges³²

Things Players Loved:

Deep strategic depth with endless card combinations and synergies³³
Polished, addictive gameplay loop that’s easy to learn³⁴
High replayability with different deck strategies and builds³⁵

Things Players Criticised:

Heavy reliance on random number generation can lead to “dead runs”³⁶
Significant difficulty spikes between stakes³¹
Boss blinds can sometimes feel unfairly punishing³⁷

Marketing & Community Building:

Balatro had a highly successful marketing campaign built on three key pillars that led to over 1 million sales within its first month:

Demo strategy: the developer released an extensive playable demo with no round limits and capitalised on Steam Next Fest resulting in over 100k demo downloads and an explosion in wishlists³⁸
Influencer engagement: by inviting high profile creators who have streamed Balatro to compete together in a bespoke tournament called “Jimbo’s Invitational” the game was able to generate significant buzz³⁹
Community building: they nurtured the fan base and created enthusiastic community engagement with free collaboration updates featuring popular games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Stardew Valley⁴⁰

They quickly capitalised on their success with expansion into additional platforms accompanied by promotional videos and even launched limited edition merchandise to further engage with their community⁴¹.

Bingle Bingle is a unique roguelike "Roulette Builder" game where players can customise their own roulette wheel, changing numbers and colours to create strategic combinations. Players start with a basic roulette setup and simple ball, then progress through rounds by earning scores and upgrading their roulette, balls, and betting options to create powerful synergies that can lead to massive point multipliers⁴³.

Key Features:

Over 10 unique balls and 50 betting options to unlock
Multiple character classes with different specialties
Strategic deck building with roulette customisation and score-based progression system
Boss battles with special challenges
Shop system between rounds for upgrades

Things Players Loved:

Unique twist on the roguelike genre⁴²
Strategic depth in creating custom roulette combinations⁴⁴

Things Players Criticised:

Heavy reliance on random number generator elements⁴⁵
Not much content to unlock⁴⁵
The UI can be hard to understand with too many elements on the screen at a time⁴⁴
Difficult to grasp the game play mechanics⁴⁴
Descriptions in game are not clear, possibly as a result of poor translation⁴⁴

Marketing & Community Building:

Bingle Bingle has a relatively modest marketing campaign, with a promotional trailer and some Youtubers and Twitch streamers covering the game⁴⁷. They also managed to maintain a Steam community presence post-launch⁴⁸. Interestingly, they also chose to collaborate very early on and release the game as part of a bundle⁴⁹, but unfortunately we do not have the necessary data to identify whether this had a significant impact on sales.

Overall the marketing approach appears to have been relatively small-scale, relying primarily on Steam platform visibility and content creator coverage rather than extensive social media campaigns or community engagement strategies.

How Did Balatro Succeed Where Bingle Bingle Failed?

Overall it is difficult to compare these games when Balatro was quite literally a genre defining game. But the comparison does highlight some important take away thoughts.

Balatro succeeded through masterful game design that balanced simplicity with depth - creating an easily understandable poker-based system while offering deep strategic possibilities through jokers and modifiers. The game’s development focused on pure gameplay enjoyment rather than flashy visuals, with careful attention to player satisfaction and meaningful progression at every stage. In contrast, Bingle Bingle, while innovative in concept, struggled with more limited strategic depth and lacked the polish and balance that made Balatro so accessible to a wide audience.

From a marketing and release perspective, Balatro executed a brilliant three-pillar strategy focusing on a well-crafted demo (100,000+ downloads), strategic influencer engagement, and passionate community building. This led to over 1 million sales within its first month. Meanwhile, Bingle Bingle had a much more modest marketing approach, primarily relying on basic Steam platform visibility and limited content creator coverage, failing to build significant pre-release momentum or community engagement. The stark difference in commercial success demonstrates how Balatro’s polished gameplay mechanics and strategic marketing campaign created a perfect storm for indie game success.

TLDR - What Makes a Successful 2D Pixel Art Game?

Innovative Gameplay: Successful games like Core Keeper and Balatro innovated on existing genres, offering unique mechanics and deep strategic possibilities that kept players engaged.
Community Engagement: Building a dedicated community around your game is crucial for long-term success. Secrets of Grindea and Balatro both maintained transparency throughout development, engaged with their audience, and used community feedback to shape the final product.
Marketing Strategy: A well-crafted marketing campaign can make or break a game’s success. Core Keeper and Balatro both executed multi-channel launch campaigns that generated early interest and engaged with key influencers to build excitement around the game.
Polish & Balance: Attention to detail and balance is key to creating a polished game that appeals to a wide audience. Core Keeper, Secrets of Grindea and Balatro both focused on creating a satisfying gameplay experience with deep strategic depth and meaningful progression at every stage.

Is 2D Pixel Art a Safe Bet? (Part 2)

Author: Ross Burton, PhD, Head of Product and Data

Category: Data Analysis

Published: 1/20/2025

Updated: 8/23/2025

Case Studies: What Makes a Successful 2D Pixel Art Game?

Please Note

Core Keeper and Tinkertown

How Did Core Keeper Succeed Where Tinkertown Failed?

Secrets of Grindea and Veritus

How Did Secrets of Grindea Succeed Where Veritus Failed?

Balatro and Bingle Bingle

How Did Balatro Succeed Where Bingle Bingle Failed?

TLDR - What Makes a Successful 2D Pixel Art Game?

References

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