Anixel

The project

Anixel started from a memory: the underground mini-game in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, where you dug at random through rock hoping to hit something. That simple loop — search, find, repeat — is surprisingly hard to balance well.

The goal is to track down twenty-one creatures. Each one was drawn by hand, then retouched with AI to finish the linework and harmonise the rendering. I'd rather be upfront: I'm not claiming every pixel came off a pencil. What interests me is using every tool available to reach a result I'm happy with.

Behind the apparent simplicity, it's mostly a balancing exercise: how often to reward the player, how long to stretch the collection, how to make someone want to come back. A playground for understanding incremental game design by actually doing it.