Painted Legend - Now and 10 Years Ago

July 28, 2016 marked the release of the very first classic Painted Legend! That means this year it’s turning 10 years old! With that in mind, I’d like to take a look back at how our good old PL evolved over time through these screenshots:

Steam post image1. A simple two-player tech demo, where two knights on opposite sides of the screen had to fight each other. That was the moment when the idea of making a 2.5D platformer about a basic, cliché knight-versus-dragon battle first came to me. (2016)

Steam post image2. A tech demo where my idea of “knights on a notebook page” started to take shape. At that point, the game was still entirely in blue ink on a white notebook sheet, but these were the very first screenshots ever published on Steam Greenlight for community feedback. (2016)

Steam post image3. One of the first early alpha versions, where the visuals gained color thanks to suggestions from the aforementioned community. And honestly, that turned out to be the best and most defining decision in the entire history of the project. (2016)

Steam post image4. The release version 1.0.0 on Steam. Development was finally complete, and from that point on only minor updates and fixes were expected. The first reviews and feedback were written based on this version. (2016)

Steam post image5. A major graphical update in 2018! Two years after the original release, my drawing and animation skills had improved a bit, and I wanted to add more decorations, background elements, and make the game more vibrant overall. That’s when the graphics were fully redrawn for the first time, lighting was improved, and background effects were added. (2018)

Steam post image6. An even bigger graphical redesign update! By the end of 2023, I got a pretty solid drawing tablet, and my passion for art came back stronger than ever. As a training project, I first reworked all the graphics in The Game of Squids: UPG, and after gaining a lot of experience with the new tool, I moved on to repainting Painted Legend. This time, the changes affected not just backgrounds and effects, but the entire visual side of the game, including characters, animations, and overall style. The core idea stayed the same, but the execution became much more polished compared to the original release versions. I also had to update the music, since my earlier attempts didn’t really resonate with players :)

And so, in early 2024, the redesigned version of classic Painted Legend was born - the one that is now the main version on Steam! (2024)