Pixel art is alive and well in games, as we saw in our guide to the best video game art styles. And now it’s taking over the world.
Wplace is the Google Maps of pixel art, a site where anyone can put their artistic mark on a world map, and everyone else can see it. It’s only been online since 21 July, but large cities are already a chaos of logos, memes, video game sprites and even some genuine art.
Wplace users get one pixel every 30 seconds and can place it anywhere on the world map. You can also join alliances or create your own to work with others on collaborative pieces.
Big cities have become art battle zones, covered in pieces of pixel art like graffiti tags. There are slogans, abuse, cute characters, and plenty of Marios. Some teams have collaborated to create big artworks covering whole neighbourhoods, while other pieces are so small you have to zoom in close to see the detail.
Obviously, I had to visit every city I’ve lived in to see what contributions people were making. Paris has an impressive pixel art Notre Dame Cathedral (top image). London has a large logo from the soap opera Eastenders over the East End.
Buenos Aires, where I live now, is mainly a turf war between football clubs. My entire neighbourhood has been claimed by San Lorenzo de Almagro, as represented by a large crow-man character holding rosary beads (‘Los Cuervos’ were Pope Francis’s team).
Since the map evolves in real time, you can find artworks that are still in progress, which is interesting to watch. After visiting the cities I know well, I’m now having fun exploring off the beaten track.
You can press the ‘Explore’ magnifying glass icon on the right to jump to a random work of art on the map. Touring the world to see the things people have created in unexpected places quickly becomes addictive. There appear to be some Plants vs Zombies fans somewhere out in the remote Romanian countryside.
wplace has a leaderboard that lists the top regions, countries and players by day, week and month and all time. At the time of writing, South America dominates, occupying the entire top five on the all-time leaderboard. Sao Paulo in Brazil is leading by a long way with 32,925,053 pixels painted, but Buenos Aires is doing well in third place just behind Santiago de Chile.
You can create an account on the site, and you can purchase digital currency to unlock more features, but it’s not necessary.
For inspiration, see our piece on pixel art, and check out the work of the artist who makes embroidery paintings that look like game art.
