Thursday, December 4, 2025

Your Class Rep: Rambling About My Indie Pixel Art Card Game

Rambling About My Indie Pixel Art Card Game

If you’ve been following my work for any length of time, you already know I have a weakness for pixel art. Especially the kind made on tiny canvases with even tinier constraints. But this past year, that weakness has turned into a full-on project. It started as a weird idea, then evolved into a video game prototype, and eventually took shape as a portable card game called Your Class Rep.


This article is the high-level tour: what the game is, why it looks the way it does, and why I’m putting so much energy into it. 

I'll show you what I mean...

The Art Style.

If you grew up in the same era I did, the original Pokémon games hit at exactly the right time. The art style, the characters, the way Game Freak squeezed personality out of four shades of green—it was all magic. Ken Sugimori, Atsuko Nishida, and Motofumi Fujiwara and other awesome character designers and pixel artists built an entire visual language that’s still instantly recognizable today.

When I started drawing characters for a middle-school-themed video game idea, I tried using the same constraint just to see what would happen. And that was it I was hooked. One student became two. Two became eight. Suddenly I had a whole middle school cast who felt like they belonged in some lost 1994 cartridge where the goal wasn’t catching monsters, just surviving seventh grade.

Pokémon's Misty vs Your Class Rep's Cascade

Even though the cards are small, every character has a story baked into their pose, expression, and the few pixels I get to work with. There’s something really satisfying about getting a whole attitude across with nothing but a smirk and an 8x8 backpack.

The cast is full of personalities you’ve absolutely seen in real life:

  • The kid who always raises their hand before the teacher even asks the question

  • The athlete who treats "training" like it's the championship

  • The kid who clearly didn’t want to run but their friends signed them up anyway

And yes—there are also Pip and Nibbs, the class hamsters. No explanation needed. They just belong.

Creating these characters feels like tapping into the same energy I felt when I was eight years old trying to draw Pokémon on my homework margins. Except now it’s my job, so technically I’m being responsible.

So… What Is Your Class Rep?

At a high level, it’s a fast, head-to-head card game where both players are trying to win a middle school election. Each turn, you and your opponent choose a card at the same time, flip them, and see which kid wins over that part of the school. You’re basically building a little team of supporters with tiny pixel personalities.

That’s the short version. We’ll save the deep-dive into the rules for another day.

First printed version of the cards

What you actually need to know is this:

It’s quick.

Games last about 1-2 minutes so you can play a few quick rounds while dinner is in the oven, or while waiting for a movie to start.

It’s easy to learn.

You could teach this game at a family gathering without losing every relative’s attention halfway through the explanation.

It’s for kids and adults.

The art is a fun gateway for parents to talk to their kids about the good old days and kids love the chance to spend time with their family. I think everyone loves it's fast and compact, and non-committal. It doesn't demand hours around the table so you can give it a go when ever you have down time.

Why This Game Means Something to Me

Making Your Class Rep has been one of those rare projects where everything clicked. The theme felt right. The art style felt right. And the idea of a tiny game about tiny pixel kids trying their best just felt right!

Early Prototype vs Modern Version (don't mind the highlighter... I was going though something)

There’s something about those limitations—the small canvas, the four tones, the challenge of expressing as much as possible with as little as possible—that keeps me coming back. It’s like solving a puzzle where the solution is a character with ridiculous hair.

And at the same time, the game itself has turned into something that fits perfectly with what I want LessThanPi to be: creative, approachable, fun for families, nostalgic for adults, exciting for kids.

What’s Next?

There’s so much more I want to share; behind-the-scenes devlogs, character bios, how the game actually plays, expansion ideas, and of course the upcoming release of Your Class Rep.

If you want to follow along as I keep building the world, the game, and the art, I’d love for you to check out the YouTube channel. I’m trying to see if I can get the LessThanPi channel monetized by the New Year. I know that’s a lofty goal, but hitting that milestone would genuinely help give this project some legitimacy. It proves people are interested in Your Class Rep, in the behind-the-scenes devlogs, and in the future projects I want to make for you.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next post.

Stay Connected

If you’d like to follow the game, see new characters, or just watch me panic-build things on camera, here are all the places you can find me:

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