So you’ve got big dreams of making the ultimate RPG dungeon. Your art director hires some hot shot pixel artists to whip up the graphics and when you see them your eyes light up like the Fourth of July. Oh, the things you’re going to do with those beautiful pixels. That lava is looking hot!

Yeah, yeah, yeah… You’re young, idealistic, and think you’re invincible. We get it. The first stirrings of the dreaded CTS “virus” have yet tickle the soft underbelly of your vernal palms. That’s carpal tunnel syndrome for the new guys and gals in the room.

But there’s another problem. The tileset didn’t come with a user guide or any example level to look at. The pixel artist just whipped it out and sent it over. Maybe if you had planned ahead and mocked up all the tiles ahead of time this wouldn’t have happened. But that’s a lot of work and might infringe of the artist’s creative genius. God forbid you ruin their flow with your pedantic strictures and doom your game to a sub-standard set of connect-the-dot tiles!

Sure, some of the relationships between the tiles are obvious. But not all. The master pixel artist has many tricks. Some tiles you may stare at for hours, perhaps days, mumbling under your breath to yourself, “What… is your… purpose?!” until this escalates into a full-on existential crisis. Delightful.

So, like the great Leonardo da Vinci and countless other artists, you study your subjects (the tiles, not corpses) carefully and begin to learn their ways. However, there is a little devil on your shoulder (especially for tilesets evoking fiery hellscapes) telling you to just jump right in and start making a level. “It will turn out all right!” he says, poking you with his all-too-cute mini-pitchfork.

No. You must stay the course. Start with small structures. Learn how they fit together. Create the templates (if in your mind only) from which you will base your master models.

It’s the seams, the joining together of the larger wholes that is tricky. At first, this tileset is every bit the fiery hell to work with that it visually represents.

Yet upon further reflection, you wonder: Is it possible that even hell might be beautiful to its maker?