Subject: Re: RustHeir — the name, and yes you're right about the graphics
The name: it's Rust + Heir, welded together. The game is two ideas merged. Rust is the board decaying under you — space as the resource you spend. Heir is the inheritance: you move like the last piece you ate, so you're always the heir of your last meal. The two halves are still readable in the word (rust·heir, and it also scans as ru·stheir), which felt right for a game where both mechanics are present in every single move. It also happens to be eight letters, which is exactly what fits on a Spectrum title screen without compromise — I'd like to claim that was foresight, but it was luck!!
The graphics: you're right!
They're not hand-drawn for the Spectrum at all. The pieces live as 12×12 one-bit bitmaps (literally text files with X's and spaces), and the build runs them through Scale2x to get the 24×24 that fills a 3×3 character tile. So every feature is at least two pixels wide in each direction — the Spectrum is being shown a doubled 12×12, not a real 24×24. That's exactly why they read as chunky. Same source feeds the PC and the C64, which was great for keeping three versions honest with each other, and terrible for the art.
So yes, I'd very much like to take you up on improving the graphics.
The one real complication I should flag: since those bitmaps currently feed all three versions, a hand-drawn Spectrum set means the build gains a per-platform art path. That's a small change and honestly the right one. We're just still juggling with preparing a number of projects at the same time, some of them on hold for quite some time since we lacked the people and technical know-how to proceed.
If you'd like a first look before I release the graphics update, just say the word and I'll send you the grids. And if any of the SC regulars want to have a go at the knight in particular, they'd be improving on something I already redrew twice — it was unrecognisable the first time round. So when I'll get the chance I will post there to gather opinions on the re-drawing!
Cheers for the nudge. This is the kind of note that actually improves a game.