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Magic 3 — GB Pixel Art Jam 2026 Submission's itch.io pageArtists name/handle
ERIC MACK
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https://eric-mack.itch.io/
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Comments
Wow, this is incredibly well done!
This is incredible and opens up new possibilities for the GB. Congratulations!
Thanks! This was more of a proof of concept — I believe that with 3D models and lighting tricks, you could have an even better 3D effect implemented. Meaning, an effect with gradual depth, not just the two flat layers shown here.
Fascinating! “Magic Eye” images were all the rage when I was younger. I’m surprised it works at such a limited resolution!
That's just cool! Congrats
My eyes aren't magic enough to see the image clearly, but I can barely make out the shape for just a moment when I cross my eyes. Very cool! I need to retrain my eyes so I can fully enjoy this piece!!!
It's a tricky one! Glad you like it :D
Are you playing a trick on me? I've been staring at this image for 5 minutes crossing my eyes, relaxing my eyes, focusing my eyes, trying to see a hidden image. Well I remember loving these on the backs of cereal boxes as a kid. But it seems I've lost my touch, I couldn't find anything.
I appreciated the write up, your thought process was sound. Need to take a break from screens now, eyes feel a bit wonky.
Haha no tricks here, there is a true illusion there.
My tip (at the risk of further headache) would be to look at it on a desktop monitor and not zoomed if, if you are not already. How it is in the large thumbnail on this page and how it is on the project page itself with the writeup are both the most comfortable scale for myself to see the illusion personally.
CLEVER! "3"
Took me a while to figure how to detect the illusion, but when it finally worked it was really cool! I'm a big fan of the 3DS because of its 3D display, I'm impressed a 3D effect can be achieved at this low resolution :o
I too am one of the few who keep the 3D slider up on the 3DS most of the time haha
Glad you enjoyed :)
Even with high resolutions I’ve always struggled with these magic eye tricks. That said it clearly works checking on the comments, so mad props for getting that to work within the limitations.
Took me a second and I got it. This is so clever, awesome job!
Nice work! I also was inspired by this theme to do something 3D / Magic-Eyeish. It was a fun project. Doing it on the noise background must have been tricky with the limitations.
Your's looks great! I thought initially to try stereoscopic but then recalled autostereograms and thought that might have a better chance of the effect working at this resolution. Your submission does a fantastic job at achieving the stereoscopic effect though, nice work! That's really cool to know that is possible at this resolution.
The noise background was not too difficult on it actually! I already knew that I needed one big rectangle to be 6 tiles wide, and the full height of the screen. That section is then replicated as the base background, then with some groupings shifted (by three pixels to keep in theme) to achieve the 3D effect for the "3". I made I think 12 unique noise tiles by hand, then took those and flipped them, rotated them, and duplicated them in a random assortment to make that initial rectangle. I figured there should be enough repetition that even with the eventual offset of the large "3", I should be alright... and I was! The final tile count is 172 if I recall correctly. Got lucky!
Thanks!
Nice. I imagine it's a balance between getting it to be not too repetitive, but random enough that the 3 pixel skip isn't too noticeable without using the viewing technique. Works really well. I think I did 7 or 8 different pixel spacings to get the different depths, which meant I couldn't reuse too many tiles even though there were a lot of repeated components. I ended up needing to do some work and last minute tweaks to get it in at 192 exactly.
Wow, 7 or 8 pixels is a decent amount for this screen! 1/20 tiles. I would've guessed it would have to be something more like four. Really cool to know that this could all be pulled off on the platform
Yeah I think it would have been too much if it were just two depths separated in spacing by 8 pixels, but with all the intermediate steps it reads more as a gradient. I also found that the more I added, the less extremely I perceived a step of one pixel to be, which I wasn't expecting to be the case.
Interesting!
Really cool idea, but ever since I was a kid I was never really able to see what was in the Magic Eye books.
It can be tricky. While my low-res submission does have the effect, it'd definitely be better to attempt with a normal example first and then try this one after getting that if ya can.
OO my what an incredible idea, and really fun too! This is unlike anything I have seen! It was a truly innovative!
Though my eyes, have been playing tricks on me and I can't seem to see anything clearly!
But I have spotted 3 creatures with eyes and horns, as well as hands. Now that might just be me going crazy, but regardless it is a ton of fun! Amazing submission! :)
Thank you for the kind words :) Crossing your eyes for the illusion to show can be tricky! I used to have a lot more trouble with them at one time.
I didn't even think about spotting other images in this they way you might do so with clouds, that's a fun idea! I'd love to see these creatures you've found in it.
An autostereogram with the GameBoy resolution is definitely an awesome idea that I've never seen it before! You did a great work, Eric!
Thank you, I'm glad the resolution was still able to work with it!
Nice work, I can see the 3!
Tip on this one: view it from far away (or at a smaller scale)