Am I a sprite artist? Absolutely not. Chunky line work to produce something functional is usually the best I can do. Having the mechanics in place to handle a title screen was important to me for my initial milestone. This was thrown together in Aesprite, which I purchased some time ago when I fashioned myself "just a few months of study away from competent" at sprite work. I've since moved beyond that idea, but I was still proud of this placeholder title.
I really wanted a blinking, asymmetrically timed PRESS START indicator. I created pretty simple Timer node with a timeout signal connection to swap between visible and invisible, with a different amount of time for each state. Easy peasy!
I then threw together a save select screen that will also eventually be replaced with some more solid art. Each Platform indicates a save file, with the number of IC card pieces collected in that file indicated below it. If the save slot has no stage completions recorded in it, it instead shows New Game. I don't expect Nori Tetsu! to be a big enough title to merit three save slots, if we're being honest, but it was more of a general challenge to myself to pull data from the save file, and it works!
Also, those who use Aesprite will probably recognize the character from their store page here. I mapped out the same character to get a good idea on dimensions for this impromptu elevator and I absolutely love that little character. Nori's official sprite work will eventually be unique, but I couldn't give up the opportunity to put that cute little character into my test work!