Answer: Minecraft

In the open-world building game Minecraft, you can craft a wide variety of tools and decorative items (like flower pots and armor stands). Among those decorative items you can, using sticks and wool, craft paintings. These paintings, when placed upon the wall, turn into a random selection from one of the 26 paintings available in the game’s default resource pack.

At first glance, the paintings appear to be relatively indecipherable pixel art. Some are so abstract as to be unidentifiable, some look like figures, and some feature symbols like skulls and spiders that are fairly easy to pick out.

What’s interesting about the pixel paintings in Minecraft is that they aren’t just an 8-bit homage to other video games: most of them are 8-bit renders based on the paintings of Kristoffer Zetterstrand who, in turn, created many of his paintings based off the video-game art, iconic characters, and scenes found in 1980s and 1990s-era video games. Seen here is a painting by Zetterstrand that depicts a scene from the old game Space Quest I; Minecraft players will recognize the general layout of the painting from Minecraft where the two pixel players and a spider are shown against a snowy background.

If that’s not enough video-game-in-video-game homage for you, though, Minecraft is so customizable that you can create your own resource pack with custom pixel-paintings featuring scenes from your favorite retro video games.