Adventure Gamers - Forums

A picture like this one and the others posted, does indeed look quite good:

Agustín Cordes - 27 July 2015 01:01 PM

But one thing worth noting, is that this is not how most people will experience it in a game. Most people will be playing in full screen mode on a much larger monitor than the native resolution, so that means that the pictures will be blown up. When blown up to full screen on my own monitor the above picture would look something like this:

Which still looks fairly good imo, but nevertheless very different from when looking at it at its native resolution.

Another thing is that even though the resolution of the monitors in the good old days was much lower, then the screensize itself was also much smaller. So if we take a more or less random screenshot from a more or less random VGA game (Kings Quest VI) in native resolution:

And blown up to full screen on a modern monitor, it will look something like this:

BUT the monitors at the time was much smaller, so for anyone playing the game at the time, it would in reality look something like this:

My point here is, that if the purpose for using low-res graphics, is that the developer want to invoke a retro feeling in the player, and wants to make games that look like they did in the golden age, then you can’t simply do that by making the game in the same resolution as the old games, you have to scale it up to compensate for the larger modern monitors.

Most of the games where the word “retro graphics” are used however doesn’t do that, instead they just use the old VGA or EGA resolution, which in reality will look very different from how the old games actually did look to the player at the time. In other words the words “retro graphics” for low-res or pixel-art is an outright misleading wording.

And just top clarify: I’m not implying that the only possible reason for using low-res graphics is to make the game retro, just that if that is the purpose, then they are actually failing at it.

rtrooney - 27 July 2015 07:17 PM

I don’t think that pixelated graphics are good or bad. Some can be quite good, and some can be unbelievably horrible. But the reviewer didn’t talk about beautifully rendered pixilated graphics. He used the term retro graphics. Which, I think you must admit, has become the catch-all phrase for just about everything that isn’t, or doesn’t resemble photorealistic HD.

I think it’s OK to use the word “retro” as an alternate way to refer to “pixel-art graphics”. It’s semantics, plain and simple, and rather pointless to discuss.

Personally, I don’t mind retro/pixilated graphics. BUT…I prefer them in the games in which they originally appeared. How can you not like Freddy Pharkus Frontier Pharmacist? But if Sierra, if it were still alive, tried to put out a game today using that graphic style, I’m sure it would die a slow death. (See Himalaya Studios and Al Emmo.)

Thing is, this is just wrong. It sounds like an uninformed opinion based on a just one handpicked example. Wadjet Eye’s catalogue, The Last Door, Heroine’s Quest, and The Charnel House are enough successful cases of fine pixel-art games to counter-argue your statement.

I also don’t particularly care for the way retro is used as an excuse for poorly-executed graphic design. It’s as if the phrase, “Well, we were trying to pay homage to the style of LSL2.” covers all the sins committed in the creation of the game.

It’s not poorly executed graphic design, that’s just your personal taste. Previously Karlok mentioned The Last Door as a game with graphics that quickly become boring and I couldn’t disagree more. This in particular is one of my favorite scenes in recent adventures:

BTW, loved the Scratches conversations. Something similar happened there. That is, in the end you provided the definitive answers as to what actually happened to most of the game’s characters. But, prior to that happening, a few of us had very different opinions as to what happened.

You, and others who design games at the highest level may think that a “revolt” against retro/pixilated graphics is totally unfair. Some of us who have played games designed at the lowest level still think it’s the maid that is buried in the crypt.

Thank you but, once again, you’re focusing too much on the adventure genre and missing the big picture. Moreover, you’re suggesting that pixel art games are somehow a failure but Risk of Rain, Shovel Knight, Hyper Light Drifter, The Deer God, Game Dev Story, NEO Scavenger, Starboard, Interstellaria, Hotline Miami and Cave Story among dozens of others beg to differ. It’s such an unfair treatment of so many developers and artists that, as someone who focuses exclusively on photorealistic graphics, I felt compelled to argue.

crabapple - 28 July 2015 10:52 AM

I’m curious about the other screens Agustin posted too.

I’m not sure about the rest as they were retweets, but the medieval-looking scene is the work of Matt Frith who is developing Automaticity: https://twitter.com/matthewjfrith

Agustín Cordes - 28 July 2015 01:51 PM

It’s not poorly executed graphic design, that’s just your personal taste. Previously Karlok mentioned The Last Door as a game with graphics that quickly become boring and I couldn’t disagree more. This in particular is one of my favorite scenes in recent adventures:

Please tell us why this is one of your favorite screens? I’m fairly sure I will not agree, but I’d really like to understand why.

Agustín Cordes - 28 July 2015 01:51 PM

...once again, you’re focusing too much on the adventure genre and missing the big picture.

As the old phrase goes, we will agree to disagree.

I don’t know about Agustin, but in my opinion getting something like color right, for example, a lot of the times trumps graphical fidelity when it comes to setting up mood and immersion. Also extremely visible in those “The Last Night” screenshots, which, wow! ...are amazing and immediately convey what the game will feel like even without the additional help of music or motion.

Sure, it’s taken to the extreme in The Last Door, and I understand Karlok’s complaint from a purely utilitarian perspective (hard to distinguish objects when resolution is that low), but isn’t that almost the same as hunting down a highly detailed hotspot in an equally highly detailed environment, a’ la casual gaming? And let’s not forget the advantage of being able to play the game on much smaller screen, e.g. your phablet, and not losing any visual quality in the process - au contraire, gaining some. I think they did a very bold move and it payed off (their website claims 2 million plays and counting).

This is a little straying from the discussion, but it’s an interesting theme. We love art because it isn’t a realistic depiction of what surrounds us - it’s stylized and distilled down to the essence of the artist’s vision. E.g. it’s why I’ll always prefer Francis Bacon over any hyper-realistic painter, classical cartoony stuff over rotoscopy… If we really preferred realism over artistic interpretation, Poser models in games would be the greatest form of graphical fidelity.I don’t think anyone wants to live in that world Not saying anyone was clamoring for that, just throwing a point out there.

Mr Underhill - 29 July 2015 04:19 AM

I don’t know about Agustin, but in my opinion getting something like color right, for example, a lot of the times trumps graphical fidelity when it comes to setting up mood and immersion.

I fully agree. But we were talking pixels and those colors would be just as atmospheric without the pixelated look.

Obviously, I would rather have HD graphics than pixalated ones, but some retro games have such great stories and characters that you can look past the graphics.

I would hate to see great games like “To the Moon”, “Gemini Rue” or “Home” overlooked just because of the retro graphics.

Karlok - 28 July 2015 07:05 PM

Agustín Cordes - 28 July 2015 01:51 PM

It’s not poorly executed graphic design, that’s just your personal taste. Previously Karlok mentioned The Last Door as a game with graphics that quickly become boring and I couldn’t disagree more. This in particular is one of my favorite scenes in recent adventures:

Please tell us why this is one of your favorite screens? I’m fairly sure I will not agree, but I’d really like to understand why.

 

I could talk about the muted palette with monochromatic yet vibrant shades which evoke ancient times. The accentuated horizon stealing half of the composition reinforcing the emptiness of the beach with its mysterious sea and strange secrets. The keen detail, even with such large pixels, of dirty foam surrounding the stones. It feels like this beach is a moment suspended in time, with a haunting element of unnatural calmness assaulting my senses.

But it’s the sheer sentiment of solitude pervading over every pixel in the scene what I love the most. The minimalistic, spartan look that works so well could only be achieved with the pixel-art style chosen by the team. Anything else would evoke different feelings. This scene, as it is, it’s perfect.