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Is the new Retro look here to stay?

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Fien - 10 June 2012 07:27 PM
bulak - 10 June 2012 06:21 PM

I’m not implying anything about the OP,

Grin

but usually, of the people I know that don’t like old-school graphics,

Correction: I don’t like the mock old-school style.

they are mostly kiddies born in the 90s onward with a Playstation/N64 right off the womb. They also say “Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin? This is shit man, you should listen to real music, like Justin Bieber and 50cent”.

What! Justin Bieber and 50cent? This is shit man, you should listen to real music, like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and The Band, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, Jefferson Airplane, Neil Young, Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who.

Guess my age.  Tongue Tongue Tongue

21 Innocent

     
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Erwin_Br - 10 June 2012 07:33 PM

21 Innocent

Kiss

     

Now playing: ——-
Recently finished: don’t remember
Up next:  Eh…
Looking forward to:
Ithaka of the Clouds; The Last Crown; all the kickstarter adventure games I supported

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you don’t really have to be older to listen to the bands mentioned above.you just need good taste in music.

     
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Fien - 10 June 2012 07:27 PM
bulak - 10 June 2012 06:21 PM

I’m not implying anything about the OP,

Grin

but usually, of the people I know that don’t like old-school graphics,

Correction: I don’t like the mock old-school style.

they are mostly kiddies born in the 90s onward with a Playstation/N64 right off the womb. They also say “Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin? This is shit man, you should listen to real music, like Justin Bieber and 50cent”.

What! Justin Bieber and 50cent? This is shit man, you should listen to real music, like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and The Band, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, Jefferson Airplane, Neil Young, Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who.

Guess my age.  Tongue Tongue Tongue

Good music, but if you like the old-school graphics style how come you dislike the “mock old-school style”?

They are essentially the same but made in different times. It is the same thing as if you said “I like pixel art made in the 90s but not those made today”. What’s the logic behind this?

You could as easily pretend it is a 1993 game but only now you came to play it.

     
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bulak - 10 June 2012 09:56 PM
Fien - 10 June 2012 07:27 PM

What! Justin Bieber and 50cent? This is shit man, you should listen to real music, like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and The Band, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, Jefferson Airplane, Neil Young, Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who.

Guess my age.  Tongue Tongue Tongue

Good music, but if you like the old-school graphics style how come you dislike the “mock old-school style”?

They are essentially the same but made in different times. It is the same thing as if you said “I like pixel art made in the 90s but not those made today”. What’s the logic behind this?

You could as easily pretend it is a 1993 game but only now you came to play it.

Contemporary bands which try to sound like they’re from the 60s are never any good either. I don’t know why that is. Maybe it’s the same with games.

     
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Oscar - 10 June 2012 10:25 PM
bulak - 10 June 2012 09:56 PM
Fien - 10 June 2012 07:27 PM

What! Justin Bieber and 50cent? This is shit man, you should listen to real music, like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and The Band, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, Jefferson Airplane, Neil Young, Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who.

Guess my age.  Tongue Tongue Tongue

Good music, but if you like the old-school graphics style how come you dislike the “mock old-school style”?

They are essentially the same but made in different times. It is the same thing as if you said “I like pixel art made in the 90s but not those made today”. What’s the logic behind this?

You could as easily pretend it is a 1993 game but only now you came to play it.

Contemporary bands which try to sound like they’re from the 60s are never any good either. I don’t know why that is. Maybe it’s the same with games.

I see your point. But in general, music carries an particular imprint from the time (political, cultural, technological etc conditions and trends) it was composed. Pixel art does too, but not as much as music.

If I met an musician in 1993 and asked him to compose a piece to my game it would sound such. But if I meet this same guy some 20 years later and give him the same specifications for the piece, it’d probably sound very different.

With the same example as above, but with pixel art instead, an artist would draw a portrait of me pretty similar or irrespective of time, back then and now, excluding the fact that I would look older and providing that he uses the same tool.

     
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It is the same as black-and-white films. If you use a retro style for an artistic purpose, like Sword & Sorcery did, and it’s a stylistic choice - I think it works.

Age of Infamy is doing it to capture a Quest for Glory feel. I get it, it’s kinda funny.

That being said, I am not a fan of it - I much prefer HD graphics where I can see everything and don’t have to squint to imagine what something is.

This is where it’s different than black-and-white. A black and white film (depending, ok, on how the celluloid has aged) from 1939 still has more resolution than any computer game today. (It’s true - the best digital image still lags behind actual photography. Not by much anymore.) My point being, black and white still gave you an image, it just wasn’t how the world looked.

Also, Justin Bieber is better than Jefferson Airplane.

     

“The ability to dream is all I have to give. That is my responsibility; that is my burden. And even I grow tired.”
― Harlan Ellison, Stalking the Nightmare

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Gonzosports - 11 June 2012 02:41 AM

That being said, I am not a fan of it - I much prefer HD graphics where I can see everything and don’t have to squint to imagine what something is.

Maybe that’s where you’re going wrong. Our brains are processing more information viewing a hi-res image than a low-res one. For that reason watching cartoons is less taxing than watching a photographic film. Part of where I felt Gemini Rue went wrong was to have detailed portraits for the characters, which themselves were only a few pixels. Your imagination wasn’t given the opportunity to fill in the gaps because the portraits did that, so you always saw the pixellated character as less detailed rather than a fully-realized character whose visual appearance you created out of a few pixels. The Blackwell games made the same error. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with letting the gamer supply visual information.

     
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Oscar - 11 June 2012 03:03 AM
Gonzosports - 11 June 2012 02:41 AM

That being said, I am not a fan of it - I much prefer HD graphics where I can see everything and don’t have to squint to imagine what something is.

Maybe that’s where you’re going wrong.

I don’t mind filling in graphic information. As a rabid fan of text adventures/IF, I’m all bout using my imagination. I don’t like being confused as to what something is because of clunky graphics. There’s a difference between filling in a gap with my imagination to flesh something out, and using my imagination because I don’t understand what something is, and then being confused as to why the powdered doughnut suddenly shot a laser ray.

     

“The ability to dream is all I have to give. That is my responsibility; that is my burden. And even I grow tired.”
― Harlan Ellison, Stalking the Nightmare

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some classic styles would remain and new styles will maintain

     

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orient - 10 June 2012 07:20 AM

Games like Resonance and Blackwell Convergence are in a strange middle ground because the background art would look better at higher resolutions, but is downsized and appears pixelated because of engine restrictions. In these cases, I can understand why people would prefer the games in higher res, but to me they’re fine.

Nothing to really add to this discussion (I’m hardly unbiased!) but I wanted to correct a common misconception. The low-res artstyle has nothing to do with AGS engine restrictions. You can actually go very high-res in AGS if you choose. Most just choose not to. Smile

     

Website: Wadjet Eye Games || Twitter: @wadjeteyegames || Currently working on: Unavowed

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bulak - 10 June 2012 11:42 PM

I see your point. But in general, music carries an particular imprint from the time (political, cultural, technological etc conditions and trends) it was composed. Pixel art does too, but not as much as music.

If I met an musician in 1993 and asked him to compose a piece to my game it would sound such. But if I meet this same guy some 20 years later and give him the same specifications for the piece, it’d probably sound very different.

With the same example as above, but with pixel art instead, an artist would draw a portrait of me pretty similar or irrespective of time, back then and now, excluding the fact that I would look older and providing that he uses the same tool.

Computer game art has evolved greatly over the last 30 years. Pixel art was once (more or less) the “best” style out there and looked “modern” at the time. Now it lacks the “wow” factor as the art in most games has evolved much further (better or not? you decide!)

A better analogy for music/art in computer games would be, if you had a professional studio make a game 20 years ago and gave the same brief to a professional studio today, would it look the same? The answer is clearly “no”, as you would use the “best tools available” unless specifically instructed to do it as pixel art, or for the music, in the style of the 1980’s.

Regarding the “original” vs “retro” pixel art thing, when KQ6 came out the intro took my breath away. (It’s not pixel art per se but illustrates the “best tools at the time” thing). I couldn’t believe how good it looked. If I watch it today it looks terrible! (comparatively) and therefore the same thing that had such a profound effect on me years ago does not have the same effect now. If moebius has an intro that looks like that when it’s released it will be shocking for all the wrong reasons! Therefore I can understand why some people do not like “retro” pixel art when they loved pixel art originally, things have “progressed”.

Personally I like pixel art even today but I wouldn’t want every new game to look like a game from the late 80’s/early 90’s.

     

3.5 time winner of the “Really Annoying Caption Contest Saboteur” Award!

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DaveGilbert - 11 June 2012 07:54 AM
orient - 10 June 2012 07:20 AM

Games like Resonance and Blackwell Convergence are in a strange middle ground because the background art would look better at higher resolutions, but is downsized and appears pixelated because of engine restrictions. In these cases, I can understand why people would prefer the games in higher res, but to me they’re fine.

Nothing to really add to this discussion (I’m hardly unbiased!) but I wanted to correct a common misconception. The low-res artstyle has nothing to do with AGS engine restrictions. You can actually go very high-res in AGS if you choose. Most just choose not to. Smile

Isn’t the max resolution of AGS 1024x768? I assume the artists still work at a higher resolution than what appears in the game, as that’s fairly common practice.

I really enjoyed the first two Blackwell games, by the way. Got Convergence on my desktop ready to go, right after I’m done with Mass Effect 3.

     
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Intense Degree - 11 June 2012 09:59 AM

A better analogy for music/art in computer games would be, if you had a professional studio make a game 20 years ago and gave the same brief to a professional studio today, would it look the same? The answer is clearly “no”, as you would use the “best tools available” unless specifically instructed to do it as pixel art, or for the music, in the style of the 1980’s.

The story, gameplay, dialog and such wouldn’t be the same, of course, but we are talking graphics here, and if the present studio were pursuing that nostalgic feel as many do, then the graphics wouldn’t stray much from the classics, as you can see in a lot of examples out there made with AGS that look like they were made in the early 90s. So you can just pretend you flew back in time and are playing a contemporary game.

I often go to http://www.pixeljoint.com and remains motionlessly gawking at those guys’ work. Hell of talented people they got there. Furthermore, every major game out there (FPS, TPS, RTS etc) is already made with the latest 3D tech, so it’s very pleasing we got this oasis of nostalgia reviving the golden era of adventures.

     
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I think the retro style will stay as long as there are bedroom programmers who want to actually finish and release a game.

Gemini Rue had problems but I thought it did have some great atmosphere especially in the rainy city setting. The art style had good use of color although I don’t think the graphic artist completely understood how classic pixel art works (don’t let prominent shapes alias into each other! Rework your downscaled art!)

I think there is a cleaner, more modern style that would work fine on any resolution without being too taxing on the designer - simply use vector art. Gradients, sharp shapes that scale at any resolution and allow some interesting effects. Windowsill is a good example of that but I’m not a big fan of Flash being used for commercial games.

     

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