>"retro" game has pixel graphics I can't look

They're capitalizing on the older audience who grew up with the NES, etc. It's all about money.

>pc has downgraded graphics

>>250264624
they just use "retro" graphics to fill the void that is their own creativity.

>>250264624
>>250264726
What about shit like Iji, Hero Core, or Barkley's Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden?

>>250264624
Just played an indie game myself, FORCED. It's absolutely brilliant, haven't played a game this fun in a while. If you've got at least 1 steam friend its a blast, no stats or micromanaging, just running around solving puzzles and challenging boss fights. The graphics aren't retro BS either.

>>250264624
Because the vast majority of indie games are the same regurgitated shit. There are quite a few with non "retro" shit, but you don't hear about them usually as a result of marketing or people ignoring them due to the torrent of shitty indie games.

>>250264624
Don't forget the mandatory inclusion of "roguelike elements" like permadeath and random content so your indie game can be tagged with "roguelike" on Steam.

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>"We wanted our game to look like a NES game for that retro feel."
>The graphics don't look a damn thing like what you'd see on a NES.

>>250264830

No no no, anon. You see, NES 8bit games are the best because they're old. The older a game is, the better it is.

OP is mad that 1001 Spikes and Shovel Knight are better than Watchdogs and Second Son

>>250264726
Yeah but only a select few games actually work that way. Usually most games just look like shit and it annoys the fuck out of me. I don't want games to look like NES games I want them to have beautiful art direction and high quality sprites.

I liked NES games for the music and gameplay not for the graphics.

>>250264830
Iji actually has a really interesting style for the sprites. I'm not fond of how it works for human characters (Iji, Dan, etc) but the aliens look really interesting, and I love the way they're animated

>>250265447
It also helps that Iji was interesting to play.

Indies don't just half ass the graphics, a ton of them half ass their gameplay as much as possible too because the nostalgiafag gaming hipsters will fucking handwave these spoiled cunts as much as possible CUZ ITS HARD TO MAKE A GAME YOU GUYS DONT GET IT

Indies have largely become just as fucking soulless and uncreative as the big nasty corporations they were so against.

non-textured flat polygons are the new trend

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I'm about to be 26. I'm at that weird age where vidya tech grew up with me, and every couple of years something would blow me the fuck away. Something I never knew was possible, something that I remember as a marked moment in my life. Like the first time I ever saw 3D grayfix (Fury 3 on PC, shit is fucking awesome, look it up), the first time I ever saw online gameplay, (UT99, kinda late to the party), the first time I realized that sometimes vidya can be more than a set of levels you just run through.

That hasn't happened in seven years.

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>>250267097

>tfw just turned 24 an hour ago

>>250264830
Hero core looks like it could be played on a ti 83 which is super cool. It somehow does completely monochrome art beautifully. But lately I've been sick of pixel graphics when they aren't appropriate, like the style of stick figure pixel art characters in Legend of dungeon and the old art style of delver. That shit really isn't art; I can actually draw better sprites than that (and I'm a terrible pixel artist)

>>250267097
>>250268218
It gets worse as you get older.

Art costs the most.

Anyone can pick up a programming language but few can make high quality 3D models and textures.

Those type of graphics are just easy to make and get away with in certain degrees, it has nothing to do with nostalgia.

You'll understand if you ever try to make a game.

>>250269436
Are you sure

Not trying to be contrarian faggot but I'm an artfag and I hold high regards for codemonkeys a lot, since they're the only ones who can make video games out of nothing. Artfags can't make vidya on their own and the more talented ones are slaving away producing art for browser MMOs

>>250269817
You don't even need to learn a language to make 2D games now. It's all about artfag shit.

>>250269436
>Anyone can pick up a programming language

Good one. I wish I could find the article I read that basically showed that over 50% of introductory programming students can't even comprehend simple variable assignment.

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>>250270034
Oh so it's just your attitude speaking

>>250264624
because it's cheap and easy to create.

Don't ask yourself why indie games utilise a cheap aesthetic - it's part of the scene, and the "1-3 men do everything approach".

What you should be asking yourself is "why aren't AAA publishers taking these now proven mechanics and slathering them with money and polish instead of churning out yet another uninspired FPS?"

>>250270265
No, I'm dead serious.

>>250264815
Kind of. I can do the code for a game no problem, but I'm not artistic for shit. So going with a simple "retro" art style would probably be my best bet. I can only assume the same is true for a lot of indie devs.

Then don't buy it.

>>250265216
I've never seen that happen.

The thing is, there are a LOT of retro systems, each with their own unique aesthetic. VVVVVV, for example, is heavily reminiscent of the visuals produced by the ZX Spectrum.

>>250270398
Can you make a game out of slideshows.

>>250270589
It's called Myst

>>250270465
You can always go for MUDs or Rougelikes that require little to no graphics

>>250270589
You really have no clue about the tools avaiable right now do you?

>>250264624

Nothing wrong with pixel graphics. Of course indie devs cut corners. Don't blame the pixels.

>>250268218
Happy birthday

>>250270774
Not that I know how to make each objects interact with each other or even make the slideshow move. That was a weak answer.

>>250270813
Enlighten me what "tools" let you make a game without at least knowing how to code, don't say game maker because that still requires you to learn a fucking language since the other guy was claiming you could make a game out of a bunch of drawings.

>>250271293
Construct. gg

>>250264624
>I can't look at it anymore
Well then don't fucking look at it
There are hundreds of games without pixelated art.

>>250271347
Elaborate

>>250264830
Hero core emulates old Nokia phone artstyle.
Barkley and Iji don't use any artstyle by choice, its largely due to artist's lack of skill.

>>250271607
Google.

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Worst thing is, the pixel art they do doesn't even match the good shit that was really done back then.

As someone who grew up playing 8 and 16 bit, the retro indie games barely give me any nostalgia because they do not look like the games I used to play, at all.

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>>250271778
>requires no coding to make a game

Nope, it still requires you to learn a different language and I said no game maker shit, try again

I'm not stupid enough to care about graphics in an indie game

>>250272570
That's not a language. It's the programming equivalent of fucking Lego, same with Game Maker's D&D system.

I know you want it all to sound like some mystical process, but it's not.

>>250272570
>no game maker shit, try again
Hotline Miami was made in Game Maker
Your move

>>250272073
Retro City Rampage is the only game in recent memory that actually feels like playing a NES game, because Brian Provinciano is a fucking wizard.

>>250270868

No, there's something very wrong with modern pixel graphics.

Indie devs use MUH RETRO as a justification for producing horrible pixel art that would have never cut it in the 80's and 90's.

ayy lmao

>>250272073
the art style isn't for YOUR benefit, arse-bandit

Because it's incredibly cheap to design, and you can use it instead of having an actual polished aesthetic or original art design.

>>250272570
>and I said no game maker shit

GUYS I WANT YOU TO ADD 1 AND 1 TOGETHER, BUT YOU CAN'T SAY 2. LOOK IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO ADD 1 AND 1 TOGETHER, TRY AGAIN!!!!

In case you're too dumb to understand, the fact that you already knew you had to exclude something shows that you were wrong to begin with.

On another note, can we all write moot and tell him to pick a different captcha provider, if there is one? I'm tired of taking 10 minutes refreshing capchas just to get one that is actually solvable.

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>game look worse than early NES games
>minimum requirements:
> core 2 quad
> 2 gb of ram
>nvidia 7800 gtx

Pixel Art looks good when it's done well. Thing is most indie devs can't do it.

>>250273501
I have a good machine, but VVVVVVagina still gives me slowdown in the red sections.

>>250273109
that's because it actually started out as an NES game and adheres very closely to the rules for creating a game on that system.

>>250273501
Those usually aren't totally realistic requirements.

But, to be fair, those games are usually significantly more inefficient than their retro forebears. I mean, for starters most of them run in Windows. Which means you're rendering in 16, 24 or 32bit color, at a ridiculously high resolution.

That would increase the size of the game exponentially.

Fun fact: The emulator required to emulate Space Invaders is several hundred times the size of it's ROMs.

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>Game is pixel art that emulates a certain console.
>It pulls it off extremely accurately, and flawlessly, as if it were a port from that original console.
>game is then remade with even better graphics that don't emulate any console whatsoever, they just look fucking god-tier and have greater atmosphere.

>>250273762
You're doing something wrong then. I can run that on my ~2009 netbook.

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But guys, our game provides the best 8-bit™ and 16-bit™ retro experience! This game is basically taken out of a SNES with some modernized* mechanics. We're pouring love** into this amazing spritework!

Please back our kickstarter! We only need $600,000 to allow you a true re-experience the best retro gaming has to offer!

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How long until low poly starts replacing pixel art as the go to easy to make "retro" look

it's easy as fuck to learn enough blender or maya to make models like this in a day or two, and i personally like the look but predict it will be overused as fuck after it catches on. the catch is having shaders that make it look good while still being able to maintain a good framerate on any machine.

>>250272704
You have a point then, however I'm gonna test the water to the very drop.

Since the other anon further implied that its become piss easy to make games that even lazy asinines who didn't learn the trade would be able to churn out one. Wasn't that the purpose of 8 bit trackers? Devs couldn't afford to hire bands or play music themselves back then.

>>250272945
What are you even talking about?

>>250274267
Imagine if La-mulana 2 got a million dollars.

That'd be the absolute fucking best thing in the world

>>250267097
carmack is working on oculus VR, recently abrash joined the company. Two legends in programming 3d environments.. combined. I'm absolutely sure this shit will blow me away when the time comes

>>250274267
Actually fuck, I should jump on the bandwagon and spend little over a year making a "retro" game then never have to work again. Even if I only snatch $200,000 off the project, I'd have a huge jump in quality of live with some careful investments.

>>250274383
>Wasn't that the purpose of 8 bit trackers?
no, the purpose of trackers was to simplify and standardise the format of music, moving from the 8-bit to 16-bit platformers.

They were so useful they wound up being backported to 8-bit systems.

>>250274301
not happening while making retro sprite is easier than rigging and modeling, but they're about the same lazy shit, just check all the "cellshaded" games on android

>>250269436
You know why programmers get paid more than artists? you're wrong

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>>250267097
>Seven years

What was the last biggest thing you saw?

>>250270537
It's funny, I haven't seen a single indie game that limited itself to the NES's actual graphical limitations. Not one. It's kind of bizarre - the NES has an extremely distinct visual style due to the limited but unique color palette, as well as the rigid 8-palettes-of-3-colors-plus-a-background-color rule.

Yet none of them can stick to it.

I just don't understand.

>>250275195
Shovel seems pretty close.

>>250275195
Because they're not actually trying to stick to that style, its just modern art but with pixels.

>>250274585
my scheme:

make 1000 flappy bird clones
put them all up for sale on the app store for a dollar
each one needs to make 1000 dollars profit
easiest million dollars of my life

>>250275195
Because that requires effort, the opposite of why you chose pixel art in the first place.

>>250275374
Exactly. And unless you're making high-resolution pixel art, what's the point? You might as well just say you're making the game out of big rectangles.

>>250264624
That's not 8 bit at all.

>>250264830
Iji has smooth animations.
Hero Core looks lazy but the bosses were done pretty well.
Barkley is sprite rips and undeniably 16 bit.

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>>250275195
This is a 2009 game. It came on a genuine NES cart.

>>250275486
>the opposite of why you chose pixel art in the first place.

>people say this shit but dont even know where to being with said pixel art

What is inherently wrong with pixel art and retro styled games?

And no the fact that so many indie devs do it is not a legitimate complaint. It's like complaining that all AAA developers use 3D models.

Sure, shit on games with bad pixel graphics all you want. But Shovel Knight is getting dragged through the mud by /v/ for no real reason other than it emulates and older style. The game is great. It's extremely well made. And the amount of attention put into keeping it so accurate to the NES style is impressive.

This just feels like another one of those things where the meaning behind the problem is lost and /v/ just starts parroting shit without knowing why.

>>250275835
It was also actually pretty fun.

Some good music in there too.

>>250275835
I wasn't counting homebrews. You don't have a choice when you're making a game for the actual hardware.

>>250276010
>What is inherently wrong with pixel art and retro styled games?
There is nothing wrong with it at all.

It's all about how it's handled.
Some games make really nice art for 2D games.
Others do not even try and use retro graphics as a way to cut corners and make games that look like nothing that was ever released.

Personally I wouldn't even mind that very much if they played good.

>>250275486
Look at this ignoramus.

Why do people spend $10+ on those retro pixel games when they can just fire up an emulator and play actual SNES games on any generic device?

>>250276010
most of the time its just used to cut corners, and if you start cutting corners that early, your game most likely is a shit game

>>250274591
Can you explain >>250274858 and back up >>250269436
Because my original argument was that artists alone can't code, therefore are ultimately worth less than programmers because they can't make games from scratch.

As for the one about music tracker, the first time it was brought into the market it WAS meant for video game dev only, and was a big flop at that. What it had relevance to artists being able to use some lego-tier game dev kit is because they both served as crutch and the other anon was trying to tie in how some baby first program will become the doom of video game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Soundtracker

>>250276302
>>250276475

I think it's less about cutting corners and more about not having the skill period. Pixel graphics take longer but they take less knowledge. You don't have to really learn anything at all.

>>250276010
You mention how Shovel Knight is trying to look like an NES game. I can't post pics right now, but
http://yachtclubgames.com/shovel-knight/
I'm looking at the screenshots at the bottom of the page, and I notice the backgrounds in particular use way too many colors to be an NES game. It's more like a SNES game with subpar graphics in its current state.

>>250276775
Backrounds use either one colour or 4-5 colours, though.

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>devs advertise SNES-like retro graphics
>the game is 600MB

>>250274267
Did that really cost $600k?

What was making it cost so much?

La-mulana was $15 and it's my favorite game of all time.

Apparently Shovel Knight "Deluxe" version is $25, normal version $15. Does it have the same amount of content/quality as La-mulana to make it worth it?

>>250277048
>artfags

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>>250276775

You know how colors work in 8bit games right?

I only count 5 colors in the background.

Same on all the sprites.

This is exactly what my point was. /v/ has no idea what they're talking about but will still try to argue and shitpost.

>>250277083
no, it's trash

>>250274383
I'm not really following your comment on 8-bit trackers. Are you talking about modern ones, like FamiTracker, used in modern games? Or trackers used in actual games for 8-bit systems of the past?

>>250277173
The NES could never run this though.
You can look up the nerdy nights homebrew tutorials on nintendoage if you want the details.

>>250274267
So is it at least a fast paced action RPG?

>>250277278

Nobody claimed it would. Quit moving the goalposts faggot.

They're trying to emulate the look and feel of an 8bit game.

They accomplished that and unlike many indie devs actually stuck to the rules and limitations that came with traditional 8bit gaming.

>>250265216
>>250270537
>>250275195
>NES inspired games
>Yellow is used in the color palette

Also, what do you mean by
>rigid 8-palettes-of-3-colors-plus-a-background-color rule
Like, you have a palette of 8 colors, can only use three, with a background? Or...?

>>250276126
You should. Y'know, since it actually imposes the hardware limitations of that style on it.

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>>250277173
>bits
This picture comes from the 8bit console PC Engine.

>>250277267
The latter>>250276586

>>250264830
you don't pay for them

>>250277478
If it's 8 bit, why was it called Turbografx-16 in the West?

>>250277478
>6 different "layers" for the water, where the speed/style changes
Neat

>>250277173
I do know how color works in 8-bit games, probably better than you as I've dabbled in homebrew.

5 colors is more than, say, the NES could handle. For example, those trees overlapping the clouds? Wouldn't work on an NES. You'd have to eliminate one color.

As for the sprites, the limit is 3 colors plus alpha, but I'll give it a pass since overlapping sprites were often used to give the illusion of more colors. Although if that plant is a sprite, you've probably met/exceeded the palette limit.

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NES actual limitations are four sets of 4 colors for the background, and one of those four colors is the same for all the 4 sets, and you can only change those sets on every 16x16 pixel block (you can 8x8 with the MMC5 mapper, but well, very few games actually use it).

And sprites get their individual 4 sets of 3 colors.

Also the colors can only be one of the 64 of this palette on the picture (with only 52 being not black).

>>250277621
That would be the marketing.

It was made to compete with 16 bit hardware, but it actually had a 8 bit CPU.
In short, they lied.

>>250272570

As a programfag Construct 2 is actually really frustrating for me to use specifically because of its building blocks style "programming."

While it makes some things pretty easy overall it's pretty slow to work with and dealing with things like arrays takes so many needless steps.

>>250277427

It means due to technical limitations, you can only display so much, but idiots who make their games today don't want to make games look like guardian legend.

>>250278296
Guardian Legend is great.

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>Pixel "art"
>Making your game look shit on purpose is an achievement

when will indieshits learn?

>>250277487
You are aware that 8 bit systems didn't have much in the way of sample playback, right? They mostly just generated music using hardware wave generators modulated via code. This was also a good way to save space when 32 kilobytes was considered a lot for an entire game.

>>250278362

Yes, but like all NES games, and despite using every hack possible for maximum fidelity, it only displays so many colors.

That's the problem with indie '8-bit.' It doesn't look 8-bit, but like really early shovelware 16-bit.

>>250277621
Mostly lying, using the 16bit video registers as an excuse to say that the video is 16bit, but the NES also got two 16 bit video registers, so.

The component that actually decide the "bit count" of the console that is the CPU is an 8 bit CPU that is pretty much the same from the NES.

But ironically the CPU is the strongest component on the console because it is clocked at 7 Mhz.

The 6502 line of CPUs are VERY FUCKING GOOD at raw IPC even if compared to the 68000 on the genesis, and at 7 Mhz this put the 8bit thing on par with the neo geo 12 Mhz 68k.
Genesis only beats it if you need to perform more complex trigonometric shit like multiply that is not used on 2D games anyway.

>>250278090

I'd be curious to see someone check if Shovel Knight adheres to the NES palette.

Looks like it does to me so far.

>>250278406
When fucking retards like all my friends stop buying this shit.

Holy fuck, I hate my fucking 'friends'.
They play all of that shit. Fuck they still even play Pokemon.

>>250270034
If you want to make a game that isn't buggy, you have to code it or spend lots of time tweaking the tool you use for your own purposes. there isn't a "silver bullet" tool that makes a perfect game every time, even stuff like unity that has been developed for years has its own problems.

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>>250278296
I like to dabble with VIDEOGAMES in /vg/agdg
I certainly couldn't see myself making great SNES-level pixel art myself, but I at least stick to a palette for some consistency (even if I use color blending and shaders later)

I mean, that's not sooo bad, right? I'm at least aware that what I'm doing isn't "LOL SO RETRO", I'm just choosing these as a style choice, but I'm not claiming it to be something it isn't.

>>250278568

Just looked it up. Apparently they do. It was one of their focuses. That's neat. Wonder if it could run on a cartridge.

>>250278568
check the parts with those flag banners. that looks like too much.

>>250278676

Which is okay. The problem is when indies say they are totally going 8-bit, and they fuck it up despite all the limitations being well known.

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>>250278406
Pixel art can indeed look neat and offer things that 3D can't do well.

But if you can't pixel art at the SNK level, you should just fuck off.

I don't get it, you guys shit on any game with pixel art even if it looks good, but when Hotline Miami comes out and has the worst pixel-art that an indie game has ever had, nobody says a thing.

>>250278736

If he could squeeze it down to 6 mega bit.

>>250279081
Graphicswhores like to make alot of noise about bullshit

>Why can't a single dev in a garage match the quality of spritework that AAA companies in early 90s did?
Entitlement general.

>>250279081
I think it's because HL:M had a better presentation. Yes, graphics wasn't its strongpoint, but dat soundtrack and atmosphere.

>>250278847
Ah, great.
J-just gotta practice up.

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>>250278804

These? Look legit to me.

>>250279185
Oh right, the neo-80's nostalgia pandering.

>>250278413
Does that imply that tracker had steep learning curve and clunky GUI back then or does that mean what.

I'll try not to goat everything into supporting my point but that sounds like it belongs in a different argument.

>>250264830
I love barkleys art style. it reminds me of fallout 2, and alpha centauri. Something about fallout 2's talking heads and terrible cgi makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

>>250279081
>nobody says a thing.

that's bullshit i shit on it everytime i can, and there are no good modern "pixel art" games dude

>>250279180
Most of those "garage developers" have more money that some of those old AAA studios for their projects, counting inflation.

>>250279417
Shovel Knight, Wayforward in general, Konjak games,

fucking quit being a pleb for once instead of complaining

>>250277427
A single, solid color is set as the bottom "layer". There are 8 palettes, split so that the background tilemap gets 4 palettes and sprites get 4 palettes. The graphic data is always indexed, meaning each pixel actually just points to a color in the palette, of which there are three software-defined colors plus alpha (transparency). Which of the four palettes the sprite/tile uses is also defined by the software and can be easily changed. This is how they do flashing effects, such as when Mario has an invincibility star.

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>>250278601
>introduce friend to steam
>all she does is buy shit indies that are barely worth pirating or console ports

>>250279081

Personally I never really understood the praise behind Hotline Miami.

I had fun with it, but I didn't see why it would attract more buzz than similar games.

>>250279203
Its using too much colors for the real NES, as you can only have 3 and one that is shared with the same of the scene.

I've still never managed to wrap my head around 8 bit graphics.

I can generally understand the idea of sprites needing to be 3 colors plus transparency. And that cases like Mega Man are possible where you layer them.

But the backgrounds always throw me off.

And where do outlines come in? How do the black outlines not count as a color? Because stuff like >>250277173 the body has light blue, dark blue, peach, white and black outline.

Explain NES palettes to a retard pls.

>>250279632
See:
>>250279240

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>>250279751
This game is perfect to explain.
Every 16x16 pixel block can choose one of the four color palettes.
And each of those color palettes can have 3 independent colors and a color that is shared by all the four palettes.

In the case of SMB1, you can see that the tiles fit perfectly those 16x16 slots i'm talking about, and they all share the blue sky color, but use the other three for the green grass and stuff.

>>250279751

To make it short, NES and atari 2600 are much more complicated to develop for than most people realize.

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>>250279568
Huh, never realized there were so many colors in the spectrum.
Okay that makes sense now.

>>250279257
Honestly, I'm not even sure how trackers are related in the first place.

And no, what I meant was the tracker would export the song as a series of hardware commands to be read by a custom music engine. Kind of like MIDI, except without any sampled instruments whatsoever - it simply sends the pitch, volume, and maybe wave pattern to the sound chip, which automatically takes care of the rest.

>>250279632
I thought it was fun playing for points.
The soundtrack was nice too.

Not the best game ever but fun to pick up and drop whenever.

>>250279751
Black outlines definitely count as a color. >>250277173 doesn't represent "true" 8-bit graphics, it's a PC game.

As for backgrounds, all you need to know is they work exactly the same as sprites: 3 colors plus transparency. The only difference is that they're stuck to a grid.

>>250280157
My point was that game maker was a lot like tracker in the sense that it didn't hinder or kill off the real deal and it didn't make people lazy. I don't want to repeat myself so yea that was real confusing. Although I believe the same applies with the introduction of sampled instruments, devs don't try to find a way to cut corners like sleazy engineers and we can't really blame some tool for that. They all have their own ladders to climb.

>>250277427
you have 8 palettes of 3 colours apiece (4, technically, but one in each palette is transparent)

This is where the term palette swapping comes from, because it's trivial to take one object and point it at a different palette, resulting in a recolored sprite.

Unlike modern retro games which often laboriously recolor each individual object.

>>250280826
>As for backgrounds, all you need to know is they work exactly the same as sprites: 3 colors plus transparency

But then how does the Mario example work?
>>250280106
There's the Blue for the sky and cloud hilight, White Clouds, Light Green Bushes, Lime Green Bush Highlights, Dark Green Hills and Black Outline.

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>>250275736
>That's not 8 bit at all.
actually there are many 8-bit games which would employ a similar palette.

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>>250280826
>>250280106
Well shit. It suddenly makes sense why some games used black backgrounds on occasion. They could do stuff like this without wasting a color on outlines.

>>250281190
Yeah, I'm not entirely sure why he thinks Game Maker is bad, either. I mean, what's the alternative, raw assembly? (I've tried this - I don't reccommend using it if you don't have to.)

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>>250281363
Well, time to ask an Debugging emulator for it.
The four upper rows of colors are the four colors you can use on the background.
And the four below are the sprite colors.

>all of these indie "retro" games
>not a single one of them is as good as Super Mario World

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>>250281476

How the fuck did they do this on an NES.

>>250278534
to be fair, the PC engine video hardware is really pretty fucking good. Bright, vibrant colours, very few shortcuts giving it a very extensive palette.

The video hardware WAS on par with the 16bit systems that would come later, especially when coupled with a bit more RAM of the arcade cards.

>>250281896
I'm pretty sure NES didn't use a super eagle filter.

>>250278736
as has been pointed out, no. It ignores several of the NES's other visual limits.

>>250282018
Too bad it only supported a single tile layer.
If it had at least two, that would put it leagues ahead of the sega genesis.

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Using Little Samson as an example again can anyone explain the castle walls for me?

The mountain/forest stuff is clearly the background layer. So how does the castle interior work? Is it a separate background layer? Is that even possible on an NES?

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>>250265267

>>250281363
In the Mario example, blue is the background color. If you eliminate blue, you'll notice each 16*16 tile has only 3 other colors.

I think the palettes are organized like this (not necessarily in this order):
-white/brown/black, for bricks and floor
-gold/brown/black, for ? blocks
-light green/dark green/black, for bushes, pipes, and hills
-white/blue/black, for clouds (and water, not in that scene)

If this is the case, you can actually change the entire stage to nighttime (i.e. world 3) by simply setting the background color to black.

>>250282373
>6 weeks

In all honesty what kind of game would an indie dev make in 6 weeks time? Let's say he has enough budget he needed

There were some 1 week game contest and those games were serviceable at best

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>>250265267
nothing to do with age, anon.

The thing you need to realise about 8-bit games is, that the good ones are very cleverly optimised for screen readability. Which is to say, you can look at the screen and immediately understand what every object is and where you can stand and what needs to be avoided, etc.

This is, in truth, what people are often trying to capture by creating retro styled games, even if they don't understand it.

Pretty cool article from the Shovel Knight devs talking about what went into making it look like an NES game and which rules they decided to follow and which they abandoned for the good of the game.

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DavidDAngelo/20140625/219383/Breaking_the_NES_for_Shovel_Knight.php

Who forces you to play their shitty games?

>>250281896

Super eagle filter should be turned off. As for the game itself, it's technowizardry, just like guardian legend, and many late games for the machine.

>>250282816
Give it a few decades without criticism and your children will have an entire library of shitty games while your children's children will exhibit it in the museum.

>>250282287

It's magic. You can see '3d' backgrounds in games like sword master.

The amount of work put into some NES games is amazing.

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>>250264815
Pretty much this, although there are a handful of developers who use "retro" aka pixel graphics and put effort into it.

>>250282287
The background color is obviously black, as there's black on the whole scene.
All the grey parts use the same three colors besides black.
All the brown part use the same three colors.
And the sky and grass are the last two color banks with its own 3 colors each.
The whole rest is sprite.

>>250281896
If you look carefully, you can actually see the seams. That big shell in the upper left corner causes the background around it to be brown instead of yellow-green due to the palette limit.

Smart graphic artists were able to disguise these kinds of errors by using colors with similar brightness values, so they aren't glaringly obvious unless you look up close. Yet another art lost with time.

>>250282287
What about it? The background is on one layer.

You ever notice how in the NES sometimes almost the whole screen will go black for a boss? That's because they've decided to let the boss use BG layer, so there's no sprite flicker (usually because the boss is too damn huge)

>>250281773
Here are what the palletes correspond to.

>Background
Top Left: Pipes, bushes and hills. Sometimes trees.
Top Middle Left: Ground and bricks.
Top Middle Right: Clouds and text.
Top Right: An alternative coin pallete, I think.

>Sprite
Bottom Left: Mario. If you're Luigi, then this pallete changes to Luigi's colors.
Bottom Middle Left: Green Koopa. Also used for Hammer Bros.
Bottom Middle Right: Red Koopa. Also used for moving platforms, Cheep Cheeps, and the mushroom powerup.
Bottom Right: Goomba. Also used for Buzzy Beetles.

My first system was an odyssey and it was brand new when I got it...

This sort've shit does not appeal to me at all. I LIKED IT when graphics got better. SO did everybody else, that's why it happened.

I can deal with it in some games if it's a complex roguelike for instance, but otherwise, that shit annoys me.

>>250283121
>sword master
Looked it up and it reminded me of Castle of Dragon, possibly the most frustrating game of my childhood.

This thread is teaching me more about how old consoles work than I ever thought I would know

>>250283287
>SNES style shooter/action platformer with soundtrack by Jake Kaufman

How the fuck was this not all over /v/

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>/v/'s complains about retro graphics
>Indie game makers start making "hand-painted" graphics

What will /v/ think of them?

>>250283758
10/10 GOTY

>>250283758
blah blah Disney furry shit

>>250283758
The work of one who consorts with beasts!

>>250270342
We have gotten tired of that actually. It is assumed in /v/ that there are a lot of money grabbing, boring FPS out there

How does the Mega Man sprite work again?

Bottom is black, light blue, blue and transparency so that works.

But the head layer is tan, blue, light blue, black and white...how does that work.

>>250283758
Dust was a fantastic game. Don't bring it down to the level of the shit developers who go
>"It's Retro!"
when they mean
>"We don't have the money to hire art guys."

>>250283758
They're alright when they don't look like a flash animation. Rasterized vector style animation works well in, for example, Skullgirls.

Addendum: The artstyle of SG is absolute shit, but the animation technique is spot-on for what smooth vectors are capable of. Don't confuse the two.

>>250284004

>artstyle of SG is absolute shit, but the animation technique is spot-on

This so much. All that animation wasted on shitty concept designs.

>>250283526
I think the last palette is for the animated coin counter at the top of the screen. One of those colors cycles through a set of values to create the animation.

>>250283758
Well Dust has deviant-art tier graphics and the game itself is pretty mediocre. It's shit if you're a metroidvania fan too.

>>250275195
Because most of them are just trying to capture the general aesthetic rather than sticking rigidly to the original technical specifications, I don't see why that's so hard to understand.

>>250283758
A professional animator learned how to program to make that game. That game gets flamed for the furries associated with it, but I've got nothing but respect for him.

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>>250283581
as explained, sometimes "improvements" are nothing of the sort.

Developers are drawn to retro-styled graphics not only out of "laziness", but because they offer a simple clarity that is often lost.

Here, for example, is Oscar on the Amiga 1200, a 256 color game. You will note that it is significantly less "readable" than the Batman screenshot. Good luck figuring out what you can, and cannot, stand on.

>>250283952
He's actually made up of two sprites. That's why his head and body often flicker seperately.

>>250284410

No I get that. I just don't understand how the head sprite has five colors.

>>250275195
Retro City Rampage is made with all the limitations required to actually FIT IT on a NES cartrige.
It's fun.

>>250284534
I'm not certain, but it might be more accurate to call it a "face" sprite.

>>250284716
Yeah, it's just the face part. With the tan and white and black.

>>250284659

He actually made his own NES dev kit back when RCR was still just a GTA NES homebrew.

Wonder if anything like that exists. It would be a nice learning experience for indie devs to have to working with an NES dev kit and learn and understand the basics first.

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2 color master race

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>>250276586
God, you're all so fucking dumb. Firstly, artists alone have to learn how to code, because if they don't, they can't make a game.

Programmers alone have to learn how to draw, because if they don't they can't make a PRETTY game.

See what I'm getting at? But the process of making a game isn't just art and programming. There's also design. All people can design even without learning it. The design may be shit, or it may be the best ever. You can learn how to design, but in the end, there will always be someone who has a better feel for design even when they haven't studied at all.

So that's the main point. If both parties could do both things - program and draw, it would all come down to design. Games' programming is not rocket science, it's pretty simple. Pixel art and 3d art is also more simple than 2d art or large pixel art.

But are programmers more needed and better at making games? No. It doesn't matter if the game is made by an artist or a programmer, it all comes down to design. Gameplay can overshine all the shitty art or minor bugs.

>>250285007
actually. No.

Design is not law. If the utterly failure of Ion Storm should have taught us anything, it's that.

No single aspect of game development is truly more important than another.

>>250284290

I see more hate about it being piss easy if you use the magic tornado combo than it being a furry game.

>>250283698

/v/ has its moments.

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>>250284534
Its just the face that is a separate sprite, not the whole head.
Check out all those neat empty helmets.

>>250283952

Face and body are two separate sprites. Magic, I know.

>>250284951
it's not hard. It's basically 6502 assembler and home-built dev-tools.

To be honest, they might as well start with the C64 or Apple 2. Closely related in terms in hardware, but they're a lot easier to get your code into.

>>250285212
Ion Storm failed because of terrible budget control.

Daikatana and Anachronix both ran it into the ground.

>>250285007
Yea man just like Shwig and Broquest right?

>>250265447
I can't fucking stand Iji's palette though. Everything comes in ugly neon colors.
I'd much rather have something downplayed like Another World, since that's what it seems to be aping anyway.

Pixel graphics are cheap.

>>250285007

I'd say shit like VVVVVV prove a competent programmer but a shitty artist can still make a good game.

A great artist who is a shitty programmer can't make a good game.

>>250284954
>not 2 colours per 8x8 pixel square with a color palette of 8 colours with two shades each, except for black.

>>250285576
but but but muh designs!

(also, Anachronox is actually pretty good. Dominion would be a better game to blame.)

>>250268218
Happy birthday!

>>250285982
Anachronix was in development for 7 years.
Daikatana was in development for a long time and was hyped up to no end.

Bad management did much more harm to Ion Storm than anything else really.

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>>250285763
forgot mah image

>>250286162
To be fair, Anachronox is basically Chrono Trigger in the Quake 2 engine.

It shouldn't exist at all in a sane world, but I'm ever so glad it does.

>>250286512
Nothing wrong with it existing.
And it is good.

But still, all those years didn't help Ion Storm.
I don't think it sold enough too.

>>250286512
>basically Chrono Trigger
Maybe if CT was 4 times slower.

>>250264624
>no budget to make game look AAA
>half-assing it makes an ugly blocky game nobody wants to play
>make pixel graphics instead
>call it 'retro' XD
>profit

>>250285739
There are so many tools nowadays for making games, programming can be learned easily. You don't have to program everything from scratch in C++. Also, programming is pretty fucking easy. All you need to have is logical thinking. It's all there's to it.

Also, programming is very overrated nowadays, I wonder how people can't see it. Programmers are needed everywhere because of the new age. Yes, programmers are being payed more. But it won't be so in few years, I give it 7-10 years. Haven't you seen how schools attract programmers? There are a lot of internet schools, hell, there's even a school that says "Programming can be sexy" and you're awarded with hot girls when you solve a problem. In my country every year there's 250 budget places (as opposed to 15-20 in anywhere else) for programmers (budget means it's all free), and that's only in one university. They're taking a shotgun approach to make massive amounts of not so great programmers, just so they can choose and make the prices for them go down a ton. The salaries are really overblown for programmers, it's not like it would be SO hard to learn programming.

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Why don't they remake GOOD 8-bit games?

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>no games with proper HD pixel art sprites
It hurts.

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>>250264624
Because artfags are whiny bitches and programmers can't be bothered to fuck with them.

source: I'm a fucking gamedev making a 3d game

We basically have to beg the fuckers to get shit done while the programmers ARE getting shit done.

I mean, I hate that retro shit too, especially when it's a fucking platformer with no new experimental gameplay features, but shit, I hate artfags.

>m-muh art degree

>>250286939

It takes effort to make a good game.

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>>250286981
well, the thing about "proper" pixel art sprites is that they don't look right.

Take, for example, Muramasa. A beautiful game to look at, but absolutely horrible to actually play. It's another game with poor readability because technology makes it too easy to throw hundred of thousands of colours at the screen.

Compare and contrast the visuals with a more technically restrained game, like Actraiser on the Super Nintendo. It undoubtedly looks better than the SNES game, but it fails the crucial playability test.

>>250287269
Sounds like you just employed a shitty artfag then. That plus probably miscommunication out the ass

>>250287296
It's a remake, you don't even need to try!
For instance for guardian legend - it's simple as fuck to improve on current technological level.
I may or may not have been working on a "spiritual successor". The only issue is that I'm slav and can't use kickstarter.

>>250286981
>HD Pixel art sprites
What the fuck?

>>250285568
WLA makes almost too shamefully easy to get code into the NES IF you know 6502 code.

>>250287479
What's wrong with Muramasa, also isn't it just 2d sprites on 3d planes?

>>250287752
see: Muramasa

>>250287827

that isn't pixel art, it's digital painting

yes there's a difference

>>250287479
>but absolutely horrible to actually play
>not airdashing through enemies and quickdrawing katanas like mad cunt
I enjoyed it. To each his own, I guess.

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>>250287479
Its a matter of contrast.

Using the same brightness level for everything is a painfully bad design.

>>250264624

I don't mind retro graphics, but what I hate is when retarded indie devs mistake "retro" for "shit". The original Mario games have bare-fucking-basic spritework but have a lot of charm and style. Whereas most "retro" games that come out use the retro tag as an excuse to put no effort whatsoever into visual representation.

>>250287479
>but absolutely horrible to actually play. It's another game with poor readability

perhaps your eyes are just shit, i had no trouble playing muramasa

>>250287896
only in your delusional brain

>>250287909
Yeah, I have a very distinct "taste" in games I enjoy like that, and Muramasa falls outside it, as do other beloved games like Gunstar Heroes.

It may not be a bad game, but I personally don't enjoy it.

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>>250287896
I think a better example would be guilty gear.

>>250288087
You heard the man, every 2D piece of artwork ever is "pixel art" when displayed on a monitor.

>>250287479
>absolutely horrible to play

What? I can't remember a single instant where anything was hard to see or judge. The only shitty thing was that pressing attack shortly before an enemy attacks you automatically blocks, so you wind up guarding against auto-blade-breaking attacks and losing all your damn swords.

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>"we can't make any better graphics so we'll use pseudo pixel shit, we're just programmers!"
>yet always have the money to hire a professional musician to do the soundtrack

>>250264726
Actually, it's the younger audience. The people who grew up on the NES want better graphics because all they had growing up was shitty 2d pixel games. Early teens hipsters who want to fit in and say "pshh, graphics dont matter" are the ones eating this shit up

source:me

>>250288209
is it art displayed in pixels?

>>250288112
Yeah, something like that.

>>250288112

KOF XIII would also be a good example, but i don't have any pictures handy that aren't in shit ass .jpg format

>>250288315
This fucking guy.

>>250288325
KoF13 was rotoscoped.

>>250269817
I'll be honest here, I could not make a video game on my own. I would be able to program it all and put it together, sure, but what the fuck do I do for the sprites and backgrounds? Stick people with stick swords and stick clouds with stick rain?

Then again, I guess it could go both ways. I could learn to art well enough to make a game probably just as easily as someone could learn to program well enough to make a game.

>>250288249
To be fair, I don't think most of the people employed to do music for indie games are "professional" musicians. or at least, aren't any more professional than say, the average busker.

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>>250288378

>>250288275
holy shit, this, i remember eagerly anticipating every new generation of consoles because of the amazing improvements in graphics, 8 bit sprite games really do get stale after so many years. i'm tired of these underage turdlings constantly screaming about how HURR GRAFICKS DONT MATTER. right, they arent the most important part of the game, but if you have the opportunity to make a game with better graphics then you fucking do, you don't choose to make a game with godawful early 90s graphics just because its "retro".

>>250288443

partially

the outlines of frames were rotoscoped, but the color was done in traditional pixel art fashion

>>250288315
If I draw a shlong on a piece of paper, scan it and save as png, will it suddenly become pixel art?

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>>250287752
>>250288112
I prefer rotoscoped 3d

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>>250288706
Yes. The pixel representation of the original artwork is not the artwork you originally created.

>>250287479
>absolutely horrible to actually play.
[citation needed]

>>250288881
it's been explained that this is an opinion already.

>>250288854

rotoscoping would be if this was converted into a 2d sprite

from the looks of this game i think they just use clever lighting techniques to make it seem like it's 2d in still shots, but it's still 3d

>>250288249

Are you trying to imply music isn't more important than graphics?

Because you're wrong.

Gameplay > Music > Graphics

>>250287827
>What are rasterized vectors

>>250289121
I don't know what's the name for that

I know they use Pencil SOFT+ plugin, just not the technique.

>>250289126
Nope, objectively wrong. many aspect of graphics have a direct effect on gameplay. Music does not, it only serves to build atmosphere.

>>250289235

I'll take a pixel game with kickass atmospheric music over an artsy game with a shitty soundtrack any day.

Hotline Miami is the perfect example. Meh pixel art. Great gameplay. Great soundtrack. Great game.

>>250289235
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkTxn8cnziY

>>250289490
>tfw the best songs are hardly used
Knock Knock used once in the coolest level by far
Paris used once or twice.

That one Crystals and Hydrogen song used everywhere.

>>250289869
I don't understand Knock Knock

I want to like it but it doesn't seem to go anywhere

>>250289998
Personally I think the idea is that it starts where it wants to.

It's made to be a song purely for the moment it takes place.

Maybe this is the right place to ask.I remember seeing a certain indie game few months ago, but I can't recall the name.

Gameplay was obviously stolen from Binding of Isaac, while art style was stolen from Don't Starve. Anyone recalls something like that?

>>250278601
>>250279630
That's what you get for trusting humans.

>>250265267
>The older a game is, the better it is.
ZX_spectrum_fans_in_a_nutshell.tar

>>250290640
Spiders are ruining this board. Moot pls range ban spider countries.

>>250281896
You could have at least used scanline mode, anon jesus christ one job etc.

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>>250290748
not even close to true.

There are many MANY utterly crap games on the platform. But there are a few shining gems which still hold up well even today, and would make fantastic indie games given a lick of paint.

>>250291173
>But there are a few shining gems
Right. Back to the retrogamer magazine forums with you. Can't be having your sort here.

>>250264726

>It's all about money.
Please don't sound so naive.

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A couple of years ago we got a stupid point, the point when the average joe confused indie with 8-bit, and when hipsters actually took over a genre

It IS a stupid point, like an independent musician made midi music or an independent movie maker made a film in 8-bit in his computer and eventually people thought indie was the equivalent of that.

It's particularly saddening for those people who actually put effort in their stuff and make sure their games look good.

>>250291892
it's more accurate to say that indie games started to center stage cause well, they were delivering types of games that simply weren't - and indeed, still aren't - being served by AAA publishers.

>>250292424

The problem, if some asshole developer like EA made a retro game with pixel art the average casual would probably call it Indie

>>250292601
fortunately EA doesn't know HOW to make indie games. It is so hidebound it can only create things which fit into a very narrow spec.

Look at what they did to Plants Vs Zombies.

I just tried the Dustforce demo and holy shit it is mediocre
the controls are stiff as hell and it uses crappy indie tier sprites that animated nice but the animations didn't actually tell me anything (like if I'm about to fall down while climbing the ceiling for example)
I don't know how people can play indie shit if this is considered a good indie game

>>250292601
Ubisoft actually tried their hardest to advertise Child of Light as "indie".

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>>250293798
ugh, Ubisofts PR for CoL managed to turn me off a game I'd probably normally have been all over.

You don't need to sell me on how pretty the game looks Ubi. I don't need to to tell me about how artsy your game is.