I'd like to hear some opinions on what resolution you would prefer to see in a V3 game, and why.
Supporting multiple resolutions is, of course, optimal. But working in 2D, we're probably going to want to optimize for one and just bite the bullet for the rest - so what would you prefer?

I realize the whole nostalgia thing about 320x240 is neat and all. But beyond nostalgia (which I honestly believe is better reproduced through solid gameplay, regardless), what reasons can you come up with for choosing low resolutions? And how low do you recommend going?


As for my own concerns, I really just have three, in ascending order of importance:

1) File Size. I don't care much personally - I think that most of us, even if we're on dial-up, wouldn't mind leaving a download going overnight, if what we were getting had a good reception by the rest of the community. And DSL/cable isn't exactly a rarity in this day and age. Of course we should strive to keep sizes manageable, but so long as the improved graphics quality is proportional to the increased file size, I see no problem.

2) Processing Speed. There's certainly a reasonable limit to this one - I don't want to be forced to run a game in 1600x1200, and I can see why many wouldn't want 1280x1024. But how many of us expect to play games on a computer, that can't handle 640x480? How about 800x600? I'd love to hear some statistics on this. Even if it means I'm no winner, I have a hard time accepting 320x240.

3) TV-Out. This is a big one for me, because I don't see a solution short of buying a HDTV/projector, if someone releases a hi-res game and I want it on my TV.
I'm curious, though: What's commonly plausible on TV-out? I know my own supports 640x480 and 800x600 (any higher and the desktop will scroll with the mouse.. or be stuck at the top-left corner in full-screen games). Is this the norm? Or are many stuck at 640x480? Does it ever limit it lower than that?


Fire away. What resolutions do you prefer, and why?

Verge has serious speed problems at resoultions greater than 640x480. Even a nice little 800x600 will be choppy on most computers if you wanna think about doing anything vaguely ambitious.

But, as grue generally says, the big limitation tends to be art rather than anything else. Most people can make something in 320x240 that looks reasonable, but the bigger you get, the less forgiving the pixels.

Zip

art for 640x480 if done in the same way as 320x240 art will take no less tahn 4x the length for not only tilemaking but also mapmaking.

It usually takes me a full work day to make a nice 100x100 tile map in 320x240.

Time is always an issue when doing things like this.

I used to be real into the idea of 1024x768, then I realized verge wasnt really meant for it. So I decided to go for 800x600, but then I realized that lots of my cool effects I've coded just dont run smoothly. I've settled on 640x480. 320x240 is far too small for me to encourage but thats what duskbane will be in so I cant say too many bad things about it =p

512x384 is where it's at! yeh-yuh!!!!

There are speedier ways to make tiles at double resolution, not only in the specific application of technique but also in the general aesthetic one might want to play with. At any rate you don't have to plot everything one pixel at a time, whether you want to maintain that pixel-art look or not. You can user bigger brush sizes and types, shift-click to do lines, make good use of the magic wand to avoid having to play the stay-in-the-lines game, little shit like that.

But to be sure it takes longer than 320x240, but you can have more refined resources than just the tiles and chars -- menus and fonts come to mind. A menu-heavy game, maybe a strategy rpg sort of deal, seems like it would benefit quite a bit by aiming at a higher res.

I find 320x240 easier on my eyes than 640x480. I also don't really like the constant emptiness people fill 640x480 and above with. 320x240 allows you to fill the screen easier when it comes to GUIs etc.

Grue wins this one. Winners use 320x240!

I think most people's distaste with higher resolution is that they've only learned the one method for artwork generation. Grue specified that it only takes 4x as long if you go about it in the same way as vga art, which tends to involve plotting individual pixels, one at a time. This would obviously not be very efficient in high-res, and thus most people don't do it that way. I tend to work larger and shrink it down, and then edit the final result at pixel level, and I have my own methods to ensure that this looks nice and functions smoothly.

It all depends on your workflow and style. This tileset is over four years old (from a zeromus game idea), and we were aiming for Zelda 3's simplistic and less cluttery style. It also didn't take me but maybe an hour or two longer to put together than the original VGA-res attempt did (which wasn't too long). But as you can see (and the same goes for VGA artwork) you don't need to fill every pixel with detail. Also the foliage came out pretty nice I thought.

(Click the preview for the full deal)


But hey, people should just work with whatever resolution in which they're comfortable. I've played with some extreme low-res cellphone stuff, which is hella fun and challenging, and VGA holds some of that mystique for me still. But I still vote 640x480 for the extra freedom it presents as well as my aforementioned migraine issue with fullscreen 21' gigantic vga pixels all over my eyes.