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[amateurhour]

Having a little bit of creator block right now and I'd love some feedback from you all. I'm starting development of my first real game. For the last year I've worked on engines and sprite art and just been learning and I'm ready to actually begin development of something, from start to finish.

It's a science fiction story and it's going to be a mix of dark comedy and adventure, and I'd like to come up with a good control scheme. I've got player sprites that are based off a 64x64px box and I want to keep it 16:9 resolution, which leaves me with three options for gameplay.

1) Go full on 640x360 which at 64x64 makes it more Hyper Light Drifter-esque. I like this but it's been done so many times and the focus of my game isn't combat necessarily.

2) Go with a lower 320x180 grid which feels like the "just right" of my three options and allows for some exploration in either a fake depth top down style or a side scrolling platformer style.

3) Go with a letterboxed 320x90 grid which makes it more like a Lone Survivor/Maniac Mansion style, which is cool but going that low will limit my ability to move to pretty much just left and right. I'm okay with this because I want to focus more on exploration and story but it really does kill my combat possibilities or at least limit them severely if I wanted to have a nice boss fight, unless I went for a more beat-em-up combat style.

I'm just kind of stuck between the three ideas and would appreciate some feedback on which one might seem better to you or what you'd expect in a control/combat scheme from each one.

Thanks!

[cynicalsandel]

No option is better than the rest. It doesn't matter. You can make a good game at any resolution. Try all 3. Prototype them. Figure out which one you like best. Every game goes through iterations. It's part of the development process.

You probably could've created 3 mockups in the time it took to type this and post it.

There is no "creator block". You have a story, setting, etc. Just start doing it.

[ProgramGamer]

No option is better than the rest. It doesn't matter. You can make a good game at any resolution. Try all 3. Prototype them. Figure out which one you like best. Every game goes through iterations. It's part of the development process.

You probably could've created 3 mockups in the time it took to type this and post it.

There is no "creator block". You have a story, setting, etc. Just start doing it.

I support this, but I'll give you some advice, if you're gonna prototype all three resolutions, do it in a way that doesn't take you ten hours. Iterate quickly to see what works and what doesn't. I would spend a bit more time on the more unique ideas however because they have probably not been given proper inspection in the past, and therefore might hide some golden opportunities.

Also, if you're going to restrict the resolution so much, at least put the HUD in the black stripes.

[amateurhour]

No option is better than the rest. It doesn't matter. You can make a good game at any resolution. Try all 3. Prototype them. Figure out which one you like best. Every game goes through iterations. It's part of the development process.

You probably could've created 3 mockups in the time it took to type this and post it.

There is no "creator block". You have a story, setting, etc. Just start doing it.

I support this, but I'll give you some advice, if you're gonna prototype all three resolutions, do it in a way that doesn't take you ten hours. Iterate quickly to see what works and what doesn't. I would spend a bit more time on the more unique ideas however because they have probably not been given proper inspection in the past, and therefore might hide some golden opportunities.

Also, if you're going to restrict the resolution so much, at least put the HUD in the black stripes.

That's the plan. I want to have the inventory/HUD in the letterbox. I guess my point is more toward combat, similar to the other topic in this thread. Is it okay to have a little bit of combat to favor more exploration? I know Lone Survivor did this well but I also know that the only real boss fight was a pretty limited affair.

I'll just play around with it and see what I end up liking, but feel free to keep the advice flowing : )

[cynicalsandel]

I guess my point is more toward combat, similar to the other topic in this thread. Is it okay to have a little bit of combat to favor more exploration? I know Lone Survivor did this well but I also know that the only real boss fight was a pretty limited affair.

Okay, I removed this from my original post because I didn't want to infer meaning you weren't putting into your posts, but again I get the same feeling. It feels like you are looking for permission to make a game. Creation (especially indie) is about making what YOU want to make. If you want to make a game mostly about exploration feel free.

[amateurhour]

Alright, there is some confusion here. I'm not looking for permission to make a game. I'm asking for advice. I'm at a crossroads where one of three play styles would work well for my game but I'm having a hard time deciding which one that is so I wanted to ask this community which style of game they prefer to get kind of a litmus test before I got too far into development. I definitely could have posted the thread title and or original post better in that regard but it is what it is.

[cynicalsandel]

There is no confusion. (At least not on my end.) I suppose I have been vague, but that was only to avoid being rude. It can be difficult for me to find nice ways to say things.

The only thing that differentiates your game and someone else's game is YOU. My point is that you need to have confidence in yourself as a game designer. Anyone can make a game with crowdsourced design.

[JWK5]

Pick one at random, go with it for a bit. If it feels right stick with it, if not go back and explore one of the other options. Repeat. Eventually you will have picked the right option.

[Jordgubben]

I don't really have any opinion/advice on aspect-rations, but is there any particular reason that you want to go with such low resolutions as 640x360? A modern laptop screen has roughly 25 times as many pixels (2880x1800). What you are describing does not sound like a game for "smartphones".

High and low resolutions is probably also something you want to experiment with early.

[cynicalsandel]

640x360 upscaled 3x = 1920x1080.

[JWK5]

I am going with a 16:9 res of 576x1024 which seems to be a happy medium for what I am trying to do.


Also, this is incredibly accurate: