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[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I thought someone would mention that. The avatar is from Destiny of an Emperor 2, as an aside.

I like stylistic art, and retro pixel art can be stylistic. But there are other forms and styles too. Aquaria for instance was stylistic without being retro or realistic.

I just think it's too easy to fall into the 'retro=good' mindset, when in fact a lot of retro graphics were pretty awful. It's only in retrospect that we find things like a Metroid screenshot aesthetically appealing, even back then they probably wished they had more colors to work with than 16 at once on the screen and 4 per tile/sprite.

[darthlupi]

I have to agree with you Rinku, to certain degree. The main reason that I stick to color limits and simple shapes in the games I develop is ease development time.  It's a nice way to limit time spent drawing, and it helps maintain an overall FEEL or STYLE.

In the olden days they were forced to conform to strict rules on sprite size and color due to restrictions of the systems they were developing for.  There were some truly amazing artists, and a lot of their tricks are highly applicable today.

Reasons for "retro" stylized images aside, I find the best way to maintain a nice retro look in a scrolling game in Game Maker is to set the View Sizes like Hideous suggested earlier.

What you do is set the view to something like 319 x 239 and then set the view port 799 x 599, if I remember correctly.  The reason for the one pixel off is to fix a bug that exists in GM6 amd 7 that occurs with certain NVidia cards that leaves a blank pixel between tiles when the port is scaled.  Strange stuff.  Let me know if that works out for ya.

[deadeye]

I thought someone would mention that. The avatar is from Destiny of an Emperor 2, as an aside.

I like stylistic art, and retro pixel art can be stylistic. But there are other forms and styles too. Aquaria for instance was stylistic without being retro or realistic.

I just think it's too easy to fall into the 'retro=good' mindset, when in fact a lot of retro graphics were pretty awful. It's only in retrospect that we find things like a Metroid screenshot aesthetically appealing, even back then they probably wished they had more colors to work with than 16 at once on the screen and 4 per tile/sprite.

While it's true that there is a large nostalgic element to the draw towards pixel-art, I have to say that back in the day we as gamers weren't thinking about "I wish this was better."  There was no better, and no indication that better was coming.  We were all literally in awe at the awesome graphics of something like Mega Man 2 or Super Mario 3.  It was the golden age of console gaming, and we were babes in the woods.

So yes, it did make an impression on me, and I do have somewhat of a bias towards retro pixel art.  But that doesn't mean I don't appreciate what the 360 or PS3 has to offer in terms of visuals.  I just don't place as much importance on visuals in gaming because I remember a time when games were hella fun and looked like shit compared to what we have now.  Whereas what we have now looks amazing but for the most part seems stale, like I've played it all before.

So I'd say that even though I've played thousands of platformers, I still get a kick out of newer, retro-looking platformers just for the sheer nostalgia of it.

[Xion]

Re to the OP:
you could use views to draw a smaller viewing area over a larger view port (ie. view_wview = 320, whereas view_wport = 640 {That may not be the actual name of the variables.}) So you'd be drawing a view with a width of 320 pixels over an area of 640 pixels. This only really works with sprites though, and if you try to draw a line or a circle from functions, it'll have a higher resolution, and if something lies "between" pixels, like with an x of 60.5, it will appear offset from the surrounding pixels which lie on whole number coordinates.
You could also use surfaces, if you have the registered version. It's more, I guess, "true" in that, unlike using views, every pixel drawn on the surface will be enlarged, including things drawn from functions, and pixels that lie outside of whole numbers.


I like "retro" graphics because I find them aesthetically pleasing. Nothing more. Just personal taste. I have just as much appreciation for the high-fi graphics in games nowadays, but I guess I feel more inclined to the pixelly kind because they lie within my artistic abilities as of now, and self-imposed restrictions are fun.

[GP Lackey]

Ah, yeah, I was going to mention the view size/view port thing thing.  I think that also if you're moving objects half-pixels or whatever they won't snap the same way when you scale up? You get some artifacts and tearing sometimes too.

And that's why I say it's a bad example, because I would never want to do that to a character sprite in practice.  It's really just for special effects.

In this case I would make sure to just draw a few rotation frames!

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

While it's true that there is a large nostalgic element to the draw towards pixel-art, I have to say that back in the day we as gamers weren't thinking about "I wish this was better."  There was no better, and no indication that better was coming.  We were all literally in awe at the awesome graphics of something like Mega Man 2 or Super Mario 3.  It was the golden age of console gaming, and we were babes in the woods.

So yes, it did make an impression on me, and I do have somewhat of a bias towards retro pixel art.  But that doesn't mean I don't appreciate what the 360 or PS3 has to offer in terms of visuals.  I just don't place as much importance on visuals in gaming because I remember a time when games were hella fun and looked like shit compared to what we have now.  Whereas what we have now looks amazing but for the most part seems stale, like I've played it all before.

So I'd say that even though I've played thousands of platformers, I still get a kick out of newer, retro-looking platformers just for the sheer nostalgia of it.

That's not fully true, even back then games were marketed based on graphics; NES having better graphics than the Atari, Genesis having better graphics than the NES, Game Gear having better graphics than the Game Boy. A lot of people were concerned about it and people bought games just for their graphics even during the time of the Atari 2600. Remember that Zelda 1 commercial? "Woah, nice graphics!"

[deadeye]

I was mainly thinking of a time before Genesis and SNES came on the scene.

It's true, people were amazed that NES had better graphics than Atari 2600, but the 2600 was released almost ten years prior and didn't really have any cutting-edge competitors.  By the time the whole crash of 83 happened a lot of people had just moved back into the arcades.  When the NES came out it didn't really have any competitors.  Atari was on hiatus.  The NES was pretty much making sales on it's own merits.  I remember Atari did try re-releasing the 2600 a little while later with a new ad campaign with a cheesy rap song ("Under fifty bucks!  Now isn't that nice?" It still gets stuck in my head occasionally), but it never really took off again.

And I don't think that the graphics had everything to do with why the NES did so well.  It also afforded a much deeper play experience than Atari.  The deepest game on Atari I think was probably Pitfall, and even that wasn't "winnable," it just looped over an over again like all the other games.  The NES brought story and narrative to gameplay.  So there was more of an avenue for emotional attachment to NES games that Atari couldn't match.  So when I say we were in awe then, it wasn't just because of the awesome graphics, but that visual style has sort of stuck in my mind as being associated with good times.

Boy, we're really derailing this thread, huh?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Maybe, but even within the NES era games competed graphically with one another and improved over time, there's a big difference between early era NES quality and late era NES quality...

But yes, let's not go off topic too much. I don't mean to discourage people from making retro graphics, I just meant to express concern that if the game developers back then had had the option, they likely would not have chosen to limit themselves to x colors and small resolutions, so I don't see why it's so common among independent game developers today to choose to do so.

I agree that limits often are a good way to produce interesting things, but why not use different limits, like limiting yourself to every shade of blue and no other color, or to sprites that cannot use any dark color (such that you can't outline them in black), or some other arbitrary limit? Those might produce interesting visual styles too.

[William Broom]

The retro look is certainly not just nostalgia. I never had a SNES or NES. The first game I remember playing is Rayman 2. But I still like pixel art a great deal. I don't really know why. I guess, some things just look better pixellated i.e. Street Fighter.

[deadeye]

If the game developers back then had had the option, they likely would not have chosen to limit themselves to x colors and small resolutions, so I don't see why it's so common among independent game developers today to choose to do so.

Likely it's because they share the same nostalgia, and want to target others who do.  Or as others have pointed out, it's a workflow thing.  Smaller, simple resolution is easier than larger, more detailed sprites.  After a fashion, anyway.  It's easier and quicker to make something look ugly-good at low res than good-good at high-res, and still seem somewhat polished.

I've found that doing small-scale pixel work is easier to animate for too.  Animation is a pain in the butt as it is, and getting larger scale stuff to look smooth takes scads of cleanup and refining.  It's time consuming like crazy.  Heck, even Aquaria opted for paper-doll animation rather than hand-drawn frames.  Doing things the low res, ugly-good way gives the artist some leeway.  A lot of indie developers are working on their own, or in tiny teams with no budget, so full on hi-res animation just isn't practical.

some stuff

By the way, I've been meaning to ask... is your user name a Donnie Darko reference?  From that asian chick who was always telling Donnie to "Chut up?"

[Chris Whitman]

By the way, I've been meaning to ask... is your user name a Donnie Darko reference?  From that asian chick who was always telling Donnie to "Chut up?"

I was wondering the same thing, oddly enough.

[Jrsquee]

By the way, I've been meaning to ask... is your user name a Donnie Darko reference?  From that asian chick who was always telling Donnie to "Chut up?"

I was wondering the same thing, oddly enough.

"Go back to China, bitch."

I have to watch that again. Great movie!

[William Broom]

some stuff

By the way, I've been meaning to ask... is your user name a Donnie Darko reference?  From that asian chick who was always telling Donnie to "Chut up?"

Why yes, yes it is...

[Corpus]

I love Donnie Darko
It was my favourite movie for years. Now it's my second favourite.

[deadeye]

Why yes, yes it is...

[William Broom]

Why yes, yes it is...

Printed and framed.

[Akhel]

Oh, the Diabetes Resource Center is giving excellence in user names seals of approval? Awesome! :D

[team_q]

*rerail*

One of the things I hate about flash remakes is it totally breaks the pixel grid look, this just kills it for me for some reason, also the collisions aren't the same.  I didn't have a problem with Cactus's games though even though he had 3 different pixel scales going at the same time and moving all over the place, the funky nostalgic feel remained. I think because he wasn't emulating a particular game.

[necromian]

I thought that you could just scale the image with draw_sprite_ext
That should stop blurring

[Baltirow]

I thought that you could just scale the image with draw_sprite_ext
That should stop blurring

True, but unless you adjust the collision box accordingly, you will get trouble in that area. Next, you will need to find a way to scale tiles and backgrounds too.

It would be a lot more helpful if GM could simply scale everything crisply by default. Heck, GM even has an 'interpolation' mode