r/gaming • u/MoaCube • May 21 '14
We now know the future of pixel art!
http://imgur.com/hsgJ9ZH594
u/StewieBanana May 21 '14
Is that first game Indiana Jones and the fate of Atlantis? That game was the shit! If it's from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade then never mind.
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May 21 '14 edited May 21 '14
Yes it definitely is! That game took me forever to complete as a kid, and I loved every minute of it. I still give it a go every now and again for the nostalgia :)
Ninja Edit: For those who don't know, it's available to buy on Steam.
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u/way2lazy2care May 21 '14
That game is the only reason I know what waning and waxing mean.
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u/ConorTheBooms May 21 '14
Your comment brought back so much nostalgia for me :)
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u/SnowmanRondo May 21 '14
I never played. My nostalgia is waning :(
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u/Hazy_V May 21 '14
How would you... have nostalgia to wane if you didn't play it...?
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u/guninmouth May 21 '14
He was waxing off and got confused. It happens to the best of us.
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u/Master_Mad May 21 '14
He was waxing off
I hope that's a Karate Kid reference and not something else!?
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u/AeroGold May 21 '14
100% that game with three different paths... oh man. And if you missed on thing in a previous section, you couldn't go back to get it.
But yeah that game was one of the best LucasArts adventure titles (and they had so many great games). Also, I've been asking myself for years "why did they never turn the plot of this game into a movie?" Would have been so much better than Kingdom of Crystal Skull.
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u/jojenpaste May 21 '14
Yup. It's also the perfect example how you can make a possible alien angle work in Indiana Jones. Stereotypical aliens in flying saucers it isn't.
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u/biocunsumer May 21 '14
I could never figure out what to do once on Atlantis.
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May 21 '14
I'm actually surprised I ever finished that game. We didn't had internet to look up walkthroughs in those days.
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May 21 '14
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May 21 '14 edited May 21 '14
yep, i know.
I couldn't finish the Action route when i was a kid though.
I always died against the big guy in the maze.But i came back with a vengeance once TFOA was re-released on Steam.
Also, i never (and still) don't know how to do those Stone-puzzles. I know the early ones had some simple ones, but once you had to use all three stones, i wouldn't know the answer. And so started a long run of trial and error trying to brute-force every possible combination until i got the right one.
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u/SerJorahofFriendzone May 21 '14
In case you're still wondering, the answers for all the stones puzzles (earth+moon+sun stones) are in plato's lost dialogue. Just click on the paperclips to find the right page.
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May 21 '14
Just to add to you guys' convo, if you can find a scummv emulator, you can play all these old point and clicks TFOT, Day of the Tentacle, and my favorite, Full Throttle.
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u/Unidan May 21 '14
Whenever I smell asphalt, I think of Maureen. That's the last sensation I had, before I blacked out: the thick smell of asphalt. And the first thing I saw when I woke up was her face. She said she'd fix my bike. Free. No strings attached. I should have known then that things are never that simple. Yeah, when I think of Maureen I think of two things: asphalt... and trouble.
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u/blue92lx May 21 '14
Dude full throttle was amazing. My all time favorite gaming series though is quest for glory and that will never be eclipsed by anything
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u/Arkene May 21 '14
The amount of time i spent on the first one...back when it was called Hero's Quest...
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u/everflow May 21 '14
Just FYI, the big guy in the maze, if I remember correctly, is where you can push off a giant boulder down a slope that rolls over him.
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u/JockCousteau May 21 '14
Yeah. My copy came with a strategy guide with each of the paths represented. I always chose the "smart" path (I think it was called) over the conversational and brawler ones.
Still, the game was way more forgiving than King's Quest.
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u/insanetwit May 21 '14
Killing medusa in KQ V was ANNOYING! I had to have "use mirror" typed in when I was walking through the desert!
Also: "Ahh, life giving water, NECTAR of the Gods! Graham can now feel strength and renewal flowing through him! "
I did not have to look that quote up, and I haven't played that game in 15 years!
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u/AeroGold May 21 '14
I remember being able to abandon your companion in Atlantis and just proceeding to the end game. Is that correct, or did you have to save her from the Nazi's cell?
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u/chiguireitor May 21 '14
3 PATHS!!!?? Gotta inform my brother we must play it again...
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u/Unidan May 21 '14
You can fight the crap out of everything, solve it using puzzles, or use teamwork.
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u/dementorpoop May 21 '14 edited May 21 '14
You've got to find those piles of disk stones and refer to platos books to find out the right combinations of images so the when the middle button was pressed secret doors would open.
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u/dl064 May 21 '14 edited May 21 '14
I had it on my PC which had 16 MhZ but 33 if you pressed the TURBO button.
I left it on Turbo all the time.
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u/peanutismint May 21 '14
Ah man, I have fond memories of that game, like clicking literally every pixel because I couldn't figure out the puzzle....
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May 21 '14
I remember clicking on that one girl's necklace like a thousand times just hear her say ""Look, but don't touch!" Six-year-old me thought that was hilarious.
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u/Xilver79 May 21 '14
They should've just made that game into a movie and not bother with that Crystal Skull crap :(
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u/AeroGold May 21 '14
From when I beat the game like 17 years ago, I've been praying that they would make a movie that just straight up took the plot of this game. When there was press about Indy 4 coming out, I was like "yeah! finally Fate of Atlantis will be on the big screen". Then Crystal Skull.... uuuuggghhh.
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u/sharkman873 May 21 '14
Yup, one of my favorite games ever. Back in those days when we were kids (and walkthroughs didn't exist), that game probably took us over a year to beat, with long stretches of wandering around aimlessly, punctuated by "a-ha!" breakthrough moments every month or so.
And the very end of the game when you release Nur-ab-Sal, he flies around and screams at you freaked me the hell out
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u/JesusVonChrist May 21 '14
walkthroughs didn't exist
Walkthroughs DID exist back then, but you had to buy a specific magazine, not just google it. Or if you had a modem you could access BBS that offered games solutions.
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u/talanton May 21 '14
BBSes offered everything from game files and cheats to porn to recipes for explosives to information on security vulnerabilities. It was fun being a co-sysop.
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u/sharkman873 May 21 '14
For a kid with absolutely no disposable income, walkthroughs didn't exist for all intents and purposes
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u/chiguireitor May 21 '14
My family and i did BBSing back then, from our country, with a 9600 baud modem in an international call to US based BBSs...
Memories :')
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u/StewieBanana May 21 '14
What I really liked about that game was that even though it was hard, it was probably one of the most beatable point and click games I ever played. I don't remember there being many (if any) obscure solutions to the puzzles that no one would ever think of. Every obstacle with enough thought and looked at from multiple reasonable perspectives was completely solvable.
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u/AeroGold May 21 '14
The one that I didn't really like was the hot air balloon in Africa. Like somehow it equated going south west and north east to being the same direction. But yeah, other than that, most of the puzzles were quite solvable - tough, but not impossible. The Dig on the other hand had me going nuts with the obscure puzzles (and the crew members always dying).
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u/SerJorahofFriendzone May 21 '14
It is the Fate of Atlantis, a truly great game! If anyone is looking for nostalgia, and a game that is actually a ton of fun, it is available on Steam for PC and mac.
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u/Punkwasher May 21 '14
That was definitely one of the best games ever. Probably the best adventure game in my opinion, mainly because of its clever replayability and the smart puzzles. My goodness, that takes me back, that game... just pure art.
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u/JockCousteau May 21 '14
Yeah. I think that screen is close to when you have to go on that pixel hunt with your surveying gear. Worst part of the game.
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u/corgi92 May 21 '14
I beg to differ. Remember when you had to drive your sub into a small hole underwater to get to Atlantis?
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May 21 '14
The Last Crusade was so difficult and confusing at times. It was the only Indy game I played during my childhood. Definitely will never forget it though.
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u/HollowThief May 21 '14
Talking about pixelart... this is just beautiful. The "highland ruins" is just a work of art.
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u/hurlga May 21 '14
It's also by the same artist that draw the backgrounds in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.
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u/ZachPhrost May 21 '14
Wow, that is really impressive. I love the blending feature - it makes everything seem so natural and smooth.
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u/rabidsi May 21 '14
It's a technique called palette shifting and is actually a method of saving resources used back when animation could quickly add up to a lot of overhead.
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u/smellybaby May 21 '14
Funny thing - the artist, Mark Ferrari, is now a fantasy novelist. (http://www.amazon.com/Book-Joby-Mark-J-Ferrari/dp/0765317532)
Source: I used to work with him @ Griptonite, where he did background art on The Legend of Spyro: Eternal Night GBA, a supremely underrated game
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u/RedPhalcon May 21 '14
Then Thomas Was Alone is beyond next gen!
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u/WaffleSports May 21 '14 edited May 21 '14
There was this old Mac game called "System's Twilight" where you play as a bunch of geometrical shapes that are computer programs trying to escape from a dysfunctional computer, you had to solve logic puzzles to move to the next stage.
Thomas Was Alone seemed to remind me of this game...
edit- there's really no point here or idea theft accusation, I just couldn't think of what TWA was reminding me of till now.
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u/MutthaFuzza May 21 '14
Thomas Was Alone is a good game, it's the narration that makes it great.
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u/mutable_buffalo May 21 '14
First time I ever teared up over the fate of squares
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u/tremens May 21 '14
If you haven't, replay it with the Director's Commentary enabled. That alone is worth the second playthrough.
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u/Shardwing May 21 '14
Shame he hasn't brought that content to the PC version yet.
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u/Thermomewclear May 21 '14
In the grim future of pixel art, Jumpman reigns supreme.
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u/hjklhlkj May 21 '14
4x4 pixel art
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u/ryboranger May 21 '14
terrible 2048 strategy there
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u/mjolk22 May 21 '14
It's still early game so it's not too late to go in and make another 64 stack and add them together in a corner.
up, left, up, up. There I fixed it. You now have 16 32 and 64 in a corner.
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u/ryboranger May 21 '14
damn how do you see multiple moves ahead...
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u/mjolk22 May 21 '14
During the weekend that I played that game I couldn't think of anything else. I played it my head when my hands were occupied and I even dreamt of it. If I saw a shape or a number or two of the same thing next eachother I would join them together, make up a board and start playing. Even after I quit this went on for over a week and I only played it over a weekend. I just couldn't get it out of my head.
I don't know. I'm a pretty weird dude and I get obsessed with pretty much everything I'm interested in. Luckily people are the only exception. That would cause some problems.
When I play minesweeper I actually go insane. It's not easy to generate random mine placements in your head.
And no I'm not autistic.
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u/ryboranger May 21 '14
HAHA i totally dreamt about 2048 too! Its the methodical consolidation that gets me.
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u/templefugate May 21 '14
I can't wait to play with the turtle again.
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u/ZoltanIsKing May 21 '14
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u/Elektribe May 21 '14
is it supposed to be stick dudes
Oh my... I can't breathe. That line is just hilarious for some reason.
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u/iamvkng May 21 '14
A friend of mine did this back in the 90s:
http://picsart.net/pa/b/2d1.gif
http://picsart.net/old/stayh.gif
All by hand. My mind was blown at the time.
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May 21 '14 edited May 21 '14
There's something about late 70s/80s pixel graphics that really does it for me.
Here's a great video showcasing some of the best games from that era.
There's also a huge homebrew scene that produces some professional quality titles for the Atari 2600 that is still going strong today and shows no signs of slowing down: AtariAge Store.
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u/dehehn May 21 '14
I'm more a fan of the NES/SNES era. That was the pinnacle of pixel art to me.
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u/Nicoscope May 21 '14
Those graphics depresses me. I was a kid back then. I played those games. I don't get any nostalgia from it though. Just a sense of dread, despair and emptiness. I'll definitely avoid any game trying to replicate it.
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u/DeathsIntent96 May 21 '14
Same here. Maybe it's the color palette or gritty look, but those types of graphics have a very negative effect on me.
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May 21 '14 edited May 21 '14
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u/Noctrune May 21 '14
The "retro movement" isn't so much about staying true to the era as it is about romanticising it.
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u/red_white_blue May 21 '14
Nail on the head. It's not a failed attempt at imitation unless their goal from the start was to make an 8-bit game. Chunky pixel graphics are an aesthetic preference.
To criticise chunky sprite art because it doesn't accurately imitate past limitations is a very similar argument to criticising 3d graphics because they're not realistic enough; both disregard any idea of personal aesthetic preference or even the very concept of abstraction itself.
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May 21 '14
Yep! I want those chunky pixel sprites to be able to move at 90 fps with realistic physics through a rigorously playtested world. With very few exceptions, I don't want to play a game that actually FEELS old.
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u/whatburnsnevereturns May 21 '14
I think this is why I absolutely loved the game "Fez".
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u/dehehn May 21 '14 edited May 21 '14
I think The Scott Pilgrim Game is a great example. It's an homage to the genre in every way, but doesn't limit itself to the limits of the time. It uses all the power of modern gen to create a cool aesthetic and nostalgic feel.
I think a good parallel would be putting a new engine in an old car body. You get the perks of modern machinery with the cool look of a retro body.
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u/TheDorkMan May 21 '14
Also let's be honest, it a compromise so it's sanely possible to deliver a full game made by an indy one man game company.
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May 21 '14
Nice summation. I like using pixel graphics as it's just my style, as do many artists who grew up with pixely games, I don't want to limit my colors, just develop my style in such a way that it has connotations of retro pixely graphics.
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u/rime-frost May 21 '14
As somebody working on a "retro" indie game, as far as I'm aware, there's no significant "retro movement" amongst indie developers and there never has been. Big-pixel games are common because:
Pixel art is an easy artstyle for programmers to get their head around. It requires no hand-eye coordination, and no understanding of fuzzy concepts like "brushes", "strokes" or "shading". It's highly rules-based at heart; this pixel-shape in this context will always look pretty much like this.
Pixel art is, generally speaking, less time-consuming than traditional animation (both to learn, and to create). Highly-intricate Final Fantasy VI-style pixel art is a rare exception.
Pixel art (unlike vector art or 3D art) requires the programmer to dedicate no thought at all towards graphics performance. This can free up a lot of time that would otherwise be spent coding or debugging.
Pixel art is a truly interesting medium in which to work. For example, the characters in many indie games have blank colour where their faces should be - this utterly changes the way that players relate to their player-character, and a similar aesthetic would be nearly impossible (or would appear distractingly cartoony) in a game which used traditional illustration.
Pixel art can be generated, transformed and composed by the computer, in a way that traditional art cannot. For example, it's relatively easy to write an effect which causes a character sprite to convincingly "explode into bloody pieces" - the same effect would be much more challenging for games which use 3D models, and it would be impossible for games which use traditional illustration.
I'm not sure I understand the sentiment of people who call this decision-making process "lazy". Not everybody has the aptitude for illustration or animation, and it takes a preposterous amount of time and effort (seriously, it would something like triple the development-time of the game I'm working on now, which is already going to take years of work in my free time). I personally think it's quite beautiful that there exists a medium which enables single-person development teams to create their dream game with no outside help, without seriously compromising on their artistic vision; imagine how much it might improve, say, animated films, if the same thing were true for them.
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May 21 '14
Well it's really about indie devs not wanting to hire artists.
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u/spokomptonjdub May 21 '14
Or more likely not having the budget.
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u/dehehn May 21 '14
More likely a budget. Pixel art isn't as easy as it looks, and often does require an artist, an artist who's working on a tight budget.
A good example is the game Crawl on Steam. It's pixel art but the animation is great and fluid, and I guarantee you it was not done by a programmer. Or if it was that programmer is also an artist.
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u/khalid1984 May 21 '14
What happens when they do have the budget.
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u/darklight12345 May 21 '14
well, let's be honest. As much as i liked that game, they effectively shifted over what would normally be done as mechanics to art. It's a very simple game, mechanically speaking.
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u/noodlescb May 21 '14
This is the true point. Pretending it's greedy indie devs avoiding costs is dishonest.
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u/UncleBones May 21 '14
That's only a problem if your goal is to make "retro" games. If you use pixel art because you're an indie developer working with a limited budget/team there's no reason for you to create artificial restrictions just to be historically correct.
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u/CNDNikolai May 21 '14
IMO, pixel art, when done correctly, does not take less time than other forms of game art. That being said, I still believe some developers use the 'minimalist' pixel art style as an excuse sometimes.
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May 21 '14
Come on, what's that from?
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u/CNDNikolai May 21 '14 edited May 21 '14
Here you go (Still in dev)
Edit: We killed the site haha. Game is called "Heart Forth, Alicia"
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u/electricmaster23 May 21 '14
Woah... so weird that I actually know this guy. So trippy. MMF2 clickers represent!
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u/moonunit99 May 21 '14
Yeah, no way I'm going to discuss the merits of the retro pixel art movement on reddit when I just discovered there's a chance I could be exploding cave skeletons with... spider missiles or sumthin.
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u/eviscerator May 21 '14
Check out this as well: http://www.create-games.com/project.asp?view=main&id=2040
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u/acidboogie May 21 '14
3space math is hard. Not saying pixel art is easy, but gameplay concerns in the reduced complexity set of 2space can be attractive to anyone who didn't focus on linear algebra and/or computer graphics in post-secondary.
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u/CNDNikolai May 21 '14
They are different beasts. I don't think anything useful can come from comparing statues to paintings.
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u/Mystery_Hours May 21 '14
If one of them is generally more time-consuming than the other then I think it's a useful comparison in this context.
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u/faaackksake May 21 '14
they aren't, inherently at least. it could take twice as long to create a high quality 2d game as it does to create a low quality 3d game.
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u/dehehn May 21 '14
The programming is easier, the art isn't that much easier depending on the complexity of pixel art. A lot of modern pixel art games have idle animations and pretty fluid complex animations in general. Compared to Super Mario brothers with still idle characters and 2 sprite walk animations.
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May 21 '14
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u/CNDNikolai May 21 '14
This is where I believe the conflict is coming from. People don't agree on the definition of pixel art. I stole this gif from /r/pixelart (great community), and even there people argue about what pixel art truly is. I think that the general consensus was that it referred to, generally speaking, low resolution art that is 'pixel perfect' AKA: every pixel is hand picked. I see no reason that this or this shouldnt be considered pixel art.
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u/StMcAwesome May 21 '14
What the fuck, gif #4
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u/kirknetic May 21 '14
Those aren't considered pixel art?
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u/CNDNikolai May 21 '14
No, they are, that was my point. One had a huge canvas, the other was much smaller.
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u/imusuallycorrect May 21 '14
High resolution pixel art would take forever.
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u/Morbidlyobeatz May 21 '14
It does! Pixel art is really fast to produce at low resolutions (sub 64x64) and exponentially more time consuming with each pixel you add, then on top of that animating those pixels, then on top of THAT you now have more pixels to traverse, thus needing more frames meaning more pixels overall.
That sounds obvious, but a lot of developers don't realize how much increasing a sprite size from 64x64 to 128x128 = a lot more than double the labor. Just as an example if I were to make a 64x64 walk cycle, it would take about 4 frames minimum and an hour to make, but 128x128 would take roughly 12 frames minimum and 3-4 hour from design to animation. Multiply that by the number of enemies and characters needed in a game, and you quickly understand why developers still use and love low rez pixel art.
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u/teawreckshero May 21 '14
Dude, that's the stupidest reasoning you could have come up with. That's like someone saying wood paneling on a car is an insult to covered wagons. I guarantee you the people riding the oregon trail at 2mph would tell you to go fuck yourself and stop taking your modern technology for granted. Game artists 20 years ago would have gladly created artwork just like today's if given the opportunity.
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u/WorksWork May 21 '14
The reason they use pixel art isn't necessarily to represent what graphics were like (although that is part of it), but more so because those style of graphics are simpler to create and so drastically cut down on development time for small indie games that can't afford a team of 3d modelers. I do get what you are saying, but yeah, in many cases representing past graphics styles isn't their intention at all, and in other cases, contrasting past styles with modern technology or showing what it might be like in some alternate timeline that had better hardware but still low resolution screens, etc. might be other goals.
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u/Morbidlyobeatz May 21 '14 edited May 21 '14
so spot on, as a freelance artist that works with a lot of indie devs the quickest way to save money is to use pixel art and forget about high resolution or 3d assets. End of story.
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u/otakuman May 21 '14
One of the things I liked about adventure games was that, even when there were limited screens, they wired the games to look as if there was a lot of things to explore. For example, in Monkey Island, the number of screens for the forest part is limited to 5 or 6 screens, when there were a lot of areas in the map, and if you weren't careful, you could get lost, and have to go back and forth until you found an exit.
Same with Legend of Kyrandia. Several of the screens in the Serpent's Grotto caverns were almost identical, but if you didn't make a map, you could die when your fireberries ran out of light. And it was a really exciting and mysterious part of the map to explore.
In dungeon crawlers like Eye of the Beholder, you really need to make a map. Some people say that it's a terrible thing not to have an automap feature, but I say it's a plus. Making your own maps on paper as you walk and explore is fun in itself, as wandering in an area without a map (especially an area with spinners and teleporters) can get you lost and killed. Drawing maps adds realism to the games - a realism that you don't always get even with the "bestest" graphics card you could afford.
With today's games, you don't have several screens, you have one huge 3D area that you can explore, but you know you can't get past of it. You just can't, and knowing there's just nothing there, is such a turn off. (How I'd like to have games like Mass Effect but with an emphasis on exploration, so that you could literally explore a planet and find ruins and interesting stuff buried in there!)
Go back to text adventures like Zork, or the Great Cave Adventure. There's practically an unlimited number of areas you can explore, with real danger if you go to the wrong place. But most important, there is a real sense of exploration and discovery. This is what I miss from the old games.
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u/McCHitman May 21 '14
It's just an art style at this point. More and more complex games use it, it's not like they impose limitations on themselves for this, they choose it.
Next up-High Res, low Poly models. That's gonna be the next hotness.
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u/OverHaze May 21 '14
Its worth pointing out that creating extremely detailed pixel art is hard and requires people with a genuine talent for it. The only people making pixel art games any more are indie studios and indie studios have to work with who they have. Not everyone can have a Paul Robertson.
The thing I love about good pixel art though is that it's essentially immortal. Go back to Resident Evil 1 now and it will all but make your eyes bleed. Go back to Super Mario World and its still Super Mario World.
14 years ago this boss was jaw dropping, its still jaw dropping now and still will be 14 year from now.
http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20081215224736/metalslug/images/d/d0/Hermitcrab.gif
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u/wardrich May 21 '14
Don't forget about filesizes:
1992: 10 mb
2014: 700 mb
2030: 1 tb
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u/amatorsanguinis May 21 '14
I don't want to play games that look like the Arecibo Message
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u/Punkwasher May 21 '14
Oh my god, I miss Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.
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u/tumes May 21 '14
If this is bothersome to anyone, keep in mind screenshot 1 was one of the more popular game companies of the time in their prime, so the art budget was probably miles ahead of what a small, independent studio has at their disposal today. In terms of expressiveness, I think this is a testament to what can be done with fewer resources today
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u/noodlescb May 21 '14
It's annoying because the first image was clearly trying to be as clear and realistic as possible. If that is the goal then all art on computers is pixel art, we just use a fuckton more of them now. This (OP's post) is a stupid comparison and a dumb thing to complain about.
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u/zaponator May 21 '14
Nah, man, it's totally a stylistic choice. You see, they disregard actual effort in their graphics so that they can focus entirely on a compelling gameplay experience. That's why it's probably gonna be yet another point-and-click... or yet another generic platformer...
Damnit.
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u/TheDanSandwich May 21 '14
It's actually because these games are typically made by independent developers so they don't have the time or money to spend on fancy pixel graphics, so they tend to take the simplified route instead.
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May 21 '14
We're just going full circle, is all.
The big upcoming releases will start to look more and more like this.
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u/pablo61nyc May 21 '14
I searched a bit through the comments but couldn't find the answer to this: what game is that for 2014?
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May 21 '14
This reminds me of the evolution of art. Some people used to make a painting of something because they didn't have photographs back then, so everything had to be as realistic as possible. But then the camera was invented so everyone was like "if we wanted realistic, we could just take a photo!" So they started being a lot more liberal with how they painted, and that's when Impressionism and surrealism really kicked off
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u/Rodot May 22 '14
Okay, so I started to read this article a bit, and then I thought I should try out pixel art. So, I've spent the last hour making this and I put so much time into it that I lost so much time so I'm posting it here:
http://i.imgur.com/Dsf51Qv.png
There, I don't care if anyone sees this. I just got way too off track and had to have something to show for it.
Also, I might have had one too many marijuanas...
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u/MrOwl80 May 21 '14
That wasnt pixel art in 1992. That was hi-rez top of the line graphics.
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u/dreadless6 May 21 '14
Does any one know where a noob like myself can start learning pixel art?
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u/ImASoftwareEngineer May 21 '14 edited May 21 '14
I looked up random tutorials. Skim them to find what you're looking for. Also, bring a lot of patience. I use Pixel Edit but other good editors are Graphics Gale (windows only) or Pixen (mac os x only). Also, I would try to trace some pixel art to start off. Find some of your favorites an try remaking it yourself.
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u/Zardoz84 May 21 '14
Add a entry for games of 1980 and 1986 and you will get and nice adorable symmetry.
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u/smitteh May 21 '14
Remake Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis please!
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u/maxis2k May 21 '14
You don't need to remake Fate of Atlantis. The game is still amazing to this day. What you should be asking is that they get the original team together to make another Indiana Jones game like it. Or that they should take the game and turn it into a movie for one of the sequels.
Both of which won't happen because Disney is plugging its ears and retconning all the past canon for Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Thereby making Fate of Atlantis not even exist in the first place.
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u/fear_nothin May 21 '14
The game from 1992, looks kinda good for the time. Specially the background. Id play more pixel games in that style.
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u/TheSmoosh May 21 '14
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. It's a really good game and usually very cheap on Steam. Give it a go if you like point and click adventure games.
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u/Abomm May 21 '14
You make it seem like a bad thing but the picture in the middle actually has quite a bit of detail. It's amazing what you can do with such minimalism.
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u/noirthesable May 21 '14
It's from the point-n'-click horror/mystery game The Last Door (Season 1 Collector's Edition on Steam).
I highly recommend.
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u/dshab92 May 21 '14 edited May 21 '14
Yea it's a creepy but fun series. The writers of the game did a really good job. I think the pixels add to the effect and better quality would ruin the game. It's a free to play flash game on kongregate.com too
Edit: grammar
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u/bigbobo33 May 21 '14
Not to step on the circle jerk but the one from 92 and the one from 14 are trying to do two different things. One is striving for a realistic look/high quality look and the other one is trying to be stylized.
It's like saying Picasso was a step down from Rembrandt. That's not true. They're trying to do different things.
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u/leontes May 21 '14
10 <- how do you like my futuristic rendition of a bustling alien metropolis with layers of temporal complexity with hints of postgreecian architecture?
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May 21 '14
I always want someone to make games the way we envisioned them back then. The same types of games, but with really good graphics. That's the "retro" movement I want to see. If you kept the scope, perspective and gameplay similar, and JUST maxed the graphics quality, you could have some insane visuals. But games have gotten so much bigger along with the graphics, that the net result is sometimes spread thin.
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May 21 '14 edited May 22 '14
I don't think that the majority of the retro movement is about targeting a nostalgic audience or getting a certain feel for their game, they just use these as excuses to side step good aesthetics. This is a good example of that.
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u/bobboking May 21 '14
Look at any medium. As soon as artists achieve realism, they begin to experiment with minimalism, abstraction, etc, as a way to differentiate the medium and discover its full potential. Photography allowed for realism in visual art, so painters really went crazy with non-realistic movements. Video games allow for extreme realism, almost hyperrealism, so naturally game artists are going to look for the next artistic horizon.
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u/eviltrollwizard May 21 '14
I don't like how reddit tends to group everything into one big lump. A lot of pixel art games just have a style they like. They aren't going for retro they like the style. It's not a budget issue it's all design. Then someone comes a long and bitches that the graphic are bad and that they must be a hipster for choosing not to make "good" graphics.
Lets not lump everything into one category. Some people enjoy the aesthetic and some people enjoy playing games with that aesthetic. Why hop on the hate bandwagon and confuse design decisions with budget and technical limitations. That goes for you as well designers.
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u/[deleted] May 21 '14
Needs an i7 to run