Tuesday, January 31, 2012

1-31-12 - Screen Res Change and Other Things



I've been working tirelessly on the editing software for the game in the past week or so. Staying up all night to work on it and sleeping/doing other life related things during the day. The Tile Data editor has been finished and is ready to use and so now I'm now busy working on the map editor. I'm hoping to make some headway into that tonight!

So... with the newer tile/map system being put into place there will also be some slightly notable changes to the game because of it.

The new map system now supports three basic layers for the tiles (more easily manageable than the 2 layer system of the recent demos), and the in-game entities (enemies, items, ponies, etc) are much more easy to manage. There's a new shading system which allows me to darken/lighten scenery with a somewhat dramaic result...

Annnnd the screen is twice as large then it used to be!

That's right, I've decided to up the resolution of the screen from the standard Gameboy Advance resolution to the old school dos res of 320 x 240.

I originally went with the GBA res because I thought it would be cool to make it feel like an actual GBA game. But over time I started wondering if I should expand it and give the game a bit more room to breath. And so we have the mock-up result in the supplied image of this post.

I would seriously like to hear some opinions about the sudden change... Does it seem to benefit the game or does it kinda ruin it?

Your opinions are very much appreciated! :)

3 comments:

  1. Three layers, huh? That reminds me a lot of Lunar Magic, a Super Mario World ROM editor that was quite popular sometime ago. In fact, when you said "like the Mario editors we see flying around sometimes" or something like that, I thought "one of them [Lunar Magic] has a really good interface. Maybe, he's aiming to do something like that...?" Am I right?
    Anyway, with three layers instead of two, the possibilities skyrocket. You can make many things with three layers. If you put the effort, you can make gorgeous things.

    The shading... sounds like it's capable of making lots of different atmospheres. Like in one post you posted a while ago, in where you were showing what you wanted to do with shading: a cave-esque feeling if I'm not mistaken. I can't really remember it now, but I think I saw someting like that.
    There's many possibilities with this. If you do the background darker than the foreground, of the other way around, you can inspire many feelings and undertones. It's impressive what can be accomplished with shadows and shading, huh...
    Oh, and if you add the third layer to the mix, it can get really complex. You know, with a third layer the possibilities double, and if the shading itself has many optins, it can go really crazy. But I don't think you want to do something like that: it would probably turn out to make things unnecesarily difficult.

    The fact that the screen is a bit bigger opens up many possibilities as well. I mean, seriously, because sometimes the screen is too little to see certain things, and with expanding it you give space (duh) so we can do much more things. It's sounds like I'm repeating myself here, but I really mean it. Sometimes, in other games, you just hear [read in Pinkie's voice] "you have to take a leap of faith!" when other platform, or the ground, is nowhere to be seen but should be. It has happened a lot to me, mainly because of camera angles being a little bit faulty, but sometimes the screen isn't big enough to show what's going on, and you just have to take a guess. It really shouldn't be like that.
    So, yeah, I think that the fact of expanding the screen was a smart move. Also, with a bigger screen, you can get away with lots of more things. You can make more complex things, and all that stuff. I just don't know what I was about to say with that, but I suppose that the idea is clear.

    About if it fits the atmosphere, I really don't know. I have never played this game thinking it could fit in a portable console. Perhaps I should try it and see what it feels like. But I don't know, I think that the bigger screen still fits with it being a game. As you said, it's the old DOS resolution, and even when I didn't play those games (I'm a little too young, I think) I still think it fits perfectly for a game.
    I don't know, I may be wrong, after all. I think it's better if others comment on this, so you can have wider opinions about this. It's better that way.

    I hope this didn't turn out to be a big block of repetitions, because I think it should have been a lot shorter. Oh well, I guess it didn't.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "I originally went with the GBA res because I thought it would be cool to make it feel like an actual GBA game. But over time I started wondering if I should expand it and give the game a bit more room to breath. And so we have the mock-up result in the supplied image of this post.

    I would seriously like to hear some opinions about the sudden change... Does it seem to benefit the game or does it kinda ruin it?

    Your opinions are very much appreciated! :) "


    My two cents bigger is better, but I always hated playing games on the GBA that's why I would buy them to support the company but only play them EMUed on the computer.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like the new version, it reminds me of Cave Story, Similar level of graphics to a GBA game, but much more open.

    ReplyDelete