Yesterday's Pixels, Today
Ramsey Nasser's "Restricted Airspace," inspired by Star Fox, features a thick pixel aesthetic with low resolution and flat shading. He offers a tutorial using Three.js for retro game design techniques.
Read original article
Ramsey Nasser discusses his recent project, "Restricted Airspace," a third-person aerial shooter inspired by the original Star Fox, set in a 1890s Beirut. This game marks a shift in Nasser's focus towards aesthetics over mechanics, specifically utilizing a "thick pixel" style characterized by low resolution, pixel-perfect lines, flat shading, and a constrained color palette. He outlines his approach to achieving this aesthetic, emphasizing the importance of rendering resolution versus display resolution, and the use of lines and points for precise pixel representation. Nasser also highlights the significance of flat shading, which ensures uniform color across polygon faces, and the use of constrained palettes to evoke the visual style of early 90s games. He provides a step-by-step guide on how to implement these techniques using Three.js, encouraging experimentation with the examples provided. The article serves as both a reflection on his artistic journey and a practical tutorial for developers interested in retro-inspired game design.
- Ramsey Nasser's game "Restricted Airspace" features a thick pixel aesthetic.
- The game is inspired by the original Star Fox and set in a historical context.
- Key elements of the aesthetic include low resolution, pixel-perfect lines, flat shading, and constrained palettes.
- Nasser provides a tutorial on implementing these techniques using Three.js.
- The article encourages developers to experiment with retro game design styles.
Related
Asteroids Game in Racket (2021)
The article details implementing the Asteroids game in Racket, focusing on a game and physics engine within 1000 lines of code, enabling spaceship control, collision detection, and user interaction.
My favorite tools and techniques for procedural gamedev
Casey Primozic shares his procedural game development techniques, focusing on seamless textures, custom shaders, AI-generated textures, and volumetric effects, while exploring future applications like Constructive Solid Geometry for 3D manipulation.
Below the Root: A story, a computer game and my lifelong obsession (2015)
The author reflects on how the 1984 game "Below the Root" inspired their programming career, leading to the development of "The Dreamsong" while facing challenges with rights and modern technology.
Isometric Projection in Game Development
Isometric projection is vital in game development, offering a unique visual style with 120-degree angles. It contrasts with orthographic and perspective projections, enabling both retro and modern games to simulate 3D environments.
Crafting a 13KB Game: The Story of Space Huggers
Frank developed "Space Huggers," a 13KB run-and-gun roguelike for the Js13kGames competition, using his LittleJS engine. The game features procedural levels, cooperative play, and a 16-bit art style.
12 commentsThat's not to say this aesthetic is "bad" (I'm actually quite fond of it and similar styles too) but just that it's absolutely nothing like the emulated Star Fox screenshots being used as the target suggest. If yesterday's pixels is the goal then this is missing the main part of what made those pixels look the way they did.
For those who haven't seen games like this on the typical technology of the era: this is a photo of LCD output using a similar path as taken here, a photo the same with a CRT emulation shader, and a photo of an actual CRT (don't take this one CRT to be gospel of what every CRT output from all of time looked like) https://i.imgur.com/lo8ytRq.jpeg
Look at this for example (CRT left, “perfect” pixels right): https://cdn.xcancel.com/pic/orig/media%2FFQI0t9PacAALT14.jpg
Many more examples here: https://xcancel.com/CRTpixels
Typing this I remembered "A short Hike" similarly had the option to disable it and I also preferred it disabled. It wasn't as important as it is slower paced though.
The way smooth parallax and sometimes different pixel sizes (!) show up in “retro” games is a huge pet peeve of mine.
(spotted this because the "unfinished Blender PR" mentioned was merged several years ago)
Related
Asteroids Game in Racket (2021)
The article details implementing the Asteroids game in Racket, focusing on a game and physics engine within 1000 lines of code, enabling spaceship control, collision detection, and user interaction.
My favorite tools and techniques for procedural gamedev
Casey Primozic shares his procedural game development techniques, focusing on seamless textures, custom shaders, AI-generated textures, and volumetric effects, while exploring future applications like Constructive Solid Geometry for 3D manipulation.
Below the Root: A story, a computer game and my lifelong obsession (2015)
The author reflects on how the 1984 game "Below the Root" inspired their programming career, leading to the development of "The Dreamsong" while facing challenges with rights and modern technology.
Isometric Projection in Game Development
Isometric projection is vital in game development, offering a unique visual style with 120-degree angles. It contrasts with orthographic and perspective projections, enabling both retro and modern games to simulate 3D environments.
Crafting a 13KB Game: The Story of Space Huggers
Frank developed "Space Huggers," a 13KB run-and-gun roguelike for the Js13kGames competition, using his LittleJS engine. The game features procedural levels, cooperative play, and a 16-bit art style.