Sunday 7 September 2008

The lost art of the low rez


When i was a kid games had pixels the size of a babys head, 800x600 resolutions were this weird holy grail and PC screens were about 15" and an 8mb graphics card was the talk of some kind of babbling futurist madman.
But these limitiations caused a strange thing: good bright designs. Think about your favoite games pre 2000, think about the mario games, the sonic games, theme hospital/park. these were games where being bright and clear to make things out wasnt just nice, it was vital to there funciton. Now look at Gears of War, brown men on grey worlds killing brown and grey monsters.
I've herd software designers working in 1990 talk about how starting small forced them to make correct design decisions. maybe we in our world of high-def screens, phong shading and textured bump mapping have indeed lost something: how to make a good, simple design

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