Pixelation

General => General Discussion => Topic started by: goat on March 21, 2006, 10:50:27 pm

Title: Next Commercial Critique -- Closed (Chaos Engine)
Post by: goat on March 21, 2006, 10:50:27 pm
*caps lock off*

The following commercial pixel thingies have been suggested for critique:


Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga  (http://media.gameboy.ign.com/media/550/550433/imgs_1.html) (2)
Chaos Engine (http://www.mobygames.com/game/amiga/chaos-engine/screenshots)/Speedball 2 (http://www.bitmap-brothers.co.uk/downloads/images/speedball2-gba/index.htm) (Bitmap Bros. stuff) (2)
Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap  (http://www.gamespot.com/gba/action/thelegendofzeldatheminishcap/screenindex.html)
Magical Vacation (http://media.gameboy.ign.com/media/015/015421/imgs_1.html)
Princess Crown (http://media.psp.ign.com/media/704/704779/imgs_1.html) (pending good image source)
Demon's Crest (http://www.mobygames.com/game/snes/demons-crest/screenshots)
Out of This World/Another World (http://www.mobygames.com/game/out-of-this-world/screenshots)

Don't worry, I'll actually go out and get true uncompressed screen grabs for the actual critique :p

Feel free to post your own suggestions or voice your support for one on the list; the game/whatever with the most votes will be critiqued first.

Thread closes Friday 3/24 at midnight,  and the critique can be expected the following Monday.  Vote or die
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: Blick on March 22, 2006, 03:52:31 am
Old Pixelation it was monthly commercial critique, and I think that'd definitely be an easier schedule to stick to. As for games...

Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga would make for an interesting discussion.
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: ptoing on March 22, 2006, 09:40:13 am
I agree about MLSS, we could muse as to wether the strange aa of the black lines to outside makes any sense :D

Also i would be up for someoldschool stuff like Chaos Engine and Speed Ball 2. Lots of stuff to learn there colour reduction and general technique wise.
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: Dhaos on March 22, 2006, 01:53:10 pm
Magical vacation (which had alot of full screen pixel-stills) and Sword of mana would be great as well... or demon's crest, that game was just plain awesome.
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: Rawsushi on March 22, 2006, 04:02:04 pm
Princess Crown

It just got re-released on the PSP, so screenshots are readily available.
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: goat on March 22, 2006, 04:18:29 pm
Updating the list.

Blick: MLSS was just sexy, plain and simple (literally), plus it was developed before the backlit GBAs were popular, so the hue choices (one of the best parts imo) are blindingly apparent.  Good call.  Yeah, I know they were monthly on the old pix, I was just saying that shouldering weekly organized activities at this point might be a bit much, so I'll start here and see how far I can push it :P just wasn't too clear in how I typed it.

Dhaos: Demon's Crest is a game I've been studying the hell out of lately and already have quite a few screenshots to show for it.  I planned on keeping that in my pocket in case other pressing ideas run dry, but if the people want it I am the people's servant :P I've never played Magical Vacation, but I do agree that the meshing of stills and tiled backgrounds is quite impressive.  As for Sword of Mana, you just reminded me how much that game inspired me when I started picking up on GBA techniques.

Ptoing: I definitely think we should give the Bitmap Brothers their juice.  Maybe something along the lines of a lump study sampling a few of their games? A lot of the technique you mentioned is executed fairly similarly in certain games, speedball 2 and chaos engine being two great examples :p As for more older stuff, I'm really itching to do a mass critique of like, Psygnosis and/or DMA, or even Apogee, even though they have a lot of forgettable games.

Monsoon: You mean the (kickass) sprites, right? As I recall the backgrounds were brushed.  Shouldn't be too hard to round up stills of the sprites, animations might be an issue.

This is great guys, keep it up.  It's finals week and I'm retarded-busy atm so I'll let this run a few more days and probably put the critique together over the weekend.  Hopefully we're gonna to keep this selection process a bit more open than the last one without it getting out of hand with like a zillion choices.  Much love.
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: ironwallaby on March 22, 2006, 04:29:47 pm
I put a vote in for some Bitmap Brothers stuff -- they were amazing and I've never taken the time to seriously study the way they construct things. However, that's just my vote -- if other people want something else, then great, it's been forever since I've done anything pixel.
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: ptoing on March 22, 2006, 05:07:06 pm
Games for which we cant get proper screenshots are a bit pointless imo. Blurry jpgs wont do
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: goat on March 22, 2006, 05:43:43 pm
I'll collect lossless screenshots as the games are decided on; at the moment it'd be pointless.  Unless you meant the availability of crisp shots for games like Princess Crown, in which case yeah I was thinking about that.
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: ptoing on March 22, 2006, 06:52:53 pm
yeh that's what i meant. technically i could buy the games and abuse our devkits at work, but guess what. I wont :P
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: crab2selout.png on March 22, 2006, 08:04:29 pm
Wasn't the last CC on sword of mana?
(http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/229/swordofmanatiles012jo.gif)
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: Rawsushi on March 22, 2006, 11:13:32 pm
I'll collect lossless screenshots as the games are decided on; at the moment it'd be pointless.  Unless you meant the availability of crisp shots for games like Princess Crown, in which case yeah I was thinking about that.

I just threw the idea out there because I'd assumed that there'd be decent shots of it. Guess not. In which case, nevermind.
Pity, as the sprites are truly beautiful.
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: Darien on March 22, 2006, 11:31:08 pm
If you only want to do a CC about once a month, why don't we have multiple CC challenges for it?  One for tiles, animation, etc... or whatever.  That'd be sure to keep us occupied for the whole month.
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: Darion on March 23, 2006, 12:02:51 am
Out of This World.
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: goat on March 23, 2006, 01:44:50 am
We didn't do Out Of This World yet? holy crap, that's definitely up there.

Darien: thinking about something like that :p

crabs: probably, I missed a bunch of them a while back.
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: ironwallaby on March 23, 2006, 04:00:35 am
We didn't do Out Of This World yet? holy crap, that's definitely up there.

I'm pretty sure that, like, 2 or 3 years ago we did Flashback and OOTW and it was one of the ones that started the whole commercial critique thing. I think I was the one who pushed Flashback, or maybe it was Helm. Anyway, I loved that game to death.
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: Darion on March 23, 2006, 11:51:42 pm
Nope. We did Flashback, but not Out of This World. I remember the critique on Flasbhack; nothing on Out of This World. I'm pretty sure.

I never beat that game.
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: Xion on March 24, 2006, 02:10:39 am
Yoshi's Island
Blaster Master
Cave Story
Super Metroid
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: Conzeit on March 24, 2006, 06:28:20 am
Yoshi's Island
Blaster Master

backgrounds of YI, and some of the effects in blaster master would be quite interesting to analyze.

I am more interested in what I've posted in the "favorite pixelart thread"

Earth Worm Jim 1-2 -both background tiling and animation are superb

Boktai 1-2-the simple stroke aproach fits the perspective's intrinsical mood perfectly, while still allowing for a great level of aesthetic beauty, hueshifts are also handled beautifully-I already have some screenshot suitable for analysis.

Comix Zone- very well thought out aesthetic proposition used in gameplay's favor, beautifully achieved strong saturation hueshifts, also some very concise and frame effective animation.

Batman1-excellent use of primitive console resources.
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: Rawsushi on March 24, 2006, 07:51:14 am
I can provide fairly decent screenshots of the Saturn version of Earthworm Jim 2 (and possibly Princess Crown as well, if I ever decide to purchase it). They're a bit hard to obtain as Saturn emulation is basically shite.

Example:
http://www.monsoon2d.com/images/thedump/ew2medley.png
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: Niss on March 24, 2006, 11:56:12 am
I just wanted to "voice my support" for chaos engine. The graphics are just lovely!
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: Mr.Modem on March 24, 2006, 01:47:07 pm
My vote goes to Chaos Engine. Make sure you grab screens from the Amiga AGA version: http://hol.abime.net/2984/screenshot or the Dos version.
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: ptoing on March 24, 2006, 02:19:39 pm
My vote goes to Chaos Engine. Make sure you grab screens from the Amiga AGA version: http://hol.abime.net/2984/screenshot or the Dos version.

I beg to differ. Imo the OCS/ECS version looks better with it's more subdued colours. And it was the original development platform as well afaik.
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: baccaman21 on March 24, 2006, 02:32:55 pm
Chaos Engine... wahoo... limited pallette dithering bas relief tastic...!
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: vierbit on March 24, 2006, 03:53:22 pm
My vote goes to Choas engine too.
But take the ECS version.
ptoing explained the reason why.
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: Captain Blood on March 24, 2006, 04:56:51 pm
Do the study on the ECS version as it helps with good color management I reckon but I always preferred the AGA version as I've always had a preference for more vibrant colors in games.  Though apparently I have lousy taste in colors anyway... whatever...

Anyway this is my last post here and my last visit.  Just hasn't been feeling right for me here.  I've had enough...  see ya around.
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: Lick on March 25, 2006, 11:14:43 am
Vote #1: Magical Vacation. I really want to play this game, but my GBA is demolished. (Time to get a DS Lite! C'mon! Release in Europe!)
Vote #2: Zelde: The Minish Cap.
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: Panda on March 25, 2006, 02:59:38 pm
My vote goes for Chaos Engine aswell.
Didnt really know about it before this (heh shame on me I guess) but after seeing screens and stuff, thought it had amazing graphics and would like to know more about it.
So yeah.
Title: Re: NEXT COMMERCIAL CRITIQUE -- SUGGESTIONS
Post by: goat on March 25, 2006, 04:24:47 pm
Chaos engine by a landslide!

Screenshot farming begins... now :p