2D Technology & Resolutions

[BigZaphod]

Hey folks! First I just want to say this is my first posting here and I'm currently toying with an idea for an indie game. I have found all the postings here to be a phenomenal resource and filled with inspiration and motivation. Very cool stuff. Today I spent most of the day reading Dexterity's site which I found thinks to links from this forum. :-) Anywho...

My current idea is a 2D puzzle-style game (no, not a matching pick-3 one ;-). I've been thinking of using OpenGL as the base simply because I have some experience with it, want to be cross platform (win/mac), and have been working on prototype approaches and they seem to work well. Plus it would allow for some potentially interesting special effects on occasion.

Is it safe to use OpenGL like this and still get a decent number of sales? It is more of a casual gamer type of thing, I think, and I sort of worry about support issues. It seems most systems have OpenGL these days, but it isn't always very fast without the proper drivers installed. Anyone using OpenGL for something like this? What have your results been like?

My other primary question is, what resolution should the art be in? I really don't know how much artwork would cost, but I'm betting I don't have the resources to get a bunch of art made for many different resolutions. How is this normally handled? Do you target your games for 640x480 or 800x600 and just live with that? Including the stretching when you go full screen?

Thanks, and I hope my questions aren't out of line or something. :)

[Mark Sheeky]

Personally I always aim for a 640x480 display. It might be kind of old fashioned but even on a big monitor 1024x768 is a bit over the top in my opinion. I can't comment on the OpenGL issue because I use DirectX (apart from saying that speed shouldn't be a problem nowadays).

Mark
Sound Effects For Game Developers
http://www.indiesfx.co.uk

[princec]

This is very much a FAQ now.

Cas :)

[aiosup]

My current idea is a 2D puzzle-style game (no, not a matching pick-3 one ;-). I've been thinking of using OpenGL as the base simply because I have some experience with it
Since you seem to be learning, why not going for something more at hand for 2D puzzle games, like SDL (http://www.libsdl.org)? OpenGL can be quite tricky to master for these kind of games...

want to be cross platform (win/mac), and have been working on prototype approaches and they seem to work well. Plus it would allow for some potentially interesting special effects on occasion.
Hmmm, I would still go for SDL for portability and all...

My other primary question is, what resolution should the art be in? I really don't know how much artwork would cost, but I'm betting I don't have the resources to get a bunch of art made for many different resolutions. How is this normally handled? Do you target your games for 640x480 or 800x600 and just live with that? Including the stretching when you go full screen?
I've already seen many games that go 800x600 and just fill up the space on the margins when the user's resolution exceeds this... Stretching is difficult when you want to have nice glittery things (as I assume you would want for your puzzle), but goes well for cartoon-like shapes.

[Ronkes]

I recently discovered (http://www.ronkes.nl/blog/?2004-11-21-engine) the SDL libraries (http://www.libsdl.org) and I think it might work well for you, too.

As to the screen resolution, I design my graphics for 800x600. The user can change the resolution, which will result in the graphics being stretched or shrunk. Obviously, it's wise to check whether the graphics scale well.

I'd strongly advise against fixing the resolution. If your game runs windowed, 800x600 may cover someone's entire desktop, but 640x480 can be a small window when you run on high resolution. Also, TFT monitors have one resolution at which they work best. In my experience, when running full-screen on these monitors you often get better quality letting the game stretch the graphics than leaving it to the monitor.

[BigZaphod]

I've been toying with SDL for about 3 years and I like it quite a bit. In fact my mockups have been using SDL as a basis to get into OpenGL mode and to handle user input and image reading (using SDL_image) since it is nice and easy to use that way. :)

As for complexity, I have been building a C++ library over time that, as it turns out, is very similar to PTK (which I just discovered last week) in how it works. I can easily do 2D OpenGL and have it appear to my code to be something far simpler.

BTW, for those new to SDL (Ronkes ;)), there is a version out there called glSDL which is the same friendly 2D SDL interface, but uses OpenGL to implement it so that you have hardware accelerated 2D without having to know anything about OpenGL. I haven't actually used that since I've sort of accidently been implementing my own method for doing that, but it is there. Of course it still raises the issue of OpenGL compatibility. :)

My biggest problem is that I don't understand the market/business as I've only messed around with this as a hobby and never as a profession or commercial venture (although at this point, it is still a hobby--I just am feeling motivated to expand). So I was kind of hoping that some of you who have released 2D OpenGL games (or games using PTK or glSDL, since they are more or less the same thing) could chime in and let us know how it has worked and if there's been massive compatibility/slowness issues or what-not.

I admit.. I prefer the idea of using OpenGL, but before I ran across here I had just assumed OpenGL was safe to use these days in that most everyone had machines that can run with it (even low end ones). Now I'm not quite so sure, though.

[Fish-Guy]

640x480 is a good target size to start with. some things I have experienced with my players is they complain that their resolution is too small to display PilesOTiles (whose minimum resolution is 800x600). There really are people out there who don't realize their monitor could be bigger! One lady even told me that her systems admin makes her have it set that size for the mainframe stuff she does. Quite silly when your used to bigger displays. Heck, I dont like anything less than 1280x1024.

If you really want to add larger support, you could have a resolution option that will let the player adjust screen size, and load larger, better images for that resolution so you don't get the problems with shrinking/stretching. It would depend on the size on disk, though for some this really isn't an issue. Maybe add just the two options to start with? I assume SDL let's you change resolution on the fly, don't use it personally so can't answer that =)

[BigZaphod]

640x480 is a good target size to start with. some things I have experienced with my players is they complain that their resolution is too small to display PilesOTiles (whose minimum resolution is 800x600).

Wow! I thought those days were long gone. Thanks for the info! :)

I assume SDL let's you change resolution on the fly, don't use it personally so can't answer that =)

I don't have tons of experience using it for its 2D API (mostly I use it to setup OpenGL and then go have fun there). However, I don't think SDL has the ability to stretch surfaces. Not natively, anyway. *consults Google* Looking around it appears there's at least one SDL lib which will do stretching, though.

I like the idea of building a couple different sets of graphics for different resolutions. I suspect, though, that from an art perspective, this would be quite expensive (since I lack the skills to do the art myself, sadly).

Perhaps sticking to 640x480 is a good idea for me. Or maybe 800x600 and then scaling down for those users that want that. Hmm.. I wonder if it'd be worth it to try to detect the current desktop resolution settings and then use that as a basis for choosing the initial resolution? That'd be interesting. Of course there'd still be a preference option then for going full screen (or not) with 800x600 or something like that. Thoughts?

[James C. Smith]

Do you target your games for 640x480 or 800x600 and just live with that? Including the stretching when you go full screen?


Most 2D games are designed for a specific resolution. (usually 640 x 480 or 800x 600). When they go full screen they usually change the resolution of the monitor to the games resolution. It would hardly call this stretching but it can be a little bad on LDC monitors. If you are running full screen then the user’s desktop resolution really doesn’t matter. But that will come into play if you run in a window. FYI: Windows XP requires a desktop resolution of at least 800 X 600. It doesn’t allow the user the change the desktop to 640x 480. Games can still use 640 x 480 in full screen mode, but when you are running in a Window you don’t have to worry that the desktop could be that small. Of course, this doesn’t grantee much since many users don’t have XP, but it is just a sign of the trend away from the dreaded 640 X 480 desktop resolution.

For what it’s worth, all my games have pre-rendered art (2D) and run at 800 X 600 and default to full screen. Some of them have an option to run in a Window. None of them try to accommodate other resolutions.