Graphics Game Resolution - is 400 x 225 acceptable?

GonerBits

Member
Here's my situation. (Tldr at the end if you don't want to read)
I'm making a pixel art game, and I've decided the amount of detail / sprite size I'd like. However, when making game resolutions, I've got a bit of a conundrum.

Making the game 320x240 at a 4:3 ratio with 20x20 tiles provides a nice amount of vertical space for backgrounds, but is really limiting in horizontal space (which I need for gameplay purposes). One bonus is that it's easy to calculate how large a room needs to be on the fly - it's easy to just add multiples of 20 to add a few tiles to the room. 20x20 tiles are also a bit on the small side when compared to my characters.

Making the game 384x216 at a 16:9 ratio with 24x24 tiles fixes the horizontal issue, but the vertical space is just barely smaller than I'd like. The tiles are a better size, but it's harder to compute multiples of 24 than 20, so adding tiles to a room is slightly more of a hassle. It's not that big of a deal overall, but it's still something to consider. 384x216 also multiplies perfectly into 1920x1080, which is the other reason I've been considering it. If 400x225 doesn't work, I'll probably go with this one.

Making the game 400x225 gives me that little bit of extra space I'd been wanting, and it makes the tiles 25x25, which is easy to compute. It doesn't compute perfectly into 1920x1080 though. I like the look of 400x225 the best out of the other options, though.

Tldr: My question is, is 400x225 with 25x25 tiles an acceptable game resolution? What are the downsides or problems going with this? How important is it to get a resolution that scales perfectly into 1920x1080? Should I go with the size that I think looks best even though it doesn't exactly fit? Or should I make a sacrifice in order to make it scale perfectly?
 

curato

Member
If you dig through the yoyo blog entries, there is a nice series on game scaling. There are a few options it does it better justice than I can do.
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
I'm pretty fond of 640x360 these days, it has the benefit that it will fit both a standard 1920x1080 16:9 screen and an ancient 640x480 4:3 screen with integer scaling... covering both ends of the spectrum pretty well. Though since you want a pretty small size I guess half that would be more in line with your plans (320x180).

I usually only make my graphics based off of a 16x16 grid, it was the only possible tile size back in the 8-bit and 16-bit days for technical reasons (a 16x16 tile has 256 pixels, so it can be stored exactly in $COLOR_DEPTH bytes; no waste and super-simple addressing since the data is byte-aligned instead of spread over multiple bytes in the memory) so it kinda looks more "authentic" if you roll with that size... the only problem is that 640x360 isn't divisible by 16 so you get a half tile at the bottom. :V
Though the NES had a horizontal half-tile issue (which was much more visible) so I guess you could argue that the half-tile is just part of the authentic charm?
 

GonerBits

Member
I do like that size (480x270), but my issue with that is that the tile size would either be too large (30x30) or too small (15x15). A 24x24 tile size works horizontally, but you'd get a tile cut off at the bottom of the screen. Which isn't the worst thing in the world, but it's not ideal. I'll keep it in mind, though.
 
D

Deleted member 13992

Guest
I do like that size (480x270), but my issue with that is that the tile size would either be too large (30x30) or too small (15x15). A 24x24 tile size works horizontally, but you'd get a tile cut off at the bottom of the screen. Which isn't the worst thing in the world, but it's not ideal. I'll keep it in mind, though.
To be honest, I wouldn't worry about tiles getting cut off by the screen. I never notice it, either in my game or other games I play.

I would avoid odd-number sized tiles personally. They're supported of course, but when you get into all the speed/direction/etc mathing, even numbers are just easier to set up. Up to you though.
 

Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
Another reason to use even-sized tiles is that GM is a bit wonky with centered origins in sprites with an uneven size, and you get a harder time having the object not get stuck when turning around (etc) because of that.
 

GonerBits

Member
To be honest, I wouldn't worry about tiles getting cut off by the screen. I never notice it, either in my game or other games I play.

I would avoid odd-number sized tiles personally. They're supported of course, but when you get into all the speed/direction/etc mathing, even numbers are just easier to set up. Up to you though.
Hmm, alright then. I might just go with that!
Thanks, everyone!
 

YellowAfterlife

ᴏɴʟɪɴᴇ ᴍᴜʟᴛɪᴘʟᴀʏᴇʀ
Forum Staff
Moderator
I do like that size (480x270), but my issue with that is that the tile size would either be too large (30x30) or too small (15x15). A 24x24 tile size works horizontally, but you'd get a tile cut off at the bottom of the screen. Which isn't the worst thing in the world, but it's not ideal. I'll keep it in mind, though.
Depending on the particular game, you may always cheat by adding decorative borders at the edges of the screen.
 
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