Game Resolution vs. Game Fairness

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HandicapableOne

Guest
I am making a platformer. Should I allow any resolution? I am designing around 16:9 aspect ratio but I feel having a super wide ratio would have an advantage? Or does it matter?
 
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XirmiX

Guest
Ooooh, I've a question some-what related to screen size as well: I find it deriving from the experience if you have things stretched to have the screen filled, but depending on the size and shape of your screen, you could get some minor advantage/disadvantage as a result. Anyone who could give advice on what would be the better one to go for? Slightly-out-of-proportion stuff or a minor advantage/disadvantage in gameplay? Or perhaps there's a compromise?
 

RangerX

Member
It doesn't change much anything really. Go with compatibility first.
Therefore go 16:9 :)


Ooooh, I've a question some-what related to screen size as well: I find it deriving from the experience if you have things stretched to have the screen filled, but depending on the size and shape of your screen, you could get some minor advantage/disadvantage as a result. Anyone who could give advice on what would be the better one to go for? Slightly-out-of-proportion stuff or a minor advantage/disadvantage in gameplay? Or perhaps there's a compromise?
A stretched game looks automatically amateur and ugly.
If having different view sizes is having an impact on your gameplay then your scaling solution is not the one your game should have.

The only real way is to scale your game properly. This means no stretch and no influence on gameplay/difficulty and whatnot because X guy is having a higher res monitor.
 
Unless the view distance is a specific part of the gameplay, then it will never really matter.

An example of a game like that may be an RTS, or a rougelike, where what you can see dramatically affects the game, and thus the stuff you can see is carefully limited to ensure balanced play. If you don't have any FOV or fog of war, then it can't be all that important. And if you do you automatically fixed the problem, cause your view is limited by those things before it's limited by screen-size.
 

RangerX

Member
If you don't have any FOV or fog of war, then it can't be all that important. And if you do you automatically fixed the problem, cause your view is limited by those things before it's limited by screen-size.
Wrong.
Most games would actually be affected. In Castlavania you would simply see that secret room that was supposed to be "off screen". In most games you'd see in advance the ennemy placement and the layout, giving you clear advantage. In some horror game? No surprises! In a first person shooter? Better field of view therefore unbalacing the gameplay, etc, etc. I really can go forever.
Reality is that there's only very few games where having a larger field of view because of higher resolution wouldn't damage the game. Tycoon types, RTS (if there's fog) and..... that's about what I can think of from the top of my mind.
 
I usually try to keep it in between, because not everyone will be playing your game on a 16:9 screen. They could have 9:7, 8:5, or 4:3. I found that 9:7 or 8:5 looks best in my opinion: there's a lot of "game" to see without the black sidebars being too annoying. These are the ratios I would recommend if you don't want someone having an advantage/disadvantage. I'm currently developing a game in 9:7 and I forget the black sidebars exist half the time (maybe that's a side effect of testing my game over and over? Eh, whatever.)
 

NightFrost

Member
This makes me wonder how Hyper Light Drifter reacts to different aspect ratios. That game has many hidden secrets. In case you haven't played it, one of them is switches that can be flipped by shooting at them. The hidden ones normally reside slightly outside normal view, and you have to take aim with a rifle so view starts lerping towards aim direction, which reveals them. Their placement seems keyed to 16:9, so other ratios would mess up the whole thing. Maybe they just throw in black bars...
 

RangerX

Member
This makes me wonder how Hyper Light Drifter reacts to different aspect ratios. That game has many hidden secrets. In case you haven't played it, one of them is switches that can be flipped by shooting at them. The hidden ones normally reside slightly outside normal view, and you have to take aim with a rifle so view starts lerping towards aim direction, which reveals them. Their placement seems keyed to 16:9, so other ratios would mess up the whole thing. Maybe they just throw in black bars...
Change your monitor's resolution for 4:3 one and boot the game :)
 

NightFrost

Member
Change your monitor's resolution for 4:3 one and boot the game :)
Ah, simple solutions. :) I switched to 1024*768, so it looked a bit funny as it was attempting to render 4:3 on a 1920*1080 display, but it put black bars at the top and bottom. So it does as jackTurbo says, always draws to a specific size of app surface and blows it up maintaining the 16:9 aspect.

It also seems to do something more than that though. While it has a lowres pixel aesthetic, the "pixels" are clearly made of larger blobs, maybe 3*3 real ones. When you move around you can see partial pixels at sceen edges (suggesting the app surface is actually at least 1920*1080 as the partials can be just one display pixel wide). However it locks player movement's stop points to the simulated pixel borders to maintain a consistent look; actual movement is at display resolution as far as I can tell.
 

JackTurbo

Member
So they DO change the size of the view then. Interesting. It can makes sense for single player in case for lower resolution.
I don't think so. I may have worded it badly. I think the view port matches native resolution but the view is always 480p
 

JackTurbo

Member
Sorry yeah, that's me getting my resolutions mixed up. It's always 480 tall, but in 16:9. Which I think would make it like 854 or something wide?
 
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