I think it’s what toups said: you can make pixel art that is actually designed to be displayed properly with a degree of fidelity on modern displays, but you don’t see it very often, while the games that crib NES (or NES adjacent) styles are still designed the way NES pixel art was designed, and then lose all aesthetic nuance as a result. I literally do think they should have shader packs packaged with their games. lots of them already have crappy CRT options that don’t do much, they may as well go all the way. beyond these kinds of games, there sure are a lot of rereleases and ‘remasters’ of old games that would benefit immensely from drop in shaders. even companies that know what they are doing, like M2, have nothing to offer on this front.
They can throw in all the shader options they want as long as there’s an unfiltered option, 'cause that’s the first thing I’m gonna make sure it’s set to. : )
Dinging pixel art games for not being “authentic” because the pixels are smooth feels so meaningless to me in 2024. Feels like complaining about early Futurama using 3D models in a bunch of places so it isn’t true to “authentic” cel animation.
Not only that, but smooth pixel limited-palette indie games AND no-filter emulation have existed for longer than the actual NES’s lifespan at this point, so I’d say that artistic tradition is much more worthy of adherence than whatever artistic possibilities the MOS 6502 afforded.
The solution to bad pixel art isn’t hiding it under filters–the solution is doing better pixel art. : ^j
this was a game i confusedly puttered around in a lot as a youth so for me the first level is very evocative in a vague aesthetic muddle way + strong memories of spamming the cheats that turn u into guybrush threepwood (didnt know who this was) & all weapons.
CRT shaders and scanlines are like the 3D slider on the 3DS IMO - they add a little mystique, they make games look better at times, worse most other times, they’re almost never worth the added eyestrain and they get turned off 5 minutes in
this is godless heathen talk
putting a super eagle filter on the mona lisa and calling it mona lisa: definitive edition
they do this already, that bitch is behind feet of protective plexiglass
windows 11 built in latency-free state-of-the-art oled/lcd/led-aware system-wide crt simulation hooks like screensavers or whatever but you have to turn them on by verbally asking the cortana? copilot? ai assistant to make the screen look like my marios
this isn’t really about the NES since games with artwork designed specifically for crts stretches all the way up to the PS2. and no-filter emulation is almost always ugly! that doesn’t mean it’s at all uninteresting or worthless but if the point is nostalgia it misses the mark. even acknowledging that for a lot of folks the look of no-filter emulation is exactly what they’re nostalgic for, I still think effective nostalgia takes a lot more effort and care than just copying the basic look and feel, especially when the source material is on the unflattering side. there’s an art to making it feel like you remember while quietly ensuring it still actually looks good on its own terms. the same applies if you’re aiming for a more “authentic” 8 bit crt look and feel. accuracy is less important than aesthetic judgement and purpose. which is to say that this is not a matter of authenticity or adhering to tradition. this specific facet of the long-standing tradition of pixel art indie games is directly what I take issue with. I’m just very tired of it.
Man I spend like 70 hours a week doing pixel art and I am never going to think about or touch a CRT again in my life and I now loathe shaders after having my settings break so many times. I’m just doing this shit cuz I want to make a video game that looks and feels somewhat like a video game (i.e. somewhat unreal and unlike a TV show or newspaper strip or stage play or foosball table or whatever) without spending a ton of money or learning how to do a bunch of shit I hate (I will never finish that Blender donut tutorial), like as L said I think at this point nostalgia doesn’t enter into things at all, this is just how a lotta games look and while I wish more of them had a style other than “EAD game x webcomic” I think most of them look fine, I’d play that mouse game if I got it as a gift, sign me up
I want dosbox-staging’s crt-auto shader to become the new standard approach to crt shaders. Shader that just adjusts its settings automatically to match the system you are emulating so the hypothetical crt looks right for the games you are playing
Late to the party but I’m close enough to the situation at this point that yeah, the contents of this letter are accurate unfortunately. It’s a cashflow problem and it sucks.
new game by the INFERNIUM dev is out today
i played the demo, and felt alternately annoyed by the default Unreal engine/broken 2010s indie horror ness of it and also totally fascinated by a lot of the weird and unique ideas in it. so basically it’s one of these guy’s games. i hate the stupid evil skeleton guy you have to fight who is in all the advertising for the game (i guess the dev is hoping for jank horror fans to buy this?? i don’t get it), but i really like the strange robot thing that negs you the entire time.
Big news, Habbo Hotel: Origins launches tomorrow
(I had no idea this was a thing until just now)
Looks like a pretty fun game from the 90s