🚀 go-pugleaf

On Mon, 17 Jul 2017 13:38:34 +0100, Toby Newman <goo...@asktoby.com>
wrote:


>I used to have a demo of Flight Unlimited. You could only fly the
>glider. I used to play it quite a lot, it was relaxing flying around
>from vortex to vortex. I remember being pretty wowed by the terrain,
>which had a big photographic texture.

The real innovations of Flight Unlimited were not actually its terrain
and graphics, although those are the features that attracted me most.
Rather, it was that the flight-engine used (or they said it used)
fluid dynamics to map the flow of air over the wings, thus supposedly
creating more realistic flight dynamics.  While the graphics were
quite advanced for their time, they were merely an evolutionary step
from what had come before; the switch to the new physics engine was
far more revolutionary. But - having learned to fly from "flight sims"
like F-15 Eagle or LHX Attack Chopper, the subtle nuances between the
different flight engines quite escaped me and I paid it all no
nevermind.


>I'm playing Dishonored 1 DLC at the moment, having recently finished
>Dishonored 2. After about 10 minutes in the game the graphics feel no
>different to Dishonored 2, because I adapt to the shortcomings. Which
>is to say that we really don't need rendering of whole cities to have
>fun. What we need is good tight mechanics.


Graphics are important, but it's often less the technical aspects of
the graphics - number of polygons, pixel resolution/density, framerate
- and more the artistic usage of what's available. A game like, say,
Full Throttle (1995) still looks gorgeous today, despite being
flatly-lit sprite-based 256-color VGA that is probably running at 10
fps.  Too often developers just assume that creating a game with the
latest engine is enough, but without decent artistic style the game
feels shoddy. 

In many ways, the limitations of the older technologies inspired
developers to new heights. Unfortunately, a lot of indie developers
just assume that if they utilize retro-graphics, they will recapture
that same magic without understanding it was more than just using
320x240 art that made those games great. 

In some ways I regret the amazing advances in graphics over the past
twenty years; the focus on pixel-density, huge numbers of polygons,
high-res textures, real-time lighting, etc. seemed like such a
distraction from proper artistry, world-building and focus on
gameplay. It's only in the last four or five years - as GPU tech
finally seems to be plateauing - that developers are starting to focus
on these basics again rather than chasing framerates and the latest
technical buzzwords.