LudumData

Pixelly Retro Games Using Flash

[raw] LD18LD #18 - Enemies as Weapons - 2010 24. Aug 2010 · 19:36 UTC · 4 days after compo start by sfernald · 0

Greasemonkey, I’ve noticed in the comments you have spoken against using flash libraries such as Flixel and FlashPunk for retro games with pixel art.

I was wondering why and what you would recommend instead (anyone else is welcome to chime in if you have an interest in the subject of course)? I think people like those libraries because they are so damn easy – no dll hell, etc. Is there something better out there?

I was pretty impressed with what notch did with just the standard java in making his pixelly platformer so I’m sort of torn about whether a framework is really necessary or useful.

Comments

24. Aug 2010 · 19:57 UTC
Somewhat related thing I wanted to know but was afraid to ask:

If someone objects to Game Maker, Unity, etc., then presumably it is because there are things those do for you that he’d prefer people write themselves. What are those things?
24. Aug 2010 · 20:14 UTC
I wrote a pixelly retro-platormer this time. It was painful, I really wish I had something like Flixel or Flashpunk to start with, but I was using C++, so I didn’t. Hopefully I can bring my basecode up to have a similar set of features as Flixel in case I want to write a platformer in the future.
24. Aug 2010 · 20:21 UTC
I could be wrong, but I think what Greasemonkey is referring to is the “fad” of blown-up pixel art that is so blocky it looks like it was from an Atari 2600. You can easily do really smooth sprites in Flixel and Flashpunk – I don’t think it is an objection to the engines or to Flash in general, it is the fad to have extremely blocky graphics where each fake “pixel” is like 8×8 screen pixels. Instead of a tiny 16×16 pixel sprite blown up to take up 64×64 pixels on your monitor, why not just draw a 64×64 pixel sprite? (I can answer that: performance, download size, more art skill required =)
ippa
25. Aug 2010 · 10:54 UTC
1 x 1 character that takes up the Whole screen!
25. Aug 2010 · 13:43 UTC
Mega-pixellated would be an really fun miniLD. How few pixels can you make a game with?