{"author_name":"sfernald","cat":"LD #18 - Enemies as Weapons - 2010","comments":[{"author_name":"","time":"August 24, 2010 2:57 pm","epoch":1282679820,"text":"Somewhat related thing I wanted to know but was afraid to ask:
\n 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?","spam":"N"},{"author_name":"","time":"August 24, 2010 3:14 pm","epoch":1282680840,"text":"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.","spam":"N"},{"author_name":"","time":"August 24, 2010 3:21 pm","epoch":1282681260,"text":"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 =)","spam":"N"},{"author_name":"ippa","time":"August 25, 2010 5:54 am","epoch":1282733640,"text":"1 x 1 character that takes up the Whole screen!","spam":"N"},{"author_name":"","time":"August 25, 2010 8:43 am","epoch":1282743780,"text":"Mega-pixellated would be an really fun miniLD. How few pixels can you make a game with?","spam":"N"}],"epoch":1282678560,"likes":0,"metadata":{"p_key":"69259","p_author":"sfernald","p_authorkey":"258","p_urlkey":"105062","p_title":"Pixelly Retro Games Using Flash","p_cat":"LD #18 - Enemies as Weapons - 2010","p_event":"LD18","p_time":"1282678560","p_likes":"0","p_comments":"5","p_status":"UPD5","us_key":"258","us_name":"sfernald","us_username":"sfernald","event_start":"1282262400","event_key":"4","event_name":"LD18"},"text":"

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.<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>","time":"August 24th, 2010 2:36 pm","title":"Pixelly Retro Games Using Flash"}