8 Bit & '8 Bitish' Graphics-Outside the Box

Came across this in a thread on Reddit. It’s been discussed on HN before as well but I think it’s worthy of being resubmitted. Previous discussion: [link] In that discussion multiple people said that they preferred the non-stabilized dithering, and they argued that that is “how it was” on the old 1-bit Macs. “The original effect is how it's supposed to look and how it would have looked on an old computer with 1-bit graphics.” says one commenter. I think these comments are missing the forest for the trees. It’s not about faithful recreation, it’s about artistic inspiration and invoking certain feelings. See also the talk “8 Bit & ‘8 Bitish’ Graphics - Outside the Box” by artist Mark Ferrari. [this video] If you artificially constrain yourself too much, your game will suffer and no-one will want to play it. On the other hand, if you can give a nod to the past and a feeling of nostalgia but at the same time acknowledge that we have had progress, and incorporate that progress in your game, then there is potential for a game that is actually fun to play.

You might enjoy an entire talk on using a limited color palette for graphics in early games and how it stimulated creativity [this video] "In this GDC 2016 talk, Terrible Toybox's Mark Ferrari discusses and demonstrate some of his techniques for drawing 8 bit game graphics, including his celebrated methods for use of color cycling and pallet shifting to create complex and realistic background animation effects without frame-animation GDC talks cover a range of developmental topics including game design, programming, audio, visual arts, business management, production, online games, and much more. We post a fresh GDC video every weekday. Subscribe to the channel to stay on top of regular updates, and check out GDC Vault for thousands of more in-depth talks from our archives."