5 ms·

Yup. This is also happening in gaming, where 2D pixel art platformers are now above 1GB in size https://store.steampowered.com/app/504230/Celeste/ https://stor

by majani 5y ago

Yup. This is also happening in gaming, where 2D pixel art platformers are now above 1GB in size https://store.steampowered.com/app/504230/Celeste/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/504230/Celeste/ https://apps.apple.com/us/app/castlevania-grimoire-of-souls/id1552347138 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/castlevania-grimoire-of-souls/... When the hardware was restricted, such games used to be squeezed onto a 48MB SNES cartridge

philistine 5y ago
Your two examples are horrible examples. Celeste is truly a pixel game. It uses pixels as an art style, but spending any time with the game reveals its complexity. - The resolution of the game is detached from the pixels, allowing them to be squished and squashed. - While it looks like they’re reusing assets, they really aren’t that much. A ton of areas have unique pixel tiles. - The code is complicated and complex; the physics and control are astoundingly advanced. - It has beautiful high resolution drawings of characters and cutscenes. - The music and sound is full fidelity. - Celeste is running on Unity, which is probably the biggest reason for its large size. That Castlevania game has a 3D main character, with Retina quality textures. Since it’s made for Apple Arcade, it has to support a 4K resolution for Apple TV, meaning all the game’s assets have to look reasonable on a screen at that resolution. The main character alone must weigh a couple megabytes.
kingcharles 5y ago
That's actually 48Megabits, not Megabytes, so it's 1/8th, so only 6MB.
dmitriid 5y ago
It's a bit unfair because modern pixel art games are literally nothing like old pixel art games. For one, the resolution has gone from 400x300 to ~3000x1500 and more, and the number of color went from 8 to millions. All those pixels in high-res pixel art have to still be stored somewhere. Even though I still agree that some games do not deserve to be as fat as they are.
- iamstupidsimple 5y ago
  At the same time, we're talking about bitmaps here, not 4K textures.
  - thejohnconway 5y ago
    4K textures are bitmaps aren’t they?
- Minor49er 5y ago
  Not to mention the other liberties taken with modern pixel games, like non-pixelated particles and effects, character portraits, etc. These modern games don't look retro so much as they look simplified
- jcelerier 5y ago
  The entire Chrono Trigger SNES rom fits in a 1024x1024 PNG image though
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    It was also 256×224 resolution, 8 bpp colors, max 128 sprites at max 64x64 resolution. And 8-bit music with 8 voices. Whereas just the light texture for Celeste's dynamic lighting is bigger than the entire Chrono Trigger ROM :) https://medium.com/@NoelFB/remaking-celestes-lighting-3478d6f10bf https://medium.com/@NoelFB/remaking-celestes-lighting-3478d6...
tokai 5y ago
I don't see that as a good equivalent. Highres art assets takes up space, there's no beating that. Old snes games and modern 2d'ers are not on the same lvl regarding fidelity.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
48MB? That's ridiculous for an SNES cart. Even at 48Mb that's the size of the largest SNES cart IIRC.
- majani 5y ago
  Yes, only a few super ambitious games hit the 48MB max allowed. Most SNES games were under 10MB
SilasX 5y ago
Yep. Ticket to Ride is a board game and its video game version on Steam is hundreds of megabytes, yet all it has is 2D images with some scaling and translation effects.
- vikingerik 5y ago
  It also has music. I'm not sure how much, but that could account for a couple hundred megabytes if it's many tracks at a fairly high bit rate.
  - SilasX 5y ago
    Good point, but it has very little of that as well. Some victory/loss event music and sound effects, and a few short musical tracks.

by majani 5y ago

philistine 5y ago

Your two examples are horrible examples. Celeste is truly a pixel game. It uses pixels as an art style, but spending any time with the game reveals its complexity. - The resolution of the game is detached from the pixels, allowing them to be squished and squashed. - While it looks like they’re reusing assets, they really aren’t that much. A ton of areas have unique pixel tiles. - The code is complicated and complex; the physics and control are astoundingly advanced. - It has beautiful high resolution drawings of characters and cutscenes. - The music and sound is full fidelity. - Celeste is running on Unity, which is probably the biggest reason for its large size. That Castlevania game has a 3D main character, with Retina quality textures. Since it’s made for Apple Arcade, it has to support a 4K resolution for Apple TV, meaning all the game’s assets have to look reasonable on a screen at that resolution. The main character alone must weigh a couple megabytes.

kingcharles 5y ago

That's actually 48Megabits, not Megabytes, so it's 1/8th, so only 6MB.

dmitriid 5y ago

It's a bit unfair because modern pixel art games are literally nothing like old pixel art games. For one, the resolution has gone from 400x300 to ~3000x1500 and more, and the number of color went from 8 to millions. All those pixels in high-res pixel art have to still be stored somewhere. Even though I still agree that some games do not deserve to be as fat as they are.

iamstupidsimple 5y ago
At the same time, we're talking about bitmaps here, not 4K textures.
- thejohnconway 5y ago
  4K textures are bitmaps aren’t they?
Minor49er 5y ago
Not to mention the other liberties taken with modern pixel games, like non-pixelated particles and effects, character portraits, etc. These modern games don't look retro so much as they look simplified
jcelerier 5y ago
The entire Chrono Trigger SNES rom fits in a 1024x1024 PNG image though
- dmitriid 5y ago
  It was also 256×224 resolution, 8 bpp colors, max 128 sprites at max 64x64 resolution. And 8-bit music with 8 voices. Whereas just the light texture for Celeste's dynamic lighting is bigger than the entire Chrono Trigger ROM :) https://medium.com/@NoelFB/remaking-celestes-lighting-3478d6f10bf https://medium.com/@NoelFB/remaking-celestes-lighting-3478d6...

tokai 5y ago

I don't see that as a good equivalent. Highres art assets takes up space, there's no beating that. Old snes games and modern 2d'ers are not on the same lvl regarding fidelity.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago

48MB? That's ridiculous for an SNES cart. Even at 48Mb that's the size of the largest SNES cart IIRC.

majani 5y ago
Yes, only a few super ambitious games hit the 48MB max allowed. Most SNES games were under 10MB

SilasX 5y ago

Yep. Ticket to Ride is a board game and its video game version on Steam is hundreds of megabytes, yet all it has is 2D images with some scaling and translation effects.

vikingerik 5y ago
It also has music. I'm not sure how much, but that could account for a couple hundred megabytes if it's many tracks at a fairly high bit rate.
- SilasX 5y ago
  Good point, but it has very little of that as well. Some victory/loss event music and sound effects, and a few short musical tracks.