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TIC-80

Fantasy computer for making, playing and sharing tiny games. · By Nesbox

Resolution choice?

A topic by Imp created Sep 05, 2017 Views: 3,500 Replies: 4
Viewing posts 1 to 5
(2 edits) (+1)

Just a quick question purely out of interest.

The resolution you went with is 240x136, I was wondering why you chose 136 rather than 135 for a true 16:9 ratio which would be 1920x1080/8?

Is this purely down to being able to fit the tile maps 8x8 on the screen without losing a line of pixels?

I'm assuming in full screen mode it would just display the bottom row of true pixels in 8x7?!

Were you tempted to go to 256x144 for a 16:9 and divisable by 8 choice? Or even a ratio like 4:3 or 5:4.

Sorry if they seem like irrelevant questions, I just have curiosities on inspired choices made and what ideas you toyed with.

Anyway please keep up the great work, I hope you consider increasing the size limit of the cart to allow creations to be a little more ambitious, I like the idea of restrictions but I'm a bit put off by the idea that a full 8 bit demake or port is pretty much out the question for anything of significant content (Mario 3 with a save feature is always my imaginary rule of thumb for 8 bit).

And even if you felt like being extra generous with the limits...well...

(240x136 using pico-8 palette)

Developer(+1)

Hi,

So, I tried to design a fantasy computer with a fantasy specification, don't know, I just liked 240x136 and it is very close to 16:9, and yes, we need to fit 8x8 tiles. I agree, 256x144 looks like more reasonable choice, but It's too late to change the resolution :) people already made a lot of games for TIC80 and they will break.

I think fantasy consoles designed for tiny games and you have to choose normal game making tool like Unity or Game Maker If your ambitions doesn't fit current limitations

Thanks and sorry for delay with the response :)

(+4)(-1)

perhaps you could increase the resolution to 256x144 and make it part of the cart metadata in order to keep the compatibility for current creations.  (for example, '--resolution: expanded' for 256x144, otherwise use the default of 240x136)

would you perhaps be open to the idea of optional higher resolutions? So for example future games could be created with higher resolutions, while older ones work on the same as before

if you want to make a 256x144 game with lua you can use love2d. There's a library for love called pix.lua that makes your game look like tic80. you also have more freedom because you can add unlimited sprites. you aren't limited by the system. here's an example that i made using that. https://github.com/gabrielsbadenas/lua-love2d-pix