An Unnecessarily Wordy Greeting (and some questions)

[FortressCaulfield]

Hey.

Been poking around here for ages. Used to program adventure games with my friend in basic on our c64s back in the day. They weren't good or anything, but we made them. Then I was staff on one of the larger muds for a long time. But I haven't had a game-related creative outlet in some time.

The game that was brewing in my head forever was a quest for glory-alike which was way too complicated and probably a stretch for my artistic abilities, so I just sort of did nothing for years and years. Recently I finally had an idea for something I might actually be able to complete, so now I've DLed AGS and am off and running.

I've noticed the majority of the games in the announcement thread are 320x200. Is there some reason for that I'm missing beyond the nostalgia factor or affection for pixel art? There's not some technical reason? I was planning to go 1280x800 since my art will be cell style and that looks better with a few extra pixels imo.

When I was first poking around here, alot of the more prominent games were follow-ups or midquels or whathaveyou for old sierra and lucas titles, but that seems to have died down. People scared of getting takedowns, or is that just not viewed as an interesting thing any more?

[Snarky]

Welcome! And good luck with your project.

I've noticed the majority of the games in the announcement thread are 320x200. Is there some reason for that I'm missing beyond the nostalgia factor or affection for pixel art? There's not some technical reason? I was planning to go 1280x800 since my art will be cell style and that looks better with a few extra pixels imo.

Mainly a style thing, but AGS is essentially pixel-based (so things like scaling and positioning always work in integer pixel values), is lacking a number of modern image and video rendering features (e.g. shaders), and there can be performance issues in very high resolution games (but 1280x800 shouldn't be a problem). This can make it harder to achieve a polished, professional-looking result for high-resolution games.

When I was first poking around here, alot of the more prominent games were follow-ups or midquels or whathaveyou for old sierra and lucas titles, but that seems to have died down. People scared of getting takedowns, or is that just not viewed as an interesting thing any more?

I suppose they're a somewhat smaller segment of AGS games than they used to be, but I don't remember them being that prominent in the past (except perhaps if you go back 20 years), and you still get a few of them now.

The explanation is probably a bit of both. For projects that were canceled when already underway, takedown notices (or the fear of them) is sometimes given as the reason. But a decrease in new projects of this kind being started is more probably due to a decrease in interest, I would guess. Though players still like fan games: the two most popular games in the database last week were remakes of KQ4 and Maniac Mansion.

[eri0o]

I think the reason most games are 320x200 is simply because it's default, same reason as they being 40fps instead of anything else.

I usually change to 320x180 or multiples (16:9) (and well sometimes 9:16 too) and 60fps.