Nostalgia: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition.1

When desiging our first game, Run Jump Shoot, the guys at 1037 Studios and I thought about thematics as an important start to where we wanted this game to go. We knew that, being our first game, we wanted to learn while we made this game; we knew we wanted to derive quality and themes from what we knew as gamers. So the discussion began, “Let’s make this game Nostalgic”. But what does this mean? From the dictionary definition, we’re meaning that we want the player to feel like they are playing a game that is familiar to them, something that reminds them of a wonderful gaming experience in the past. We decided that we would take the approach of a game that reminded players of the graphics of early games, the feel of the classic mobile game, and the story of a classic era: an 8 bit, infinite runner, retired cop with a revolver. For the sake of length, I’ll be taking 3 articles to discuss each of these elements of a game that seeks a nostalgic feel, starting with: graphics.

The graphics of retro games bring fond memories to anyone that has played games since the 1990’s. From Mario Bros to Pole Position, 8 bit graphics are a key component in early game development. The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) of the 1980s had limitations with its hardware, I mean this was one of the first computers, and it was incredibly small comparably. Because of this, resolution and colors were limited and caused a challenge to developers, who had to make a beautiful looking program with very limited resources. 8 bit refers to the amount of data stored by a pixel, 1 pixel can store 8 bits of graphical or color data. While this is a nomenclature used for retro graphics and gaming, today’s TVs have 10 or 12 bit graphical quality, meaning that 10 bit is 64x the amount of color possible in each pixel and 12 bit has again 64x that amount of color.2 This is a lot of math but basically means that the amount of color that can be displayed with current resolutions is an incredible jump from the standards of the first gaming systems.

As seen above, the original artists at Nintendo had a very limited palette in making Super Mario Bros, and the challenge of making a beautiful game was intense. With such a limited amount of pixels, the main character, Mario, had very little room to grow in detail, even his run was limited to just three frames of animation. The designers were limited to a very small amount of available colors, with the size of the game and the limitations of the NES itself. Game artists now take this as a challenge, of course systems today don’t have the same limitations in graphics (see the image on the right for New Super Mario Bros for the Wii U), but artists desire that look of a retro game, wanting to give recognition to those artists of the past. One of my favorite current examples of this look is Shovel Knight, released by Yacht Games in 2014.

Shovel Knight has been one of my favorite nostalgia trips, not to mention favorite games I’ve ever played. If the idea of a brave knight, armed with his trusty garden tool isn’t enough to win you over, the gameplay will bring you right back to childhood days of arcade games. The collection of gems leading to a high score counter, mechanics reminiscent of the classic action games of the 1980s, and the graphics and palette to make you think you need to stick a quarter in your console, this game has it all. With the indie game scene taking over modern game sales, this game fit right in and many developers dream of the success it had, topping sales on Steam (the PC game sales platform) and moving to all current consoles: PS4, Xbox One and recently the Nintendo Switch. When you look at this game, it’s apparent nostalgia is pouring out of this game, and its mark has been made on the industry.

Graphics are one of the first things you notice as you seek for an experience to take you back to gaming’s roots. Whether it be colors an artist chooses to mirror an arcade game like Pacman, or 16 bit pixels that show an appreciation for the time and effort it took for the first game developers to create the most memorable characters of all time; graphics drive a game’s feel and help the player be engulfed in the theme and vision the developers wanted to portray. The next time you boot up your NES or Gameboy Color, or play a modern game like Shovel Knight, look at the effort it took to make a character look like an actual person, rather than a colorful, blocky blob.

Stay tuned for parts 2 and 3 coming this weekend and join in the discussion on the sites below! Myself and the guys at 1037 Studios would love to hear what you think!

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UPDATE: Here’s Part 2 and Part 3!