What your guys' opinions on the wave of pixellated indie titles of the last few years. There has been a ton of them. Let's ignore all other facets of these games and just discuss the visual side of them. What is the reasoning behind them, in generalizations and individual cases? What are the successes and failures, as in in which games does it work and which games does it come off as hokey or just flops?

I've been thinking about this topic for years and years, but have never discussed it with anybody before. I don't recal the first time I saw one of these games, but I think The Binding of Isaac was the first one that I played, and I loved it and thought the art style really worked. The gameplay was totally throw-back to the SNES days, so the graphics fit it perfectly.

There is one huge thing about games like this that really pisses me off and ruins these types of games for me. The implementation of modern shader and particle effects into them. I am a purist in almost every way that description can be used in the gaming-(sub?)culture. If you make a game that is supposed to harken back to a particular age in gaming that you go so far as to shirk the graphical norms of the modern day, please go all the way. That means impose other artificial limits beyond resolution, such as color palettes and even video memory. Another thing that bugs me is something fierce is when these games utilize different sized pixels for different things, such as text with larger pixels than the characters, or vice versa. Sometimes, the sprites utilize larger pixels than than the resolution, so when they move they are not moving on a 1:1 basis with the resolution that you'd expect based on the pixel size of the sprites, but moving as if they are in a much higher resolution. The same is true of effects in some of these games, where there are smooth high resolution effects operating on top of large pixel sprites.

This utter lack of consistency does not pay respects to the old games and hardware, but instead comes off as gimmicky, amateurish, a lack of purpose and understanding, and a style above reason mentality behind them, as if the style was a choice simply because others are doing something similar, because it is hip. Pier Solar is an example of doing retro right, as they even developed it to play on original hardware. I'd like to see more games that go that far as to create ports that will run using the limitations of old hardware. It doesn't have to be an old console, but if you make a retro style game that can run on an old x86 platform with just VGA hardware, that'd really be doing retro right, while paying respectful homage to the games and developers of old.

I understand wanting a game to run on modern hardware in widescreen can cause problems with also creating something that will run on original hardware as well without porting, and porting might not be something a dev may be prepared to do so I won't hold that against these games, but realizing the limitations of classic hardware and working within these limitations to create something amazing should be the primary goal when going retro, otherwise it is unauthentic.

And for god-sakes, be consistent. If you want your game to look 16 bit with sprites that are designed for a resolution with 240 pixels vertically, make sure everything matches that virtual resolution, the effects, the text, the background, etc. It also doesn't hurt to have the audio be authentic as well, like being 16-bit waveform at 32 kHz with a maximum of 8 channels so it sounds like it came out of an old DSP. Even make it a proper SPC or MOD file, or run a custom MIDI synthesizer while using only 64 KB for the instrument samples.

Does anybody else have similar purist views? How about completely opposite ones, where you like the combination of old sprites with new effects and differing pixel sizes and massive color palettes?

What? Binding of Isaac doesn't have retro-style pixelated graphics. It was originally a hand drawn vector art flash game. Not sure about Rebirth.

As for your other points, I am not a purist. While for example Odallus: The Dark Call is faithful and consistent with it's visual style harking back to NES games, I love the full spectrum of colors other games often utilize. I agree that things like inconsistent pixel sizes and incongruous effects can be jarring, but it's hardly a deal-breaker. At the end of the day, what matters most to me is how much fun I have with a game, and when I recall some of my favorite games, many of them do have graphics or art direction that can be considered ugly.

You're right! I don't know why I remembered it differently. Maybe Dungeons of Dredmore was my first? No that wasn't pixellated either. I guess I don't remember what my first experience was with the retro-pixellated releases. Thanks for clearing that up.

I personally don't believe that low resolution visuals are ugly if it is done well. What really fun games are you refering to that you think may be considered ugly by some?

I don't see the value in adhering to tradition. Without being able to experiment, developers would be painted into an arbitrary niche.

Purists should not have the power to dictate what developers can create. Rather, it is the task of the purist to make their own games to their exacting specifications.

What, like Hammerwatch? Great pixel art mixed in with modern shaders? I think it can look great or it can look like shit. It depends on the art itself. I don't mind seeing such special effects in the game, and it's pretty cool when they re-release a classic and add in things like that to optionally turn on like in the re-release of Strife.

Games like Hotline Miami and Hammerwatch look fine, they achieve their overall aesthetic well. I think it really depends on the game. I don't care for the very chunky pixel art style of games like Fist Puncher or that weird Shower with your Dad... game?

One thing some indie developers seem to forget is, lots of older games packed tons of details into their pixel art, look at a game like Metal Slug. Look at the amount of effort and work went into each frame, background and sfx. Look at King of Fighters, Street Fighter 2, or even something like Ultima 7 or Heretic/Hexen. Artists packed their sprites with detail and fleshed them out.

Instead some indie devs seem to think under-detailed sprites with choppy animations and chunky pixels is the way to go. Or they copy the Minecraft aesthetic and call it a day. Very lazy. Very flavorless. Very boring.

Fez, Risk of Rain, They Bleed Pixels, Slain, Hotline Miami, Escape Goat, Bastion, Primordia, Dex, Dust, etc etc all look fantastic, the art compliments the mood of the games, and the aesthetic is tightly pulled together and looks great.

Here's a great video on that point.

For a guy like me who remembers when Asteroids was a high tech game, it's fun to go find a brand new game that takes me back to the days when I was a young kid who couldn't wait to get his hands on the new Atari cartridge. Even though they're much more sophisticated than the original Atari games, I'm very high on the Knights of Pen & Paper games and Chroma Squad right now.

I was going to comment that more sophisticated doesn't always mean better, boardgames usually have hugely simplistic mechanics and work wonderfully a good portion of the time; But i recall Knights of P&P was pretty simple overall, and Chroma squad... well... Both are welcome in my library :)

I think in some cases pixel art can work, like in Spelunky and Shovel Knight. But lately, many indie games seem to rely on pixel art waaay too much. If it's pixel art for the sake of using pixels, then it can delute the game too much.

I wish more indie games would go the Dust route and use more hand-drawn, animated art. It can really bring a game to life!

Yeah, I really should have specified that the graphics are much more sophisticated than the original Atari...that was what I was going for.

Almost anything is more sophisticated than the old Atari's graphics... Although my experiences begin with the Atari800 (which is considerably better than the 2600).

Hmmm. A few games stand out in my mind from the Atari... Joust, Q-bert, Pinball...Realm of Impossibility. None of them too complex, but artifacts of their time.

Still i wouldn't be surprised if a good dungeon crawler or RPG could be made on the old 8-bit machines, weak graphics or not.