Koji Igarashi, the producer of recent entries in the Castlevania series and assistant director of Symphony of the Night, gave a presentation on 2D games at GDC last week. Specifically, his presentation centered on the differences between developing 2D games and 3D games. Igarashi noted a few philosophical differences between 3D and 2D games, but also noted a few advantages that hadn't occurred to us. For instance, 2D games are easier to produce, faster to design, and faster to implement. Of course, all of this is generally cheaper than 3D production as well.
Another "advantage" Igarashi noted was that assets from one 2D game can be used in future games as well. Fans of Castlevania will know that the series has been recycling monsters for a long time. We're not exactly sure if we'd call recycling an advantage. Igarashi also mentioned that 2D games are good for team morale. In other words, one person can design an entire level for a 2D title, whereas one level in a 3D game requires an entire team of designers. This can lead to designers feeling as though they're doing "grunt work." A designer on a 2D game makes a much larger contribution. This leads to higher team morale.
Discussing the HD era, Igarashi noted that high definition actually makes traditional 2D game production much more difficult. In a genre where characters are created pixel by pixel, HD resolutions present traditional 2D game design with a huge problem. According to Igarashi, jumping from a resolution of 256X240 to a resolution of 1024X960 requires 16 times as many pixels, an enormous undertaking for a 2D studio. The only alternative, Igarashi noted, would be to hire a traditional animation studio, but such studios often don't understand game design. Mr. Igarashi, we humbly suggest you contact the fine folks at The Behemoth.
Finally, during a Q&A session, we asked Igarashi if he would consider creating an original Castlevania title for Xbox Live Arcade. Igarashi responded that Xbox Live Arcade isn't the only download service out there, but that he was considering creating downloadable games. While he did note that 2D games are less prevalent than they once were, he concluded his presentation by saying that "2D games will never die!" We hope he's right.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
3-12-2007 @ 4:11PM
Josh said...
I wonder how Sony is going to handle the costs of developing 4D games! :)
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3-12-2007 @ 4:32PM
Shama Edward Banks Jr. said...
I have been saying this for a while. 2D games are being neglected. Imagine what 2D games would look like if they used the processing power we have today.
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3-12-2007 @ 5:05PM
Toph said...
Any, ANY story involving IGA and SoTN is worth reading! :)
The comment about how taking an 'oldschool' 2D into a high def world can prove as problematic as 'upscaling' a low rez image such as a .JPG file to a high definition .TIF. Imagine a picture of Alucard printed on a baloon. The more you inflate it, the wider spread the image becomes and more distorted. To compensate for it, there's a certain amount the computer has to 'simulate' between original pixels, and most of the time that insertion looks terrible. That's why games like SOTN might have taken so long to transfer to HD.
Games like Alien Hominid HD were easier, I'd assume, to transfer because cartoon images with less small pixel-by-pixel detail like AH HD sprites are.
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3-12-2007 @ 5:16PM
Shama Edward Banks Jr. said...
I was not talking about transfering old 2D games to HD. I was talking about developing new ones.
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3-12-2007 @ 6:06PM
HEADsoldier07 said...
i'd be fine playing new 2D games if they were like Super Mario Bros. 3 DS (was it 3?) where they made everything 2D except the characters. As long as its a better that average 2D game anyways.....
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3-12-2007 @ 6:32PM
Toph said...
HEADsoldier07, it was simply called Super Mario Bros for the DS.
My comments were mostly aimed at the Fanboy editor that commented on Behemoth.
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3-12-2007 @ 8:04PM
Hoffer said...
I love 2D games. I mean I don't want all 2D games, but I still love to play one here and there. That's why I think things like XBLA are great. Cloning Clyde was an awesome 2D game. I hope more developers make good, 2D games for downloadable services.
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3-12-2007 @ 11:12PM
alindy said...
I am actually playing the new Castlevania Dawn Of Sorrows at the moment, and the funny thing is that I bought the game as an afterthought when I was buying Crackdown, and I have not yet played Crackdown as I have been playing Castlevania for the past 2 days.
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3-13-2007 @ 9:22AM
ScreamingSkull said...
Alien hominid was easy because it was made with flash, whose base files are vectors and scale with no loss in quality. I would assume Castle Crashers is the same, which makes me a sad panda with all this "we need til '08" BS.
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3-14-2007 @ 2:31PM
ShaleX said...
#9
Thanks for stating the flash thing.
Which leads me to this. I don't understand why developers have to bitch about it being harder. If you're using 20 year old techniques still, then I agre it's going to be harder. nowadays there are so many techniques that can make a 2D game easier to produce. Things like Flash, using full 3D (LittleBigPlanet) or using 3D elements (2D characters on 3D backgrounds like in Marvel vs. Capcom, or 3D characters on 2D backgrounds like New Super Mario Bros, and the PSP Megman games)
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