i''m developing a 2d arkanoid clone and when it is finished (i hope in about a half year) i hope sell it to a publisher that targets the low-budget market, around 10 euro per game. Screen resolution it uses now is 640x480, which i think looks good enough. The pro''s are that everyone can use it (640x480 is standard) and the game runs smooth, even with lots of stuff happening on screen, so CPU requirements are also low. I''m thinking of changing it to 800x600 so the graphics will look a bit better, but will that affect the target audience a lot? any ideas on this issue?

First off, is there any reason why you wouldn''t just support multiple resolutions?

If I HAD TO limit resolutions to two, I''d go with 512x384 and 1024x768. Your art assets could be generated at lowrez, then doubled and "tweaked" for the higher resolution (or vice versa). Then you just put in a menu option that says (lowrez=fast! hirez=pretty!) and let the low budget consumer make the choice.

This approach gives you a serious performance gap however, with nothing for the middle ground.

;-)

512x384 ? that sounds very not-standard. I *think* i'll go with 800x600, because 640x480 is noticably low-res, and 800x600 looks good. If i would use 1024x768 i have a feeling that some people won't be able to play it, due to old hardware..

edit:
btw i'm developping for Windows platform, using Direct X

[edited by - BdR on December 9, 2003 5:48:16 AM]

640 x 480 is standard, but I''ve yet to encounter a graphics card in the wild in the last several years that didn''t support 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768.

My advice: Design for your highest preferred resolution, and then just scale it to the lower resolutions. You MAY need to redo some art assets specifically for lower-resolution play. But I think if you encourage / default the user to using your "preferred" resolution you''re not going to cut out too much of your audience.

The other issue is laptops. On my laptop, any resolution other than 1024*768 looks bad.

quote: Original post by Warpstorm
The other issue is laptops. On my laptop, any resolution other than 1024*768 looks bad.

Or any other LCD screen.

It depends on what type of game you have. If there is plenty of action on the screen all the time, then the higher resolutions will improve your game. If, on the other hand, your game is puzzel oriented, then the resolution doesn''t matter.

As for affecting the target audience, just about everyone with a Pentium can support 800x600.