What if Game Graphics Never Aged?

An anonymous reader writes "If you've heard of Procedural Synthesis, you already think it's amazing. It's been used to create some extraordinary visuals in tiny packages, like .kkrieger, which is less than 96 Kilobytes big but still has graphics that look like like a modern PC title. Beyond that, there's even more that Procedural Synthesis might be able to do; what if your old video games never aged, never looked out-of-date? Imagine putting Halo 2 into your Xbox 360 only to have it automatically upgraded to look like Halo 3 in graphical quality. This article examines the unexpected way that Procedural Synthesis might impact gaming in the generation after the Xbox 360, PS3, and Nintendo Wii."

Comments

The Good?

[MiceHead]

That's an interesting thought. The article makes it out to be a bit like a magical cure, but some aspects of it sound good to me. You can often improve the "wow" factor by tossing in "more" of something. Denser foliage; more of the tiny rocks that make up the detail; and so forth. Procedural generation would mean that these wouldn't have to be placed by hand, so this could make it easier to scale the visuals with system power. Similarly, particle sprays are often done procedurally, so being able to tweak those "up" to create more complex fireworks for mysterious future hardware could also work.

Some games are still played for years after they've fallen behind the curve on graphics; this might mitigate the future ugliness, adding longevity to a popular title. Keeping gamers interested in (and talking about) your game makes sense, whether you'll be producing different titles in the future or will be focusing on sequels.

Ultimately, though, my hope is that algorithmic content generation will bring game development costs down for indies. Maybe I'm dreaming. :)

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Re:Disposable Games Vs Design Patterns

[Tharkban]

There's more probability of that if the graphics automatically upgrade on new hardware. It would make the graphics less of a selling point.

Since we're on the subject... Exult 3D!

[WWWWolf]

Exult was a good example of "procedural" "growth" of a game.

Ultima VII was a 2D RPG. Yet, all objects in the game world have height. One guy at Exult hacked up a version of Exult that runs Ultima VII in 3D mode - basically, mapping all 2D tiles around cubes as described by their dimensions and height data.

The results were quite interesting (buildings looked kind of good, creatures and many plants and natural formations not so good, so they are being replaced by 3D models).

But it is a good example and exercise in extracting more detail from the game than the original developers intended or envisioned.

Re:My graphics haven't aged...

[noidentity]

If those old NES games looked like modern games, I wouldn't play video games at all! What we need is the opposite, something that makes current games not look crappy and 3D.

Re:Disposable Games Vs Design Patterns

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

some people play games as digital puzzles, brain-teasers if you will. Some play them for the graphics. Some play them for story

Right. But it's worth looking at what many people have to say about story telling and I think you'll find your post's parent, considered in context, is more directed at these comments rather than a general criticism of storytelling.

Some game companies (including my employer) seem to think that their games are poor quality (oops...better not reveal my employer's name) because the storytelling isn't good enough. These people look to the movie business and see that many big effects movies suck because they have a weak story and assume that the same criticism carries over. It doesn't. Games and movies have a whole lot of different ways in which they can suck that don't relate to each other.

The game business seems to look to the movie business as a kind of more respectable big brother. So many game developers have now got it into their heads that they must try to develop things like movies. And hence they feel pressured into developing a story even though they may end up wasting resources that might better have been used for gameplay.

A nice example of the latter is the old adventure game business. Because these game developers felt that somehow what they were doing was lowbrow they renamed the genre to "interactive fiction" denying their games heritage.

Make games and be proud to make them, whether they have great graphics, great stories or great gameplay. Don't feel that somehow you have to compete with other art forms like literature and cinema on their own turf.