The NES was revolutionary. It has created a cultural imprint that has continued to ripple for decades and has yet to show any signs of waning. The sound of collecting coins in Super Mario Bros. has a familiar ring in our heads and the SMB theme music is recognized by most everyone that hasn’t been living under a rock.
Today, all that seems to be talked about is graphic eye-candy and eye-popping effects. Immersing environments that verge on overwhelming the senses. Graphic and design tools for game developers become more and more complex and push the limits further and further with each and every game offering. As the focus is drawn towards the tech, the art and design of games is lost under all those pixels.
I often wonder what game developers of today would do with the technology of yesterday. Could they create anything nearly this iconic?
I read an inspiring article on What 8-Bit Video Games Can Teach Us About Design & UX. It was a real encouragement to me. There has been such a focus and push to make everything shiny, glossy, and jump around, hacks like me feel as though we could ever create and code anything worth clicking.
Untrue.
Here are some of the things we can learn from 8-Bit … NES 8-Bit … not this 8BIT. 🙂
- Use Limitations Effectively
Many of you may already know this, but when Mario was birthed from Shigeru Miyamoto’s mind, it wasn’t the result of deep reflection, a brain-trust, or a weird dream from some bad sushi from the night before. Mario became Mario because of limitations. Perhaps as designers and developers, we have too many choices at our finger tips?
You see, Mario was wears a hat because it’s easier to animate than hair. He wore crazy overalls and sported a mustache so he would stand out more against the background, to show as much detail as you can with only 8-Bits.
… the NES has a hard-wired palette of 48 colors and 5 grays to draw from. Along with a 256 by 240 resolution, and 2kb of graphics memory, NES games had severe graphical limitations. 24 colors per scanline (the lines that make up the picture on analogue TVs), one background color, four tile sets of 3 colors each for building background graphics, and four tile sets of 3 colors for enemy and character sprites were all that were available to create a breathing world..
From that limit came iconic characters, stories and games that are still being developed into sequels over 25-years later.
- Use A Lack Of Color To Create Atmosphere
Metroid was epic.
The size and feel of Metroid was big. It was the first NES game that felt endless. Twisting and turning, power-ups and upgrades often hidden or seemingly out of reach. Samus always looked like a rolling pizza when (spoiler alert … LOL!) she would roll into a ball. I can’t imagine how many bombs I used trying to get myself in hard to reach areas … or even areas that I thought might be there.
Metroid mastered the lack of color.
By creating atmosphere with the absence of color, the game uses a black background to create a world shrouded in darkness and untouched by human hands, similar to the Alienhomeworld.
The NES couldn’t frame Metroid in the 1950’s classic streamlined, shiny chrome look of the previously realized sci-fi genre. Metroid embraced the consoles limitations and created a classic.
- It’s Saturday Morning All Over Again
Metroid took the NES limitations and produced a sci-fi horror film look, while Megaman took those same limitations and created Saturday morning cartoons.
Each world or level held loads of diversity. In Metroid, different areas had subtle differences. You always felt like you were on the same planet, while Megaman made you feel like you were somewhere completely different. Each palette set was uniquely different, but equally bright and vibrant.
Even with the limit of colors, Megaman found a way to deliver a title that is still being released on the Nintendo Wii in 8-Bit form:
- Create A World Beyond Imagination
Super Mario Bros. 2 … although not really SMB2, it was SMB2 in the United States … if you don’t know what I’m talking about, just move along, it has no bearing on this point. If you do know what I’m talking about, just give me a nod and smile.
A dinosaur shooting eggs out of his nose, walking short dudes who wear a mask over their bag covered … bodies? Magic potions and throwing turnips?
The lesson learned here is, the conventional rules not always need apply; it just needs to work within the context of the whole, and have great layout and control.
Just because it doesn’t make sense as it stands alone, doesn’t mean it won’t make sense as a whole. Keep that in mind when you design!
- Show That The Powerup Is Working
What do all three of the before mentioned gaming icons have in common?
(This seemed like a good line to write at the time, but as I read it again, it’s a question that has too many answers. There’s a crap-load of things these three have in common. *sigh*)
You know when they’ve got a power-up.
You know when Mario is Super, when Megaman has Wind Power, and when Samus has the Varia suit.
On the web we see this behavior most commonly with hyperlinks indicating whether we have visited the link or not, or on a menu which changes color when a mouse cursor hovers over it.Much like an NES designer, you can come up with something that stands out AND makes it easy for the end-user to notice the status of something more readily.
When you build and design, making it easy to use is more important than making it pretty. However, the best builders and designers have a knack for doing both!
- Show, Don’t Tell Us It’s Friendly
Is this mushroom poisonous?
… we first learn that the mushroom is our friend at the beginning of the first level by the fact it’s nearly impossible to avoid. We also learn shortly that it can protect Mario from death when we collide with a goomba shortly there after.
The design must be instinctive. Don’t fall in the trap of trying to be different and end up being difficult.
Having the skills. Having the knowledge. Having the tools. These are wonderful and powerful things to have, but it isn’t a sure-fire means to success; just as having limits in these areas isn’t a sure-fire means to failure.
Be inspired.
[via spyrestudios]
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