Lynx Artists Guide:
Contents:
The Atari Lynx
Why Lynx?
How Does a Lynx Artist Draw?
Design
Technics
The Atari Lynx is a wonderful peice of hardware, it can do quite a many things with its dual processor setup. Back in 1987, EPYX ( the premier Lynx game developer ) came out with the design of the Lynx, at that time called the Handy. It was a long unit, which held a lot of promise. In 1989, the Lynx was born, a color unit with games that blew the competition out of the water ( gameboy ). The Lynx's strong point was a BIG 3.5 diagnal color backlit LCD and a 16bit graphics engine. The Lynx could've also been called the MOST powerful handheld ( and at that time most powerful system-period) back at that time.Today, the Lynx is still THE most powerful gaming portable.
What, you never heard of Lynx? Well, a weak, but good attempt at advertiesing was several ads, the one of which I best remember was the ads in the inside cover of the Gamepro(tm) magazine.
The demise:
This is why we are here, we meaning the Lynx Lovers. I feel that in Lynx Generation 2 ( G2 for short ) people from all around the world can start to make their game dreams come true. The Lynx is still a very strong system and there is a loyal base of users like me and you. There are many pages on the wep devote to the Lynx, they are informative, and usually are very interesting to read.
The Lynx died primarily because game quality and quantity was sacrificed. The Lynx developers did not use the Lynx's hi-end technology ( except EPYX ) to its extent. Electrocop, a system showcase game along with Blue Lightening is pure reason to expect more from a game. However when fewer and fewer games came for the little system, people turned to other systems, the series of colored gameboys, Game Gears, and other consoles.
This is a good question, why pick to make for a DEAD system? Well if the Lynx was completely dead, then no one would care, but enuff people care so it is not dead...
Another reason, and the main reason is that the Lynx is really the best gaming platform around. With proper programming and developers, the Lynx can enjoy many things that a consloe can't. The Lynx is much more powerful than the Game Gear, and it smokes the options on a Gameboy (both of witch out sold the Lynx) SEGA backed its Game Gear campaign, and it sold with moderately high sucess ( at least I'd assume I saw more GG's than Lynxes in my day ).
Also games like Lean Machines( in its true Form, track engine wise ) and Ruin Hunter are impossible on any other portable. Lean Machines with its 4-6 playerability features are somthing that the $200+ N64 ( not to hit on that supremem peice of enginuity ) can't do(yet). Howver, to finish that comparison, the N64 will by no means become portable...
What can Lynx do?
Networking, a term used frequently today. The Lynxs "redeye" system of sending transmissions in the background can allow even the most complex games to play smoothly with up 8 players. No other system can even claim this, they can have 2 players, 4 players ( Gameboy, and 4 player addapters ) but not 8. The potential for ground breaking games is overly obvious and multiplayer is where its at. Its also nice to play a game where all of the sudden you see the second player or 3rd player, not just able to look down at a quad of the screen or across the screen and see them. Portable systems can do this, you can ride comfortably in your car on a full screen, swtiching gears, overhills, through bridges, and suddenly see the second player pass you on a turn or something is really a different experience.
The graphics engine on the Lynx while 16 colors, can do games like Suzaka 8 hours as good as the arcade version (providing a good tranlation is made). The scaling features can make images scale up smoothly and effortlessly, track sides ( I refer to racing games cause they rule ) come to life.
Well, first off you need to kno the limitations of the Lynx.
Lynx games are best done ( lest u have a scanner ) with a mouse, you don't need to spend money to make a Lynx game's graphics, I use a beautiful Program that I will be registering called NeoPaint. It is a great program, and it supports 16color graphics modes. I have developed my pixel art skills over the last few years, but it takes devotion to do anything. The pictures at the screen gallery are examples for you to see how today's videogames should look, screen configs, colros, and other various things.
Notes about black lining:
When you put a black line around a graphics it will give it a more "videogamy" look, however, of you want less of a videogame/cartoony look then avoid black lines. I use black lines in about all of my games, Final Strike is about the onle game in which there is no black lines on the characters. Black lines make the player and enemys stand out however and add to the arcade quality of any game, yet they diminish its arcade quailty equaly making it a pure decision as to wether or not that black lines will help or hinder a game.
Character sizes:
The max character size is 254xUnlimeted pixels ( can you say BOSS ship! ) You make some Huge, HUGE bosses, just watch out case if they are too big, they will hog memory.
Status Bars:
There is the Old School Status display: Status bar is a solid color and is opaque, it has ALL of the information on/in it.
Now there is a new way to do things, Stats are maped on a transparent area, were it will detract minimally from the action.
There are many reasons to choose, or not to choose either of the games. GPZeta uses the Old School because it needs a fair square screen to show the racing action, So I decided to make the playfeild square + get the stats out of the way and keep the action clear and precise.
As you can see, these design elements are overly important and are completely up to you, this was just an example for you to notice that the presenting of the games information, be it the status of a charachter, or the character itself, is damn important.
This is a new section to the Artist Guide.
Rules of design:
Where do you start? Do you wana draw first, or think long and hard first?
I always just get the Idea in my head, so its semi premedetated, but I usually draw and design at the same time.
Design of the game is a key role in making a good game, some games, wich will simply be UN-thought out can have a good basis, but lack in important areas. Think about what it is you want to do in a game.
Well, I want to port Doom to the Lynx...
First off, Doom has is "Been there", "Done that". secondly, Doom will run at 3 frames per second, It WILL be sorry in game play, and a very pointless game all in all. Think of somthing new.
It is important to base a design first on wether or not the Lynx can actually perform the tasks nessecary to make the game play well.
NOTES to ARTISTS Like ME:
I do have one BIG problem, I can do an excessive amount of design and art and conceptualization in my own game designs. It usually happes though in a fit of rage compounded in a three day work period were I do about 50% of a games main art, and animation, in the 5 and 6th day, I finish up to 90% of a game's artwork. Not to say that 6 days is all I do, but 6 initial days is how I extract the most out of my FRESH idea.
Rule of Video-Image Decay:
You can have a new idea in your head, and work on it, but as time goes on you might return to it but the level of excitement wil NEVER be matched again... This applies to everything, but perticularly to making something. Things can sit on the backburner for quite some time before they go exticnt, but it shows when you finally make a finished product.
News exerpt:
Rule #1 of game design is that you should design with the strengths of the target hardware in mind. Too many people don't seem to realise this. This is why the best games are created by designers who are also coders, or who are at least technically proficient enough to grok the target hardware deeply. Otherwise you get the designer coming up with all these wild and outrageous ideas, and the poor coders having to shoe-horn them into a hardware context that can't really sustain them.
Well, if you don't push the envelope, how do you know what is really possible? I'm sure the Jag is capable of much more than what we've seen out of it. Every once in a while, I dust off my C-128 and pop in games like Elite and wonder how they actually programmed such an incredible game on such a limited system. (And I can't put the Commodore away until I've had my fill of Grid Runner either :)
-I dunno who wrote this, but its one of my key decisions...
This is a short section, as I gain more knowledge my self, I will add to it, feel free to ask a question, as this will be a FAQ type section for artists. Some bits are perticularly technical, but are nice facts to consider when making your games. These Facts will come from a variety of sources...
Screen Tek:
The Lynx screen is made up of Triads, a square of three colors, R G B.
Notes on Triads:
With a triad, you actually have a minutley notacible difference in horzontal spacing when certain colors are used next to eachother. I found that red next to yellw does this, I figure avoid red drectly next to yellow( anyway ) to avoid color "shifting". I will have a more comprehensive area devoted to screen "faults" as more NFO spurts up.
Screen Resolution:
160x102 pixels
Colors on screen:
Lynx can display up to 16 colors simultaneously, no more.
Palette:
Lynx has a 4096 color pallette, so it is likley that your colors are there...
Display buffer can be placed anywhere in 64Kb mem. 16 index colors each consist of 4 bits of green, 4 red, and 4 bits of blue making a range of 12 bits = 4096 colors.
Refresh Rate
refresh rate can be set on any value between +- 10 and +- 70 fps creating cool slowmo effects.
At each horizontal refresh (and of course vertical refresh(retrace)) the palette colors can be changed, creating millions of colors on screen. (cool for a demo, look at Awesome golf for this trick)
Music (an art in itself)
4 DAC channels are available, being able to play MOD's (depending on CPU capabilities)