Are you guys designing for the Retina Display?

BeyondtheTechBeyondtheTech Member Posts: 809
edited November -1 in Art, Graphics, Music and Sound
If anything, having a game designed in high-resolution for the Retina Display boosts sales for iPhone 4 and iPod touch 4th-generation owners, and it also paves the way for an iPad version.

I noticed that some of the recently announced games don't appear to be taking advantage of it. I just thought I might mention that, as it can only help your cause.

Comments

  • AfterBurnettAfterBurnett Member Posts: 3,474
    I'm not on my current game but it's 8-bit style, so doesn't really matter too much. Plus, I want to keep the file size small and have it playable on older machines ;-)
  • AfterBurnettAfterBurnett Member Posts: 3,474
    tshirtbooth said:
    All my games are being build for the RI its a must as apple has sold 19 million 4th gen devices so far.

    :)

    Maybe I should rethink my strategy. LOL.

    EDIT: Actually, I need a much better monitor before I develop for the iPhone 4/iPad... unless GS add in the ability to scale the editing screen! HINT HINT!
  • RondoRocketRondoRocket Member Posts: 411
    tshirtbooth said:
    All my games are being build for the RI its a must as apple has sold 19 million 4th gen devices so far.

    :)

    Does anybody have a link or know what the breakdown of iPhone sales for each gen happen to be?
  • StormtrixStormtrix Member Posts: 256
    For designing with the Retina display in mind.. do yo approach it like this..

    Normal actor today i might make would be lets say a 20x20 image/actor.
    but really in photoshop i'll make it 40x40, then add the image to gamesalad
    and then check the box for RI/Retina.. then in actor change resolution back to 20x20
    so it fits nicely in your view.. and because RI was checked when you publish the game
    it will display better on the iphone4 because really the image is 40x40?

    does this sound right? lol

    thx
  • firemaplegamesfiremaplegames Member Posts: 3,211
    I didnt use RI for Grisly Manor as I wanted to keep it under the 20MB 3G limit. There is no way I could have done that with RI.
  • gazjmgazjm Member Posts: 578
    My last two games have both used RI, and the game I'm now doing also makes use of it. But it does increase the game size by a fair bit!
  • gazjmgazjm Member Posts: 578
    @stormtrix if you add the 40x40 image with RI ticked then it will automatically create an actor size of 20x20, saves having to edit sizes etc!
  • BeyondtheTechBeyondtheTech Member Posts: 809
    Stormtrix said:
    For designing with the Retina display in mind.. do yo approach it like this..

    Normal actor today i might make would be lets say a 20x20 image/actor.
    but really in photoshop i'll make it 40x40, then add the image to gamesalad
    and then check the box for RI/Retina.. then in actor change resolution back to 20x20
    so it fits nicely in your view.. and because RI was checked when you publish the game
    it will display better on the iphone4 because really the image is 40x40?

    does this sound right? lol

    thx

    What's the formula again for optimal image resolutions? Is it squares divisible by 4?
  • BeyondtheTechBeyondtheTech Member Posts: 809
    firemaplegames said:
    I didnt use RI for Grisly Manor as I wanted to keep it under the 20MB 3G limit. There is no way I could have done that with RI.

    But you did draw everything at a resolution higher than the final output, yes?

    There's nothing like a "Grisly Manor HD" to boost sales. ;)
  • Rob2Rob2 Member Posts: 2,402
    @BTT one for you maybe ?
    http://www.tuaw.com/2010/10/20/tuaw-is-looking-for-news-bloggers/

    edit : delete after reading maybe?
  • BeyondtheTechBeyondtheTech Member Posts: 809
    Rob2 said:
    @BTT one for you maybe ?
    http://www.tuaw.com/2010/10/20/tuaw-is-looking-for-news-bloggers/

    edit : delete after reading maybe?

    Thanks, Rob2, I've actually applied yesterday, using my www.ijwmsg.us blog as examples.
  • PhoticsPhotics Member Posts: 4,172
    Retina Display is making me nervous. Annoyed Tomatoes on my iPhone 4 is running at 60 MB of RAM. GameSalad doesn't want to let go of the images — even after its used them. I tried doing that Instance vs Prototype thing, but it doesn't seem to work for me.

    I'm imaging that the older generation devices will use the low-resolution graphics, where memory won't be so much of a problem. It seems to run and look great on my iPhone. The big problem is video with Retina Display.

    If I activate Resolution Independence, I have to include higher resolution video. That dramatically drains the memory usage. If I don't, the video will look blurry on non-retina displays, as GameSalad will automatically reduce the size of my video for the older devices.

    I'm not sure how my game is going to turn out, but Retina Display is awesome. It makes my game look great.
  • RiffelRiffel Member Posts: 1,272
    Cooking Wicca is RI, but I never realy see it! :-)

    http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cooking-wicca/id396723894?mt=8
  • BarkBarkCoBarkBarkCo Member Posts: 1,400
    firemaplegames said:
    I didnt use RI for Grisly Manor as I wanted to keep it under the 20MB 3G limit. There is no way I could have done that with RI.

    @FMG, the following may not be true for Grisly Manor as you have a lot of graphics!

    RI makes much larger bundles because it is making a duplicate of all of you graphic resources for the smaller screens. However, if you don't use RI and just pass the high-res version and let the older devices chew of the bigger file, you may be able to keep everything under 20mb.
  • quantumsheepquantumsheep Member Posts: 8,188
    Gravitrixx is using Retina display graphics. It has most of them in there at the moment and is sitting pretty at around 14MB in size.

    Hopefully we can keep it below 20MB!!!

    QS :D
  • ARC_GamesARC_Games Member Posts: 78
    this may be a stupid question... but does anyone know how the Project Size in the Game Salad editor corresponds to the final size of the app that will be created for the iphone/ipod? When it tells me that my project is 7.5M down at the bottom right of the GS editor in the 'Home' section of the editor, is that the size of the GS project file as saved on my pc, or is that the size that the final app file will be?

    If there is a 20M limit on file size for apps to run on 3GS or prior devices, then I will need to try and make sure that my game comes in under that size to even bother with allowing Resolution Independence (currently, I have designed my image files to allow it by making them all multiples of 4 in the size dimensions.... as I understand it, this is all I will need to do so that my game can play on both the 4GS retina display as well as the older iphone devices.... if that is not all I need to do, please let me know, thanks).

    The game I'm working on is going to end up being pretty large in size, I would guess, mainly due to the fact that it uses large scene sizes and a lot of images and sounds. It's a large adventure platformer, on the scale of a Sonic type of game..... any chance I can expect the final app size to come in under the 20M (with or without Resolution Independence enabled)?

    Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thanks
  • SingleSparqSingleSparq Member Posts: 1,339
    The 20m limit I think is only for games to be downloaded on a cell network not a limit to run on the device itself. I have a game that was 138 Meg download running on 3GS. But yeah always wondered what the correct info was on size to trust.
  • POMPOM Member Posts: 2,599
    ARC_Games said:
    If there is a 20M limit on file size for apps to run on 3GS or prior devices, then I will need to try and make sure that my game comes in under that size to even bother with allowing Resolution Independence

    The 20M limit is for the AT&T/cellular download (None wifi) , and i dont think it limits to specific devices, it is for all.

    If your game needs to be in that limit or not is your choice!
    Of course if your project is 23M so ill suggest to put a bit more effort and bring it down to 20
    but if it 50M so i dont think thats an option for you at all.
    *********
    about the project size down at the bottom right of the GS editor in the 'Home' section -
    if you use Resolution Independence, it will be bigger then that number, so 7.5M will become about 10M IMO , cause it makes small copies of the graphics that takes place.

    Roy.
  • SingleSparqSingleSparq Member Posts: 1,339
    BTW my last game, space tech defender, came in at 23meg. I fought hard to optimize and tried to keep it under 20 but there was just too much graphics going on. I never did the retina on it since it would be too much work. I now have a 3GS and an iphone4 to test on and man what a difference between them if I look at the games side by side.
  • ARC_GamesARC_Games Member Posts: 78
    thanks for the information about files sizes :-) much appreciated.
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