I suspect it's not very popular with younger players but for those who are older than 30 it might be. So I was playing around with the visual style and wondered if there's a market for new games that look like ZX Spectrum games. Here's my quick test:
I love it (but I am from the UK). As long as the gameplay is great it should be a brilliant game with retro graphics. Speccy looking games are still very popular. Retro gamer (magazine) often feature retro looking 'new' games and the Elite Speccy app apparently does well I would get this 100%
I was always more of a C64 person given the better colors, but games like I Am Level make it work regardless. Go for it.
I'm in the uk and 34 today. I personally am not a fan of the old style graphics, don't get me wrong, I'll enjoy and buy games that use them but much prefer modern graphics. I'll have a play for old times sake but would much rather play Mario kart on the wii than the snes. One of my first computers was an Amstrad cpc and I remember typing in code for hours to turn the numbers into a musical keyboard or waiting for what seemed like hours for the cassettes to load the game.
To me as long as the gameplay is great i dont mind too much about graphics. I was born and bred on games with 'simple' graphics and now i would rather have a platformer which is say 20 meg than some 220 meg taking up space on my device because of its 'pretty graphics' I played Mario Kart much more on the SNES and GBA so i prefer those versions. The Wii version was brilliant but nowadays to me its all about what games i can play on my i device. But saying that as i can play Mario Kart (SNES) on my iphone its all good !
I'm 33 & from the US but just recently discovered the Spectrum thanks to importing copies of Retro Gamer. I think the visual style is incredible, especially all the dithering & color flashing you find in games like Myth & Rex. An absolutely gorgeous experience. I've been creating a masterful collection importing games into Spectaculator. I'm really hoping to get my hands on one of those Elite Systems keyboards since they've gotten their legal problems sorted out, but I think the official app is still pulled :/
Personally I adore the old-school C64, ZX graphics and all, but I think that's because of nostalgia and because I was around when Top Gun the movie was released in '86 We should ask some 13 year olds what they think about it. Seems like there are only veterans commenting in this thread
I agree i've seen some youngsters play Speccy games and think it looks terrible. For its time and just 48k its amazing what they did back then Again its down to gameplay, i saw an old post of mine which i still agree with now, i would rather have a 20 meg playable game than some 500 meg game with nice graphics but poor controls etc. Of course theres nostalgia but basically the games are good fun, same for classic arcade games from the 80's. Just very playable, playability doesnt age
I tend to draw the line at Amiga quality, that's when you could begin to see personal art styles develop. Before that, a lot of it was up to the imagination.
Nah. Even back on the Spectrum you could see the distinct visual styles of Matthew Smith, Jon Ritman (or at least the artist he worked with - can't remember the name), Costa Panayi, Stephen Crow, Raffaele Cecco, Ultimate, Bo Jangeborg and others.
I like it if it's done well, the developer Quantum Sheep is a perfect example of great ZX Spectrum graphics