A Link to Some Perspective

For many, Nintendo's "The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past" is a touchstone for what a great action RPG (role playing game) should be. A true classic, it has great puzzles, memorable characters, satisfying (even today) artwork, and a great sense of adventure. Because our current title is also an action RPG, it's only natural that we've spent a lot of time looking at A Link to the Past, both for troubleshooting our own game and to serve as inspiration. Even though we've found many solutions buried within Nintendo's classic; however, one issue continues to prove difficult, and I believe the same dilemma plagued Nintendo's developers 20 years ago. This issue is the game world's perspective.

Anyone who has taken an art class probably remembers the simple exercise of learning two point or one point perspective: take out a drawing pad, draw some lines with a ruler from a vanishing point, then create buildings/hallways/chairs/boxes/etc with convincing depth. It's a fun little lesson in how our brains perceive depth.

Isometric projection is another kind of perspective. A useful way to represent 3D objects in 2D space, it is commonly used in architecture, technical drawings, etc. It was oftentimes seen in classic RPGs, such as Breath of Fire III, Civilization, and others, as a great way to convey depth in a 2D engine. 

As such, it would be easy to look at A Link to the Past and decide that it is also an isometric game. An assumption like this would be wrong. There is actually no true perspective in A Link to the Past.  At Pixel and Texel, we've come to call it the "Zelda Perspective" and it is the viewpoint for creating our game world. 

What is the Zelda perspective? Why were we dumb enough to choose this path for our game? Questions! Simply put, the Zelda perspective an illusion of truth for the sake of gameplay. Most things in A Link to the Past seem correct. But analyze practically any game screen and the perspective starts to break down into a weird fish-eye lens. The viewer is allowed to see the front, side, AND back of houses. Doorways are presented from the front, side, and top all on the same screen. Certain objects are top down. Others are from the side. Truly, the world of A Link to the Past is a crazy place.

So, on to the second question, which is why we would be dumb enough to create our game with such a wacky perspective? The answer is simple: gameplay. A Link to the Past was created with fun as it's only real utility and we realized that fun gameplay was all that really mattered to us as well. In order for the game world to truly fit in any situation, almost every kind of perspective needs to work. Rooms need doors on all sides that are visible to the player, houses must have the front and roof visible at the same time, and crates must be seen only from top down. The list goes on and on.  All of these mechanics are necessary for our game to be fun, but don't make sense from a real world perspective.

The real difficulty in the Zelda Perspective is creating a feeling of truth as the player interacts with the world. This balance can only be described as certain locations feeling "right". There is a continual struggle between whether objects are viewed in perspective or top down, as well as how they are oriented. As development continues, I believe the key to this balance is to never have to many opposing perspectives in close proximity. An open doorway that faces up should not reside to close to several tables that are in perspective facing down. As long as all objects have perspectives that are balanced (perspective vs top down, left vs right, etc) scenes always feel true and "right".

First screenshots and some thoughts from Pixel....

First, I think an introduction is in order.  I am half of the game studio Pixel and Texel, more specifically the Pixel half, and I'll be sharing my thoughts, screenshots, and progress as we develop our new action RPG for the iPhone!  My real name is obviously not Pixel (it's Andrew), but I think the name is indicative of what I've had on the brain lately.  As we work on our new game, I've had to come to grips with creating a visual style that balances nostalgia with our modern game engine.  Here's a first peek at some screenshots taken from our current build:

I'm so excited to share these first images!  It's been an interesting process figuring out the style for our game.  As our studio began thinking about the kind of title we'd like to develop, we realized we had a deep love for classic action/adventure/RPG games.  Titles like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and The Secret of Mana live on in many gamer's minds as fantastic games.  We decided to take our love of this genre and create something new for the iPhone.

One aspect of these classic games that always bothered me was repetition.  Before I understood sprite, tiles, and the technical limitations of older game consoles, I constantly pondered the "sameness" of game worlds.  I hated how every tree in the forest looked the same and how this rock looked just like the last fifty rocks I saw.  Some action RPGs on the iPhone still use the tile convention for game creation, and, frankly, I think the look is too stale for the modern era.

Avoiding this stagnation became one of the most important parts of our design as Texel began creating his engine.  In the end, we were able to treat the entire game world almost as a living painting, where I'm given a giant canvas and an almost infinite number of object types I can place.  This sort of freedom has been immensely satisfying, because I can avoid the dreaded "tile" look and have the sort of variety in the world that makes it feel like a living and breathing place.

I love 2D pixel art.  From Metal Slug to Street Fighter II, some of the most beautiful things I've ever witnessed on a game screen are loving animated sprites.  As development on our game continued, I felt like I wanted to convey this nostalgia in our game world.  My solution was that all characters should be rendered in a classic pixel style.  I first worried that sprites with a hard black outline would seem out of place in a carefully painted world, but was pleasantly surprised when I finished the first character.  The difference in style really helps the characters stand out against the background!  As development goes on, I'll share some tricks/thoughts I've had as I create these little guys.  Pixel art is really difficult but very satisfying!