Graphics Proportions in Games

[fcgamer | 4,753]

I was reading an interview the other day with the creator of Mario, and he had explained the rationale for Mario dying in Donkey Kong if Mario fell from a high position, i.e. to simulate reality basically.

Then I started thinking about how in so many games, the graphics aren't proportional to the characters. In SMB, think about the size of the mushrooms, or even the clouds or castle, to Mario himself. Or in Little Nemo, everything is generally suoer-sized compared to the protagonist.

So how about everyone here. Do you prefer the games graphics to be in realistic proportion, or not? Let's discuss.

Edited July 17, 2021 by fcgamer

[Tulpa | 3,537]

Depends on the game for me. Mario is in a game where he himself can grow in height, fly around, fling fireballs, and has an antagonist in Bowser who ranges from just a little bit bigger in the early games to four or five stories tall in the more recent ones. I'm not as concerned with accurate graphical proportions when it can change at any moment and seems right for that world to do so.

Something more realistic would be more jarring. Even something like Zelda needs to be reasonably believable, unless there's some magic handwaving here and there.

I acknowledge that my favorite NES game, Batman, has a Joker who is either eight feet tall or fighting a four foot tall Batman.

Edited July 17, 2021 by Tulpa

[phart010 | 1,708]

I just want the game to be genuinely fun. That trumps all other things.

Things don’t have to be realistic in games. Like you can be driving car and ram into a tank of gas, and instead of denting your car or causing a fire, it somehow ends up filling up the car while your driving. Or you can be running and step on a box of pizza which instantly disappears and makes you stronger.

You only start picking things apart and complaining about how unrealistic things are when the game isn’t fun and it can’t hold your attention 

[Tanooki | 4,952]

Gameplay, fun, well done design trumps it.  Usually, at least to me, that means things are NOT to scale.  Scale can get old really fast and just make things a bit more too real for fun.  Imagine some games where you really do have to say fly over terrain, and in one it's fun and you zip there to do the objective.  Now imagine another game, flying along, TO SCALE, to do the same objective, and you literally have to sit there and wait 10min to fly the distance your friend did like in 2-3 because it didn't scale.  SNORE!

The case of SMB though, that castle, sure it's small compared to him, but scaled?  Might as well in that day just make a big brown wall with a small boring door on it.  Not very visually appealing at all.

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

I prefer smaller scale with more room to move. I dislike large and clunky character sprites/models for the character you're controlling. 

[DarkTone | 988]

I think that's to just show what the items and enemies are. Imagine if every power up in SMB was one pixel. 

Besides, I long ignored logic in certain games. How can a blue hedgehog whos 4 times the size of every other animal, smash a TV and collect shoes, that hes already wearing?! 

So yeah. Shit like that. 

[spacepup | 2,412]

Imagine if playing Mario, the most you could jump was about maybe .5 to 1.0 his body height, and then after running for a while he has to take a break for a while to rest.  And then after a good play session you have to turn off the game because it is his bedtime, haha.

For me, most of the games I enjoy have nothing to do with realism so it’s not something I think about often other than the occasional thought experiment sort of like this.

I love RPGs, and they are pretty much the opposite of realistic in almost every way, between magic spells, flying dragons, airships, and all sorts of other stuff hah.

Also, inventory management would be horrible - imagine if you could only carry like three things on you at any time.

 

[Tanooki | 4,952]

7 minutes ago, spacepup said:

Imagine if playing Mario, the most you could jump was about maybe .5 to 1.0 his body height, and then after running for a while he has to take a break for a while to rest.  And then after a good play session you have to turn off the game because it is his bedtime, haha.

For me, most of the games I enjoy have nothing to do with realism so it’s not something I think about often other than the occasional thought experiment sort of like this.

I love RPGs, and they are pretty much the opposite of realistic in almost every way, between magic spells, flying dragons, airships, and all sorts of other stuff hah.

Also, inventory management would be horrible - imagine if you could only carry like three things on you at any time.

 

Hah love that, but also depressing because some games to put a bit too much reality into them in some form or another and they're an instant put off.  Remember when the geniuses at rockstar put consquences in GTA for getting a fat butt and tired very quickly?  If you don't balance walking/running around town with driving a car you get chunky and tired fast...as if we needed that in games.

[phart010 | 1,708]

Even In Donkey Kong NES, Mario jumps higher than an NBA player. Any more realistic than that and you don’t have a gameplay mechanic to work with

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

I like the Mario 3 approach: Consistency between standard levels and an entire world dedicated to changing it up.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,585]

There is no answer.

Breath of the Wild's scale works and so does Earthbound's.  The reverse wouldn't be true.

 

 

 

 

Or would it...

 

[TDIRunner | 2,773]

Just about any game that involves jumping wouldn't work if the jumping was realistic or proportional.  That's pretty much my answer.  

[Tanooki | 4,952]

4 hours ago, phart010 said:

Even In Donkey Kong NES, Mario jumps higher than an NBA player. Any more realistic than that and you don’t have a gameplay mechanic to work with

You'd have every game being like Bionic Commando or of the sort, can't jump more than knee height(of for him, stuck on a curb for ants.)

[T-Pac | 7,588]

Regarding disproportionate stuff in games - for some reason I only care that furniture is the right size compared to the characters. A Pokeball can be as big as a character sprite and it wouldn't bother me, but the chairs in the Pokemon center better be accurately-sized!

Thank goodness Animal Crossing gets this right, considering how furniture is an integral aspect of the game haha.

-CasualCart

[Tanooki | 4,952]

Ahem!

[phart010 | 1,708]

The scaling here is off by grand magnitudes, but the battle is no less epic

[mbd39 | 2,029]

Even Tyson's feet are almost the same size as Little Mac's entire body. Little Mac the giant killer.

 

[spacepup | 2,412]

For me, a huge element of the fun in playing video games, is escaping from reality and doing crazy stuff you can't do in real life.  

Having said that, it's fun to just take a step back and analyze how ridiculous they are sometimes.

[cj_robot | 546]

[T-Pac | 7,588]

17 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Ahem!

 

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

On 7/20/2021 at 11:28 AM, mbd39 said:

Even Tyson's feet are almost the same size as Little Mac's entire body. Little Mac the giant killer.

 

Compared to the other boxers, Mac looks like he's only about 4 feet tall. The crazier part is Mario is even shorter than he is.

[GPX | 1,374]

I've honestly not having given it any thought whatsoever about disproportionate enemies, sprites or furnitures. I think when I had started playing games, it was the Atari and 8-bit era, and the graphics were a given to be disproportionate. So I guess I grew accustomed to this kind of random scaling due to hardware limitations or fantasy-based gaming.

The other issue is that most of the retro games have non-reality physics, so why expect proportionate graphics for non-reality based motions. eg. Sonic going faster than a train, Mario flying higher than an aeroplane in a racoon suit etc..

Edited July 22, 2021 by GPX