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GDC 2007: THE LIGHT AND DARK SIDES OF 2D GAMING
Castlevania boss talks on preserving a fading format.
By Jeremy Parish, 03/09/2007

Konami producer Koji Igarashi has become, perhaps unintentionally, one of two-dimensional gaming's greatest champions. While the industry marches ahead into high definition 3D, Igarashi's Castlevania games remain determinedly 2D. As he explained at his GDC lecture today, this is partly out of necessity -- thanks to the series' flat sales in Japan and uninspiring 3D outings -- and partly borne of an affection for the art form.
Using the past ten years of Castlevania as a framing device, Igarashi made his case for the continuation of the 2D form, concluding with a resounding, crowd-pleasing cry of "2D will never die!" But why is 2D so resilient? Igarashi sees several advantages -- some of which are high-minded, while others are far more pragmatic.
Gameplay
By now, it should be no surprise to anyone that 2d and 3D gaming are two completely different creatures; Igarashi sees four salient differences between the two forms.
• Timing, or predicting movement of game elements and responding appropriately;
• Distance, or using on-screen information to determine the relative locations of game elements;
• Positioning, finding an advantageous location for the player's character; and
• Direction, which is simply where the player faces and acts.
Because video games require virtual 3D space to be projected onto a 2D surface (the screen), depth perception is hampered, and 3D developers must take care to provide sufficient visual cues to allow players to navigate and interact with the space properly. This can be difficult when ranged interaction with elevated objects comes into play. 2D, however, consists of two axes of space rather than three, so things are simplified and players no longer have to go through the mental compensation step of visual processing.
In short, the elements of positioning and direction are streamlined by 2D visuals, leaving developers free to create challenges based around the elements of timing and distance -- and thus offer more immediate and gratifying gameplay. This, Igarashi opines, is the true attraction of 2D gaming.
The Art of Pixels
Igarashi dedicated a fair portion of his talk to discussing pixel art -- not strictly a requirement for 2D gaming, but definitely a common element. The majority of the Castlevania series, from 1991's Castlevania IV to last year's Portrait of Ruin, has featured 16-color sprite objects (occasionally mixed with 256-color items). This has made it easy for the series' developers to reuse graphical elements, which is no surprise to anyone who's played a few games of the series. In fact, sprite recycling is a common complaint among Castlevania fans.
Despite these protests, Igarashi maintains it's a definitely plus of pixel art. Because sprite rendering technology has remained largely consistent over the years, and the most pre-HD game systems have featured similar display resolutions (256x224 for SNES, TurboGrafx and PlayStation, and 256x192 for DS), it's possible to drop a sprite from 1991 into a 2007 game without it looking out of place, provided the original work was of sufficient quality. That certainly isn't the case with 3D objects.
By reusing assets, Igarashi's teams have been able to increase the volume of their games' content with little effort, allowing them to focus on improvements in other areas. It also helps to create a consistent visual style throughout the series. Additionally, it helps serve as training wheels for new staff members, who can draw inspiration from existing work.
Pixel art isn't simply about retreading old content, though; by Igarashi's estimation, a bitmap-based character requires half the time to create as a 3D-modeled character. Plus, pixels look sharper on small screens. Of course, when you begin to scale to larger screens, hand-drawn art suffers -- higher resolution means that more detailed animation is required, which puts pixel art at a distinct disadvantage to polygons. There are other solutions, including 3D art restricted to a 2D perspective (as in the upcoming Dracula X Chronicles for PSP, a game which Igarashi admits is an experiment for future Castlevania games), but for mobile and handheld devices, pixel art is still the ideal.
The Management Side of 2D Design
On the developer side, Igarashi sees a number of advantages to managing the development of 2D games as well. The lower labor requirements of a hand-drawn game means a smaller staff and cheaper development tools, which in turn means it's possible to produce a high-quality game on a much smaller budget than a 3D game requires. It also gives each team member a stronger personal stake in the project; a entire 2D stage environment can be created by a single person, whereas 3D scenery tends to be broken down into smaller components. The act of producing such a significant portion of the game makes each person feel less like their role is grunt work and helps maintain their passion for the project.
2D games certainly offer their own array of management issues, including perceptual issues. The reality is that 3D games are far more popular simply because they look more impressive, and will therefore outperform an equivalent 2D game, and team members have to accept that their work may seem unappreciated by the masses. Castlevania games tend to score well, which is a boon for Igarashi's crew, but good reviews don't automatically sales... and sales ultimately determine the company's handling of a property. (In Castlevania's case, strong North American sales maintain the series' standing at Konami.)
It's simply an unavoidable fact that 2D game design is dated and mature; a 2D developer runs the risk of hitting a glass ceiling of sorts with his career, as most companies look for talent with skills in 3D design and programming. Furthermore, pixel art has become a fairly stagnant field, with its most sophisticated techniques firmly entrenched, meaning newcomers must develop a highly specific repertoire of skills in order to succeed.
Despite these obstacles and issues, Igarashi is confident that 2D games and pixel art will never go entirely out of style. The rise of download services such as Xbox Live Arcade and Wii's Virtual Console, along with the growing popularity of handheld and mobile gaming, assure a healthy future for the form. Maybe not as glorious a future as high-definition 3D gaming, but -- as demonstrated by the enthusiastic applause and eager line of fans that thronged Igarashi at the presentation's conclusion -- definitely one with a loyal and loving following.




No se a que otras soluciones se refiere Igarashi cuando apunta que [u]hay otras soluciones, aparte de los dibujos poligonales 3D restringidos a una perspectiva bidimensional.

A finales de los años 1990 y principios del 2000, parecía que los bitmaps 2D evolucionarían tanto como su parte tridimensional; con un mayor número de cuadros de animación y una mayor fluidez, así como el dibujado en alta resolución, efectos de sombreado y canales alpha, (efectos de transparencias). Con la llegada de los videojuegos en 3D, el uso de sprites se ha comenzado a dejar de lado, al ocupar personajes poligonales. Al igual que se diseñan ahora las nuevas películas de animación, que en las que se mezcla la animación 2D más tradicional con planos en 3D generados completamente por ordenador para dar un toque de calidad a las animaciones. Los programas de animación fueron creados con el fin de emular el sistema de animación manual. Éstos efectos 3D, se utilizan en las animaciones de dibujos, entre un 8 – 16%, de los trabajos, siendo las animaciones de dibujos planos el 84 -92% restante (efectos 3D y de luces, entre otros), como la serie de animación Futurama (Fox), que trabaja con Cel-shading, pero, eso sí, siempre combinada con la animación tradicional y partiendo de bocetos "a mano".
Algunas fuentes, como postback, afirman que los gráficos 3D no sustituyen a los dibujos planos 2D, éstos, no son una evolución, son un producto distinto y paralelo, que no es superior. Es decir, que habrá demanda de nuevos juegos en 2D en un futuro, al igual que la hay ahora. El problema como apuntan al final de su artículo, es que quizás para entonces, la industria no estará preparada para satisfacer esa demanda, debido a que desde la irrupción de los polígonos en el mercado arcade y domestico, piensa en 3d y salvo contadas excepciones todo lo que desarrolla es 3d, para video consolas de sobremesa y arcades de coin – op. Los recreativos donde las 2d deslumbraron antaño están ahora en claro retroceso. Históricas como Capcom o Konami lo unico que sacan ya en 2d son recopilatorios salvo alguna excepción... es cuando menos una incógnita que una industria tan enfilada hacia las 3d y los polígonos este preparada para trabajar nuevamente con dibujos bitmaps, en el futuro. Otras webs, especulan sobre la posibilidad de que, cuando Cell – Shading se mejore bastante más, en el futuro, quién sabe si podrá emular a un gráfico 2D de sprites o bitmaps.