The Perfect Game Size

I am about to publish my 1st real game made with Construct 2 on both the Scirra Arcade and on Newgrounds simultaneously.

However with the current limit of 800 width of the game on the Scirra Arcade I decided to make my game at the size of 800x450, which I think would be the perfect size for both sites as it falls within the limit of the Scirra Arcade and is also of the 16:9 ratio.

I want to know if I made the right choice of using the size of 800x450.

Note:

Don't be soft on me,I like to get things done right the 1st time.

Therefor I don't have a problem going back and changing the size of the whole game; sprites and all, with intensive feedback from you guys .

Thanks In Advance

I agree and personally think that 800x450 with letterbox scale is a good resolution to start. I also like using a full screen button to allow the game to scale up to full HD if the player wants. To keep images looking sharp at full HD I scale the sprite graphics down in the editor so that they don't become fuzzy when C2 scales them back up.

Colludium thanks for the feedback about the size 800x450.

Sadly down scaling did not help me much with the blurriest when scaling up which I think is due to me importing most of my sprites that I use letterbox integer scale instead.

Just to check - when I say down-scaling in the editor I mean stretching each sprite so its length and width are 0.42 times the sprite image resolution (so a 1000x1000 sprite would be shrunk to 420x420). On a letterbox scaling up to full HD in a browser window then the full size sprite image would be shown in full detail with no blurring. This can only be done with sprites and spritefont objects; graphics like tiled backgrounds and tilemaps cannot be handled this way.

Oh I thought you meant "down scaling" in properties.

Anyways your "down-scaling" in the editor seem to be quite interesting for me to try...

Thanks.

I agree and personally think that 800x450 with letterbox scale is a good resolution to start. I also like using a full screen button to allow the game to scale up to full HD if the player wants. To keep images looking sharp at full HD I scale the sprite graphics down in the editor so that they don't become fuzzy when C2 scales them back up.

Colludium

Do you just have it set up like (On button object touched: -Set size of object to=Whatever Size) for each object that is being scaled?

Would like to know how u do this and does it dip in frame rate when everything is scaled up? or are you just talking about you have done this on PC only?

SHG,

I've tried a couple of different ways and by far the easiest way for me is to just manually shrink each sprite in the layout editor (ie keep the sprite's full resolution for full HD and make the instance smaller by a factor of 1 / 2.4) and keep the game resolution 800x450. I have a 'dump' layout and size the first instance in that layout; each next created example, whether it's drag and drop or using the 'create object' event will then be created with the resize resolution that I want. Then, on upscale to full HD, the sprites all retain a quality appearance as the engine scales them to 1:1.

There is an alternative method, but I don't like it and I'll explain why (someone else might have found good ways to manage these problems and then it would be even easier). You could design the game for full HD and for the 800x450 export just set the canvas to that size at the start of the first layout, then set every layout scale to 0.42 at the start of each layout. Visually the effect should be the same, but window parallax problems can become apparent because of the scale effect and I've never found an easy way to keep the HUD aligned properly using this method. I mention it for completeness only....

I've attached a simple layout capx that toggles between 800x450 and full HD. I think the question about scaling everything at run time would work on start of layout but you would find it almost impossible to manage in the editor window, because nothing would align like it would at run time. All graphics were in the public domain as far as I could tell.