The 90s DOS games had great taste. They were severely limited by tech and they still managed to make colour and art style choices that fit together beautifully. Heart Of China had some iconic images that still stick with me. Prince of Persia one had great animations for the time it came out.
Every pixel in Scorch's tank pixel art feels so well placed, combined with the quips it's like they all had their own character. The tank selection screen could have had an empty landscape picture behind it, like the main menu, but Whicken chose instead a scrolling background that gave a great sense of movement and amped you up for the coming PC Speaker squealing carnage. Of course you get the easy benefit of the whole design being internally consistent because it's made by one guy, which makes it feel like a cohesive whole.
I would say lot of DOS programs and games were just using cold temperature colors, so it has specific 80/90s cold feel, I think later they started to get warmer and warmer.
At a guess? Most of those early games were made with graphics that would look good if it turns out the guy running it only had an EGA and, therefore, was restricted to a very specific set of 16 colors. It took a while for everyone to upgrade.
The 90s DOS games had great taste. They were severely limited by tech and they still managed to make colour and art style choices that fit together beautifully. Heart Of China had some iconic images that still stick with me. Prince of Persia one had great animations for the time it came out.
Every pixel in Scorch's tank pixel art feels so well placed, combined with the quips it's like they all had their own character. The tank selection screen could have had an empty landscape picture behind it, like the main menu, but Whicken chose instead a scrolling background that gave a great sense of movement and amped you up for the coming PC Speaker squealing carnage. Of course you get the easy benefit of the whole design being internally consistent because it's made by one guy, which makes it feel like a cohesive whole.
Yes! I wonder what it is. The color palette? The limited audio palette? The spartan UX?
I would say lot of DOS programs and games were just using cold temperature colors, so it has specific 80/90s cold feel, I think later they started to get warmer and warmer.
At a guess? Most of those early games were made with graphics that would look good if it turns out the guy running it only had an EGA and, therefore, was restricted to a very specific set of 16 colors. It took a while for everyone to upgrade.
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