The evolution of C64 games 1982–2023 | Hacker News Reader

The evolution of C64 games 1982–2023

linusakesson.net

88 pointsrcarmo13 comments

Taken all together the color palette stands out as a limitation. It's pretty much impossible to make a vivid looking game on this machine.

(Not a hater btw, the SID is amazing and I'd love to own a c64 some day.)

At the time it felt a lot superior to the alternatives. The low saturation wasn't so much of an issue when TVs tended to have a dial to adjust that.

Most of the contemporaries used primary colour palettes which were definitely more vibrant but lacked any hues that worked together.

The Atari systems were better when it came to producing colours but had their own quirks. If you wanted a horizontal gradient, Atari was king.

It was a time of extremely rapid development. The changes from 1978 to 1988 make the changes 2008 to 2018 look positively stagnant.

I don't remember them being that washed out.

Were they really that washed out or is it that whatever emulator they're using isn't doing the CRT colorspace and filtering conversion correctly?

On real CRTs you could do quite a bit to increase the contrast by fiddling with the knob. I think someone just has their emulator set up wrong for the video.

if you compare the c64 palette to other ~16 color computers of the era, the c64 has a definite brownish/purplish tint to it, i don't think the video misrepresents it.

I read somewhere that the colour palette is pretty much a representation of the colours the designers of the chip liked.

I remember Summer Games looking quite good. It was a big jump in graphics.

It does seem to have an emphasis on not so saturated colours. Especially brownish colours. Compared to for example an NES it’s very limiting I find.

I see "linusakesson", I upvote.

A mind is born, 256 bytes, is my favorite:

https://www.linusakesson.net/scene/a-mind-is-born/

The games from the 00s are pretty much just "that one random game someone released this year", but it's neat how in the 10s they actually start looking different again and often really cutting edge and something you wouldn't expect any pre-1993 game to look like.

Linus is awesome, I have really enjoyed a lot of his projects. Great nerd vibe in the most relatable way!

He's such a gem, the depth he goes to is just jaw dropping sometimes.

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