4K or HD for my platformer game

Hi All

I have made few basic browser games in the past using construct 3 but now I am working on a much larger platformer project. I would like to release the game on steam eventually and maybe one day the iPad (but not sure about Ipad yet).

If I am releasing a game on Steam should my game be 4k or is HD good enough?

I have only been setting up the rough prototype for now and my construct viewport size is 3840 x 2160 but will this be to heavy once I bring in loads of artwork? Will this cause performance issues when people play the game or will they have to have super computers to play it?

My art style is vector based, you can see my art style in one of my basic games below, but the game I am working on will be in this vector style but have a lot more layers, detail and animations etc. toon.world/games/henrys-slingshot-antics/6

Any advice would be appreciated, as I don’t want to make a mistake and create everything in the wrong size.

Many thanks :-)

Lee

Personally, I wouldn't target 4k resolution for a 2d game.

It becomes more about pixels per inch at that point. Most users won't be able to discern a difference unless their screen is huge like a TV or something.

I'd rather target a larger audience with lower end devices, unless cutting edge, industry leading, high fidelity graphics are a huge selling point of my game.

Thank you for your advice :-)

I was thinking 4k to future proof the game and just incase it was successful and could try and get it ported to consoles etc. But I have no idea how much it would effect performance. Do you know would it slow down the game a lot ?

Anyway I am now leaning towards the standard HD as you say I want more people to be able to enjoy the game :-)

Thanks again

Lee

It may or may not cause issues. It's hard to say, a lot depends on the user's device. Precisely because it's hard to say is why I prefer to play it safe.

Larger textures can definitely cause issues in regards to limited VRAM. It just doesn't make sense to me to risk potential problems for something that people may or may not be able to take advantage of in the first place (or even notice a difference at all).

construct supports svg so u could use that instead of rasterizing your vector graphics

for the resolution just put some lines of code that adapt the resolution of the game to the device used and make sure your UI moves around to account for different aspect ratios and stuff

It may or may not cause issues. It's hard to say, a lot depends on the user's device. Precisely because it's hard to say is why I prefer to play it safe.

Larger textures can definitely cause issues in regards to limited VRAM. It just doesn't make sense to me to risk potential problems for something that people may or may not be able to take advantage of in the first place (or even notice a difference at all).

Thanks again for your advice 🙂

construct supports svg so u could use that instead of rasterizing your vector graphics

for the resolution just put some lines of code that adapt the resolution of the game to the device used and make sure your UI moves around to account for different aspect ratios and stuff

Thank you, I will look into using svg however I have been using Esoteric Spine for the animations, so I don’t think I can use svg for this, but perhaps I can use svg for other static graphics in the game 🙂