Bitmap's SNES / Super Famicom Visual Compendium Kickstarter Ends With Almost £225,000 In The Bank

It's great that it met all of its stretch goals. The NES compendium was great, so really looking forward to this. Saying that, I don't think an N64 compendium would be quite as successful as the last two.

@Jack_Goetz You're right. 3d doesn't age nearly as well as pixel art.

Got up early to get the early bird discount,I would totally buy an N64 one

@jwfurness I often say 3D doesn't age well, too, but in reality it's just that early 3D, and especially N64 3D was just so darned ugly, even in its day It left a LOT to our imaginations to fill in what the machines weren't really yet capable of!

@NEStalgia Definitely. I have a really hard time going back to the 32-bit era and enjoying myself (tried to play Medievil this weekend and just couldn't do it), but still fire up my Genesis regularly. We are spoiled! It's a good time to be a gamer.

@NEStalgia Also, when you have no concept of what "next-gen" could look like, you think "this is the best thing I've ever seen. How could it get any better?"

Hope they showcase some of the PAL exclusive games

Nice. It is a work of art. I would absolutely love to get this.

Now, we play the waiting game... while playing SNES, obviously.

@Jack_Goetz An N64 book has already been produced. And it's a great compendium with some interesting articles

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2099439603/nintendo-64-anthology-the-ultimate-book

Obviously not a Bitmap Book but still a decent coffee table book. But yes, I agree. The style of the Bitmap books suits 8bit/16bit

So basically they smashed it. I didn't contribute but I'll be buying this when it's realeased. Their NES one is great and their SFC Box Art book is great too. I can also give a recommendation to the N64 anthology (not Bitmap books) linked in the above comment

@jwfurness So true! I thought the SNES was the pinnacle of visual fidelity in '92

@NEStalgia Some would argue that with the right connectors on the right display, it still is

@jwfurness You're right, i played some of my old PSX-games (I know, heresy! ), and i had a really hard time getting over just how hideously ugly everything was, so i went back to my SNES...

So, what's the amount in Euro, article? €€€

Got in on the first day too. Can't wait to get this in the post. Loved the NES book.

@NEStalgia True. The biggest problem with early 3D games is it's poor lighting & shading models. Basically, the artist would draw the textures for both characters and the 3D environment as if it were pixel art and often applied shadows and other such details into them. When the designers applied these textures, a lot of the colors in these textures seemed way darker when rendered than they look on their own.

Just look at games such as Zelda BoTW and Mario Kart 8 and see how they got their vivid colors back. It's not that all games have to look bright and colorful, but older 3D games often just look dark in places they weren't meant to be.

That said, I know there are people drawing characters like Mario in N64 style and Cloud in PS1 style, so there's definitely nostalgic charm to some.

@Slaz Good points! That was interestingly a problem that happened more on console for some reason I think. During the N64 & GC era I was primarly involved in PC. You saw those issues creep in, but more times than not they crept in mostly in ports of console games. Maybe it was just better lighting models on more powerful hardware.

@NEStalgia I think so, yes. The only comparison I can think of is Rayman 2. I remember playing it back then on a primitive PC (at least pre-directx) as well as playing a rented N64 copy from a local video rental, and the PC version did look more in place as far as my memory goes.

Bottom line is, it took the game industry years to let 3D games slowly match up (artistically) to 16/32 bit era games. But back then we were of course amazed by the mere existence of 3D gameworlds which overshadowed artistic value.

Now people adore pixel art by itself, it's more popular than ever. And therefore classic 2D games have awakened more nostalgia than classic 3D games.

Looks cool, might get