Undoubtedly one of the finest retro-flavoured 2D platformers of recent years (and there has been a lot of them), Shovel Knight has appeared on most platforms and quickly risen through the ranks, from his humble beginnings in Yacht Club Games' Kickstarter which led to his hugely successful debut (and its myriad expansions) and onwards to myriad cameos in games as diverse as Yooka-Laylee, Blaster Master Zero and Runner3. He's an amiibo, of course, and his appearance as an assist trophy in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate arguably cemented his legend in the video game canon. With all this success, there's been much speculation as to what's next for the hero. A 16-bit style adventure? 3D, even?
Well, it seems that Yacht Club has already got the latter covered, from a certain perspective at least. A new video from Boundary Break sheds some light on the 3D engine used by the developers to create the resolutely 2D Shovel Knight.
As you can see in the video above, the player's view of the world is in fact an orthographic projection that makes the 3D world appear 2D. That's not to say the sprites or background objects are 3D models, but they are arranged in 3D space. Boundary Break talks with programmer David D'Angelo about the system and the reason for its use, and he states that it helps with debugging, in particular.
It's a fascinating look at the game, very literally offering a new perspective on the 2D classic. No doubt having all those layers separated helped a lot while making the stereoscopic 3DS version, too. It's a fascinating video and it's well worth watching the whole thing when you get the chance.
"Yeah, but it's not REALLY 3D, is it!" Ah, well many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. What would you like to see the intrepid Knight do next? A classic style 3D platformer, perhaps? Let us know below.
[source youtube.com]
Comments 33
You play it in 2D tho.
Isn't this called layers? and each layer has a Z axis to ensure the correct layers are rendered before others? So all 2D games in the past 10 years have been this way. Even Flash had this. Kudos to them for drumming up publicity.
Indie Kart Racing!
Still a 2D game with layers at different depths. This is fairly common in video games. Hollow Knight uses the same concept to take advantage of Unity3D for a 2D game with way more layers. It is actually called a parallax, which you can also see on websites
Yeah, this is pretty common. I'm pretty sure Symphony of the Night did the same thing all the way back in the mid 90's.
But it is 3D, especially on the level with the green rain, thats why it works so well on the 3DS
@Rhaoulos Parallax and 3D is not the same. While I would guess that most modern 2D games create there parallax effect the same way as Shovel Knight, it's not always this way.
A lot of 16 bit games and even some 8 bit ones had parallax effects, but those definitely weren't 3D.
@tendonerd Not exactly, which the video shows. Unlike other games where a few layers may be present at a time, this game is a literal 3D game where the layers are of a different z axis in depth. Not just some value which changes which plane is present. Every layer is present and the video showcases this. You could compare this to Sonic Colors, which locks the camera to a 2D position for the 2D parts despite being a 3D game.
To be clear, the gameplay and display is 2D in most cases, but this is achieved through an orthographic projection with a 3D game engine.
It's an extremely common technique for developing 2D games in modern gaming systems, and is convenient for achieving stereoscopic 3D effects such as on the Nintendo 3DS.
Now I want to see what an actual 3D platformer Shovel Knight would look like.
Yeah, this is a common thing. In fact all games made in Unity, for example, are 3D. When you start a project you can select the 2D option but it just sets everything up for this orthogonal camera but you are still running a 3D game.
I saw this yesterday. It was... shocking at the least.
Mostly all modern 2D games are made in 3D game engines with a locked 2D viewpoint unless it is programmed from scratch.
I was waiting to pick this up when I get a Switch, but now I'm considering getting this on the 3DS; I imagine all the layering looks beautiful on the system.
Isn’t this how SOTN worked back in PS1? No true traditional sprites everything is made up of flat polygons with textures to make up its art limited only by fillrate, it allowed easy scale and rotation, transparency and tons of parallax layers.
@countzero 3D games use 3D models with textures. This uses flat layers with 2D graphics and transparency. You should have a look at Bloodstained which is actual 3D with fixed viewing angle.
Wow, this is not misleading at all lol...
So... Labo VR update soon? Lol
I like Boundary Break. It's always interesting seeing little tricks the devs use to get a certain affect.
Just wish he would keep staying away from the clickbait-esque video titles. Bleh.
Said it before And Ill say it again they need to make an n64 style 3d shovel knight
they should add a cheat code to change the camera angle it'd look interesting
I honestly loved Shovel Knight and I've bought it on two different platforms. It has taken every grain of my self control to resist buying it on a third platform in the form of the Switch version.
@Onion Do it! Treat yourself, you know you want it!
UM.....no suprise, it was in 3d for the for the entire game on the 3DS. in fact it is my favorite version and looks the best out of all the system versions. and is the version i owned and played. it was made for 3d imo. it fits real well in 3D or 2.5d pixel whatever you wanna call it.
It's already a 16-bit style adventure! Maybe the graphics are a little weak compared to many Genesis and SNES games, but it's still well beyond what was possible (and looks a lot better) than anything on the NES. It's at least closer to 16-bit style than 8-bit style. Maybe that makes it more like 14-bit style?
@NintendoByNature No, N64 graphics (as well as those on PS1 and Saturn) suck by modern standards! If they're going to do retro 3D, then it needs to be at the level of the GameCube at the very least.
@BulbasaurusRex I get your point but think about it. They made shovel knight in what, a mixture of nes and snes graphics. Mostly nes, and by today's standards Nes graphics suck. But shovel is one of the most beloved games, even for an indie. They can easily make an n64 style game but fine tune the graphics to make it look much more appealing like they did with shovel knight. I've always imagined an ocarina of time game with dungeons and side quests but set in shovel knights kingdom. I think it would be amazing.
@NintendoByNature Um, like I said in my first comment, "Shovel Knight" is mostly 16-bit style, which is exactly why it looks good while 8-bit style sucks. Applying the theory to 3D graphics, it would still have to be a lot closer to GameCube-style than N64-style to look good.
Or are talking about the gameplay style, wanting a Shovel Knight 3D collectathon as was popular in the 32-64 bit era? Personally, I much prefer 3D platformers with end level goals (or bosses), but that idea at least isn't automatically antiquated as long as they provide a quality mostly automatic camera instead of the c***py cameras they had back on the N64 and PS1 (or the completely manual cameras that Nintendo stupidly insists on sometimes still using even today).
@BulbasaurusRex sorry I hadnt read your 1st comment. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I want a shovel knight game that looks and plays like ocarina of time or majoras mask ( most preferably, the 3d outings with updated visuals). Not really a collectathon but an open world with dungeons to explore. 3d platforming and like you said, a boss as the end. Maybe give shovel knight a new upgrade in each dungeon to use on the boss? Something along those lines.
@NintendoByNature Semi open world dungeon exploration doesn't really mesh well with platforming, though. The 3D Zeldas may have some platforming, but by no means would anyone confuse them as being part of the platforming genre. It just wouldn't be a Shovel Knight game if you removed most of the traditional platforming elements.
@BulbasaurusRex fair point. But keep in mind, zelda 2 was for the most part a platformer, which is 180 from zelda 1 or ALTTP. And OoT was a 180 from ALTTP in the sense that the way you saw every thing in ocarina was vastly different than ALTTP. Granted you still had dungeon exploration in both so they're obviously similar. Point Is, zelda 2 is still a zelda game even if it's hard to tell at times. Sometimes different can be a good thing. If yacht club changed the way you played shovel knight and kept all the same characters. Toss some platforming in the game and add combat plus exploration, I wouldn't complain but i can understand people wouldn't be happy with them changing the roots of shovel knight. Again you bring up valid points, but i think ycg is smart /talented enough to make something like an n64 action adventure game work. And they'd have a load of day 1 buyers I would imagine. I see what you're saying though, those are just my thoughts
Yeah, this is kinda how you do 2D games in something like Unity.
Looks awesome in 3D.
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