Recently we purchased an HDTV for the purpose of testing “Marian” at various HD resolutions – but it also happened to be my first HDTV ever, so I was pretty anxious to see some of my games running at epic sizes. 
Back in the day when Derek and I were working on Aquaria (circa 2006), widescreen monitors weren’t a big deal. Everything was 4:3, and we designed the game accordingly. However, by the time the game was released in late 2007, 16:10 and 16:9 had caught on in a big way. We ended up releasing a major patch of the game that added full widescreen support – and it was a lot of work. Beyond the code changes, we had to create new artwork to extend the edges of certain scenes, edit all the levels so that the game wouldn’t spoil anything major, etc.
Designing with multiple aspect ratios in mind from the start is a little bit tedious, but it definitely saves a lot of heartache down the road. 
Jandeilson De Sousa wrote a Comment on March 29, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Wow, Marian and Aquaria are wonderful and exciting on a HDTV. O.O
How does it feel to play them on an HDTV?
Aaron Sarazan wrote a Comment on March 29, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Ah one of the hands-down best moments in a game’s lifecycle, when you can first view it in all its HD glory.
I’ve got a Sony 46″ and I always get so excited when we get enough hi-res art assets in to do a TV test
Derek wrote a Comment on March 29, 2010 at 9:24 pm
Purdy! I really dig the Marian logo, too – I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that before.
alastair john jack wrote a Comment on March 31, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Marian HD looks hot
Infinite Ammo » Blog Archive » Marian Mondays: Holistic Design wrote a Pingback on April 6, 2010 at 1:36 am
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