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So, the module is finally done. Here it is. It's a project I started in June, first mentioned in this blog post. I've been working on it intermittently since, and finally got it done in a spurt of activity this month. It's out in time for halloween, too!
Really, this is a direct sequel to Ynn. The structure is exactly the same: you roll up locations as you explore deeper, building a map as you go. Some minor tweaks to this, such as the Progress score, minor alterations to running blindly, and what's on the Events table. But nothing huge. If you liked Ynn, you'll like this. In terms of atmosphere, the Library is likewise similar to Ynn, with many of the same motifs appearing. Genteel yet dangerous environments, old machinary built into the space, mutation and madness. Things skew darker, though. Necromancy gets a big focus. Many of the monsters are ghosts of various forms, some of them the products of almost industrial processing. Other encounters are undead, or use the dead somehow. Similarly, many of the locations in the library feature magic that messes with the soul, and many of the library's machines use phantoms in the same way 20th century technology used electricity. Overall, when I've run it (or bits of it) you alternate between a sort of comfy 'English stately homes' feel, and a sense of subtle creepiness. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a horror game, but it has its spooky moments. Mechanically, I've abstracted the process of finding specific information in the library to a running 'progress' score that accounts for navigating the place's layout, looking up references, putting facts together, and so on. Every time you read the right books, talk to the right NPCs, etc, you get a little bit closer to your goal. I've found that its fairly intuitive, since it mirrors the 'attrit away HP' mechanics we're familiar with: tot up numbers until you reach a goal. There's books everywhere in the module. A d100 table for what a given shelf of books is about, and a couple of pages of special books that grant benefits to the reader. Bonuses to attributes in the manner of those old 'manual of bodily health' books, revelatory texts that let you switch class, occult works that let the magician or cleric add spells from the other's list to their own, that sort of thing. Rather than physical mutations, these books let you improve yourself through knowledge. Lastly, there's a little class at the back, the Mummified Sage. Basically a scholar who's been in the library too long, died, and kept on researching without noticing. They get a little spellcasting (only one spell slot), some advantages for being undead, and a flat chance to recognise anything weird they encounter from their studies.
So, that's about it. Visually, it's a bunch of art nouveau and 19th century stuff mostly. All public domain. I think it works well together. The rest of the layout is pretty simple, with two collumns and big titles. It should work in play.
What now? I'm still hashing out and formalising the system I used to test it. I might bundle that system, this, Ynn and a hub location into a single omnibus. Howl's Moving Castle and Gormenghast are feeling like inspiration here, the players inherit an old magical mansion that they must explore, pacify and master, and which has portals leading to these two pocket dimensions.
So yeah. I'm happy enough with it, and I've had fun running it in tests. It's four bucks on DTRPG. You can get it here.
Posted by Vikrant Nanda and René Mayrhofer, Android Security & Privacy Team
There is no better time to talk about Android dessert releases than the holidays because who doesn't love dessert? And what is one of our favorite desserts during the holiday season? Well, pie of course.
In all seriousness, pie is a great analogy because of how the various ingredients turn into multiple layers of goodness: right from the software crust on top to the hardware layer at the bottom. Read on for a summary of security and privacy features introduced in Android Pie this year.
Strengthening Android
Making Android more secure requires a combination of hardening the platform and advancing anti-exploitation techniques.
Platform hardening
With Android Pie, we updated File-Based Encryption to support external storage media (such as, expandable storage cards). We also introduced support for metadata encryption where hardware support is present. With filesystem metadata encryption, a single key present at boot time encrypts whatever content is not encrypted by file-based encryption (such as, directory layouts, file sizes, permissions, and creation/modification times).
Android Pie also introduced a BiometricPrompt API that apps can use to provide biometric authentication dialogs (such as, fingerprint prompt) on a device in a modality-agnostic fashion. This functionality creates a standardized look, feel, and placement for the dialog. This kind of standardization gives users more confidence that they're authenticating against a trusted biometric credential checker.
New protections and test cases for the Application Sandbox help ensure all non-privileged apps targeting Android Pie (and all future releases of Android) run in stronger SELinux sandboxes. By providing per-app cryptographic authentication to the sandbox, this protection improves app separation, prevents overriding safe defaults, and (most significantly) prevents apps from making their data widely accessible.
Anti-exploitation improvements
With Android Pie, we expanded our compiler-based security mitigations, which instrument runtime operations to fail safely when undefined behavior occurs.
Control Flow Integrity (CFI) is a security mechanism that disallows changes to the original control flow graph of compiled code. In Android Pie, it has been enabled by default within the media frameworks and other security-critical components, such as for Near Field Communication (NFC) and Bluetooth protocols. We also implemented support for CFI in the Android common kernel, continuing our efforts to harden the kernel in previous Android releases.
Integer Overflow Sanitization is a security technique used to mitigate memory corruption and information disclosure vulnerabilities caused by integer operations. We've expanded our use of Integer Overflow sanitizers by enabling their use in libraries where complex untrusted input is processed or where security vulnerabilities have been reported.
Continued investment in hardware-backed security
One of the highlights of Android Pie is Android Protected Confirmation, the first major mobile OS API that leverages a hardware-protected user interface (Trusted UI) to perform critical transactions completely outside the main mobile operating system. Developers can use this API to display a trusted UI prompt to the user, requesting approval via a physical protected input (such as, a button on the device). The resulting cryptographically signed statement allows the relying party to reaffirm that the user would like to complete a sensitive transaction through their app.
We also introduced support for a new Keystore type that provides stronger protection for private keys by leveraging tamper-resistant hardware with dedicated CPU, RAM, and flash memory. StrongBox Keymaster is an implementation of the Keymaster hardware abstraction layer (HAL) that resides in a hardware security module. This module is designed and required to have its own processor, secure storage, True Random Number Generator (TRNG), side-channel resistance, and tamper-resistant packaging.
Other Keystore features (as part of Keymaster 4) include Keyguard-bound keys, Secure Key Import, 3DES support, and version binding. Keyguard-bound keys enable use restriction so as to protect sensitive information. Secure Key Import facilitates secure key use while protecting key material from the application or operating system. You can read more about these features in our recent blog post as well as the accompanying release notes.
Enhancing user privacy
User privacy has been boosted with several behavior changes, such as limiting the access background apps have to the camera, microphone, and device sensors. New permission rules and permission groups have been created for phone calls, phone state, and Wi-Fi scans, as well as restrictions around information retrieved from Wi-Fi scans. We have also added associated MAC address randomization, so that a device can use a different network address when connecting to a Wi-Fi network.
On top of that, Android Pie added support for encrypting Android backups with the user's screen lock secret (that is, PIN, pattern, or password). By design, this means that an attacker would not be able to access a user's backed-up application data without specifically knowing their passcode. Auto backup for apps has been enhanced by providing developers a way to specify conditions under which their app's data is excluded from auto backup. For example, Android Pie introduces a new flag to determine whether a user's backup is client-side encrypted.
As part of a larger effort to move all web traffic away from cleartext (unencrypted HTTP) and towards being secured with TLS (HTTPS), we changed the defaults for Network Security Configuration to block all cleartext traffic. We're protecting users with TLS by default, unless you explicitly opt-in to cleartext for specific domains. Android Pie also adds built-in support for DNS over TLS, automatically upgrading DNS queries to TLS if a network's DNS server supports it. This protects information about IP addresses visited from being sniffed or intercepted on the network level.
We believe that the features described in this post advance the security and privacy posture of Android, but you don't have to take our word for it. Year after year our continued efforts are demonstrably resulting in better protection as evidenced by increasing exploit difficulty and independent mobile security ratings. Now go and enjoy some actual pie while we get back to preparing the next Android dessert release!
Acknowledgements: This post leveraged contributions from Chad Brubaker, Janis Danisevskis, Giles Hogben, Troy Kensinger, Ivan Lozano, Vishwath Mohan, Frank Salim, Sami Tolvanen, Lilian Young, and Shawn Willden.
The Global Game Jam 2018 @ KSU will be held from Friday, January 26th through Sunday, January 28th.
This is a great opportunity to come and make a game over a weekend. Anyone can join in regardless of skill or experience. Come and have fun, learn, and meet some new people.
You will also need to register https://epay.kennesaw.edu/C20923_ustores/web/classic/product_detail.jsp?PRODUCTID=2015 The registration desk will be on Level 2 of J-Block at 2:00 pm. The opening ceremonies will take place in Q-202 and will start at 4:30 pm. The jam will take place in J-Block and will start at 6:00 pm on Friday January 26, 2019. This is an 18 Plus event. If you are not 18 or older, you will not be able to participate.
I'm excited and delighted to have my second guest post of my blog's history, again by my student Andrew Lipian. He's been working on this one for quite a while. Again, I think it's great to hear about these current experiences for students who have attended them. Here he describes his experience during the past summer in the Video Game Scoring Workshop at NYU Steinhardt.
NYU Summer Workshop in Game Audio is a Wwise Choice - Andrew Lipian
Before the snow melts, flowers bloom, and the school busses whir to a stop, up-and-coming game composers will be thinking of how to enhance their audio chops this summer. They need look no further than the Video Game Scoring Workshop at NYU Steinhardt, led by game composer Tom Salta and his team of fellow audio pros. These included Gina Zdanowicz- founder of Serial Lab Sound - who lead students through the technical side of creating adaptive music systems in Wwise, and Jason Kanter - Audio Lead for Avalanche Studios in New York City - who gave a presentation on sound design and joined in discussions regarding the business of game music.
Bolstered by such a well-rounded team, this program was unique from others. Composers usually sign up for similar workshops to master the machinations of Wwise or FMOD –audio implementation tools – but this program takes it a step further. As part of NYU's "Screen Scoring Summer Workshop" offerings, students travel from global destinations such as Japan and Israel to attend a week-long intensive workshop offering one-on-one training in Wwise by NYU faculty and staff. During the week, however, the entire group actively observes each new iteration of their individual interactive audio projects which get critiqued and modified by Salta over the course of the week. I had occasion to audit the 2018 class, watching the students' creative processes unfold until they caught lightning in a bottle, leaving with a fully functional and implemented game score.
New York University's workshop succeeded due in no small part to the inspired choice of NYU alum Tom Salta (HALO, Killer Instinct) to head the project, bringing his years of industry accomplishments to the fore. He shared his various experiences and career journey from touring with Pop music stars, record producing, transitioning to composing video game music to delivering his recent TEDx talk. Everything Tom imparted was solid gold, and he even walked students through his process of creating music for games like "Prince of Persia."
Notably, what Salta had championed with this program was unprecedented for NYU.
"This new focus on music for games was unheard of back when I was here," Salta explained. For the first program of its kind at NYU, though, it was a resounding success – here's how it worked:
The students downloaded "Angry Bots," the game they would implement their music into with Wwise. Angry Bots is a third person shooter with a solid-snake-like character, thanks to the creative voice overs scripted and recorded by fellow instructor, Gina Zdanowicz, infiltrating a Robot Laboratory as the lethal machines attempt to terminate him. Each code he cracks opens a new door, creating opportunities for the score to develop as he delves deeper into the labyrinthine facility. After also downloading Wwise, the students are then asked to begin sketching music for the game using their Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs). The entire class witnessed their peers develop and conceive music in a linear fashion – structured with an A and B section with a loop, for example – into horizontal resequencing, where specific in-game actions "trigger" the next music track. For Salta, watching the students master this concept was a highlight of the course.
"This was the first time many of the participants ever ventured beyond linear composition -- as in music for TV and Film -- into the non-linear world of video game music," Salta notes; "The music needs to account for all sorts of gameplay possibilities, yet still feel like a unified, continuous piece. Seeing a student's eyes light up when they finally understand this is unforgettable."
The students – ranging from High-School to seasoned professionals – created scores as diverse as the nations they hailed from. One memorable moment occurred when a composer's use of a trailer rise (consisting of several string instruments rising to crescendo with tremolos) surprisingly fit the action every time it appeared. Another came when a student from Japan envisioned a lighthearted, comedic element to the level – opting for a jazzy track smacking of something from "The Naked Gun." Every one of these ideas changed the feel – even the identity – of the game; a reminder of the important influence music has in shaping the playing experience.
None of this would have been possible without the see-what-sticks approach of Salta and his team, who created a learning environment which encouraged inventiveness as much as it spurred technical mastery. All this was part of the plan.
"When I first spoke to NYU about putting this workshop together, my dream was to create a 'bootcamp' of sorts that would walk participants through the entire gamut of what goes into creating original music for games. I wanted a hands-on, interactive experience where students would be able to create original music from scratch and put it into a playable video game by the end of the week. Not just talking about the concepts but actually doing it."
Most assuredly, it was this atmosphere that lent so many international students their most formative experience in game scoring to that point – and that same atmosphere will continue drawing throngs of ambitious composers to NYU, ready to harness the powers of this interactive medium in immersing the next generation of gamers. These skills, Salta adds, are a must-have for those aspiring to a career in game audio.
"For anyone coming into the industry now, it's important to have proficiency in the entire
game audio pipeline as it will open up more opportunities. Composers who know both the compositional and technical aspects of game music implementation will have a leg up on those who just know how to compose music."
As the industry changes, the skills one is "expected," to have, versus those which are "desirable," shift. These days, if you want to work in video game music, you are expected to know Wwise or FMOD and understand audio implementation, a skillset this course specializes in teaching.
When today's composers are ready to take their skills to that next level, Tom Salta and the NYU "Scoring for Videogames" Workshop are there to give them the tools they need to succeed.
Assault Android Cactus+, the action-packed arcade-style twin-stick shooter by Witch Beam, launches into uncharted space on the Nintendo Switch today. Assault Android Cactus+ debuts on Nintendo Switch with all-new features: Campaign+, new character costumes and aim assist options. Campaign+ reconstructs the original campaign with new enemy waves, more dynamic elements, and amped-up boss fights, all at 60 frames-per-second. Unlock a new costume for each of the nine androids while testing their unique loadouts to see what's most effective across 25 levels.
While Campaign+ and its new leaderboards are enticing additions for those familiar with the game, anyone can enjoy Cactus+'s frantic firefights with the addition of Aim Assist options. To let players get the most out of the local co-op experience, the game can be played with dual Joy-Con, Pro Controller and even single Joy-Con in any combination. Recruit up to three friends and start shooting!
Lead Junior Constable Cactus and her Android friends as they respond to a distress call and finds a derelict space freighter under attack by its own robot workers. Keep the androids' batteries charged by embracing aggressive play and blasting hordes in frantic, 60 frames-per-second firefights.
Keep the entertainment going with Daily Drive, which offers one shot a day at setting a worldwide high score in a newly-generated level. Players craving further challenge will find it in Boss Rush and Infinity Drive. Earn credits to enable amusing EX options including first-person mode, visual filters, and the newly re-balanced MEGA Weapons. A new Movie Gallery joins unlockables like Developer Commentary, Jukebox, and Sound Test, making revisiting favorite moments easier than ever.
"Assault Android Cactus+ has something for everyone," says Tim Dawson, director, Witch Beam. "We hope the fans that have supported us over the years will enjoy Campaign+, and we look forward to first-timers feeling confident with aim assist."
Assault Android Cactus+ is available on Nintendo Switch for $19.99. The game supports English, French, Italian, German, Spanish and Japanese languages.
There's a lot of excellent use of colour in the very first Sonic the Hedgehog game on Sega Mega Drive.
Visual readability has been a personal bugbear throughout my time in video games. There's been some cases where I've been really happy with the choices I've made, and others where I feel I could have done much better. From my point of view, visual design is only partly about making things look pretty. It is primarily about conveying information that the player needs in order to interact.
Where are the key objects in the scene? What do they do? What can I interact with? How can I interact with it? What is my goal? What should I aim to avoid? Once those questions have been answered, then the developer is free to answer the question "how should I feel about this scene?"
The original Sonic the Hedgehog is visually outstanding not just because it presents landscapes that feel rich, vivid and fleshed out, but also because it has a very strong grasp on delivering key information. I've always admired, for example, the fact that Sonic when rolling is the exact same shape as his hit-box
Sonic the Hedgehog conveys its information not just through the shape and form of its visual elements, but also by its use of colour. That's what makes it an exciting example I want to explore in this article.
Conveying Geography
The player needs to be able to pick out which bits of the level Sonic can stand on, which are walls he can push up against, and which are objects that he can smash through. Given that this is a platform-jumping game, conveying to the player what Sonic can stand on is of utmost importance.
A change of hue can be used to pick out the difference between foreground and background. In the screenshot above, taken in Scrap Brain Act 1, there are a lot of blue tones in the foreground and red tones in the background. Similarly we see that ground which Sonic can stand on has drop-shadows. The shading in the background is much more indistinct. The eye reads this foreground instantly as three-dimensional and solid.
By contrast, details in the background are either in low contrast with their surroundings, or have mottled, dotted textures to them. They are readable but they do not jump out to the player as important details or solid objects.
As well as the difference in hue between foreground and background, we also see a separation between light and dark. In this image from Scrap Brain Act 2, the background colours all seem to lie in the 0%-50% band of lightness, while the foreground elements lie in the 70%-100% band. What impresses me about this technique is how the eye does not pick this out as being inconsistent. It does not feel that the background belongs to a separate room. The two layers are consistent with themselves, and that is enough for it not to feel visually messy.
Take a look at the button as well. It is light grey on the top, in the centre and on the sides. This may not be realistic - where is that button being lit from? - but it doesn't matter. First and foremost this use of colour conveys that the button can be collided with and is solid.
Again, we see a strong three-dimensional effect applied to the blocks in the foreground. They also have a flat white line on their top edge. It makes it stand out as a key foreground element but also, by being flat, conveys that this is an object which can be stood on.
The green metal reflects a difference between these blocks and the terrain around them - that the blocks move. It reinforces to the player that these platforms obey different rules to the scenery around them. Differences in hue can also be used to convey differences in purpose.
Here's an example of the visual rules being tweaked or broken, and where I feel the game manages to get away with it. There's a light edge on this vertical wall, in a game where light edges on flat surfaces are usually collidable. Fortunately there's plenty of detail reinforcing the idea that this is a background element - the block shadow lying on it sets it into the background, and there's nowhere else in the game where a slope meets a wall like this. I'm not entirely sure what would happen to Sonic's momentum if there was one.
In addition there's no stage hazards on screen at the same time, so it's a safe space to break the rules. The benefit here is that the scene does pop visually as a result of the contrast, and it reflects the metal-clad industrial feel of the area. Perhaps the lesson here is that it's okay to break one's own rules in favour of aesthetic feel when it does not create a danger for the player.
One could make the same point about the previous images. Flashing white lights behind the rings draw a lot of attention, but this doesn't impede the player as the area is not dangerous. It's okay for the visuals to be extravagant.
Again, reflecting on the use of straight edges of light, the pillars here have straight light lines running down them but they're on the inside of the shape so they do not appear solid. What they do however appear as is loud.
They are far brighter and more attention-grabbing than the button on the left-hand side, which is grey, more dim, but is actually interactive. Personally, I don't think this is a good bit of visual design. Better for this to be an individual area than a recurring visual theme.
Indeed, by contrast to these pillars the "Roller" enemy on Sonic's left barely stands out. This is one area where key information is washed out by busy scenery
I also don't like the design of the "Spikes" enemies. Their magenta colour scheme blends them right in with the background. They are one of few enemies in the game that cannot be defeated from any angle, but the spikes growing out of its back aren't large or consistent enough to convey genuine danger.
Moving Underwater
Labyrinth Zone is interesting because it has two colour schemes: one for above the water and one for under it. On the surface there is little difference in hue between foreground and background, but there is a difference in brightness. Notice how the contrast between light and shadow is much more pronounced in the foreground. Details in the background are small, delicate and mottled, while in the foreground details are boldly three-dimensional. There is a clear separation of layers conveying purpose and depth.
All collidable terrain has, just like in Scrap Brain, a one-pixel-thin edge around it, making it easy to pick out exactly where Sonic can and can not go. Vines dropping down from above are not collidable, and this is drawn by having them thin and spindly, drawn mostly in cyan mid-tones. They are not loud.
By comparison, the difference between background and foreground while underwater is much more pronounced. The background uses blue hues while the foreground uses green hues. You'll also notice that the distortion effect is much more pronounced in the background than the foreground, making it feel less solid.
It's really important that the landscape be readable while underwater, while the player's movement is impaired.
But if differentiation between landscape and decoration is always useful, why not have high contrast above the water too? Perhaps there is a limit to how necessary this differentiation is, and in some cases the contrast can be pushed higher but the effect is sufficient. The payoff that Labyrinth Zone affords itself by having weaker contrast above the surface is a sense of tone. The darker backdrop underwater conveys deep dark danger, and the green stone conveys mystery and unease. By contrast, the surface feels warm, well lit and safe.
We can make a direct comparison with the same zone as represented on the Sega Master System.
With the stark contrast between golden stone and a black backdrop the surface feels imposing and treacherous, while underwater feels murky but sedate. Escaping to the surface feels like a return to light but not a return to safety. The visual design runs counter to the feel of the level, where being underwater is dangerous and the player desires to return to the surface.
Using White
There's a wonderful visual trend in Sonic the Hedgehog - that every interactive object has white somewhere in its sprite. By contrast, it is rare that scenery uses the colour white.
Sonic has white in his eyes, or reflecting off him if he is a ball. Collectable rings have white light glinting off them. So do item boxes. Enemy robots do too. It's a very subtle effect, but it helps the eye pick out key bits of scenery at a glance.
Where it's really noticeable is while underwater. When all the other colours on the screen have turned green and blue, white highlights stay white. It may not be visually realistic, but it conveys super-important information. Sonic runs, jumps and falls at a much slower pace when submerged. The player is likely to be on the back foot, but also needs to be able to plan jumps in advance, anticipating where hazards will be by the time Sonic lands.
If key information is within instant grasp, the player can make these decisions while well informed, rather than feeling caught out.
Sonic gives you the ability to move very fast, but the level design in the first Sonic game is largely not about moving very fast. Sonic often has to stop, think, and time jumps. He also has to react. There are spaces where you can run at full pelt but where you will need to respond quickly, by slowing down or by jumping. Sonic is invincible to most enemies when jumping, so the game is less concerned with your accuracy in disposing of a hazard than the fact that you recognised it and responded.
That's why it's important to see everything at a glance. If you're moving quickly and something interactive pops into your view you need to see it and evaluate your reaction. Jump into it? Jump over it? Stop and wait for it?
That said, the game is not perfect. The fireballs shown above are some of the most annoying hazards in the game. They're small and their colouring isn't bright enough to pick out from the scenery, unless you already know where they are. The power of the use of white is made obvious by its absence.
Colouring Sonic
I often talk about "hot and cold" when considering video game graphics. Saturated colours, bold contrasts and busy textures draw the eye - I refer to this as hot. Grey tones, low contrast and mottled textures recede - I call this cold. It's important that the game draws the eye to the information that is most useful.
I find it interesting that in the very first Sonic game, the main character - Sonic the Hedgehog himself - is not rendered particularly hot. His colour scheme seems to gravitate to blue mid-tones, which are often quieter than the objects in the level around him. Aside from the whites of his eyes, Sonic as a character does not leap off the screen at you. He does not make his location resoundingly obvious.
Sonic is almost always at centre-screen, which means it's far less important to highlight where he is. The player is much better equipped to locate him by where the centre of the screen is. Perhaps having a bright bold object at centre-screen through most of the game would create an unnecessary focal point. If the player knows that Sonic is at centre screen then what they need to know is where the hazards are. That information is both new and pressing.
In boss arenas Sonic can move freely with the camera fixing itself in the centre of the arena. There are fewer visual elements for the player's eye to track here, and new information is not being introduced from off-camera like it would be during the level.
It is perhaps for this reason that the designers of Spring Yard Zone felt confident putting a visually complicated background in the boss arena. The bushes in the background have a loud pattern described with high contrast tones. It's stimulating to look at but visually complicated, drowning out the key information: Sonic, Robotnik, and the crumbling floor beneath them.
To its credit, it is a visual choice that is dramatic at a point in the game which benefits from drama. It may be complicated, but better to have this as distinct moment at the zone's climax, rather than a recurring motif throughout the level.
Evolving Sonic's Colours
I feel the relevance of these ideas is important when looking at the trailers for Sonic Mania: an upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog game created in the style of the classic Mega Drive titles. I'm interested in the game, but in all honesty a little worried at first glance. The game looks far too noisy.
The visual design seems to colour every screen element as hot as possible: the main character, the enemies, the landscape, the background, and even incidental visual details. All the colours are bright and heavily saturated. All the shadows are jet-black. It doesn't help in a game where there is a lot more going on at once than in the more gentle first-paced.
It looks like artwork designed to impress, to pop out of the screen. But is it well-designed for spacial awareness?
I may be wrong on this. I said similar things about trailers for Street Fighter V and felt completely different when I played the game first-hand. Nevertheless, it continues a trend that has already existed in the Sonic series. From Sonic 1, to Sonic 2, to Sonic 3 & Knuckles, the colours in the game have got bolder and more saturated, while the level artwork has got more detailed.
Knuckles Choatix for the Sega 32X
Knuckles Chaotix, released in 1995 for the 32X add-on system, is a successor to these games. That is, it is next in the sequence of 16-bit 2D pixel-art Sonic games. It looks visually messy, and in places is barely navigable. All the colours are bright and loud and level details are fiddly. There is no visual differentiation between key gameplay elements and set dressing. Every single object in the frame is hot.
Knuckles Chaotix is drawn this way because it needed to make Sega's 32X system look more powerful. Bold artwork conveys power.
Each successive Sonic game has been driven to look more powerful than the one that came before it - even if the technology driving the sprite-based artwork was barely changing. In a time before polygon counts created a metric for visual quality that could always be increased, the developers were limited in how to convey that this game's graphics were "better" at a glance.
The developers' only tool to convey "better" at a glance was bolder sprite work: more saturation, more detail, darker shadows.
Today's developers of Sonic Mania are faced with the same problem - they must justify using the present day's more powerful consoles for a pixel-based game. The graphics must impress, but they must also adhere to the house style of the early 1990s - it's the game's USP.
Sonic Advance on Game Boy Advance
For comparison, the Sonic Advance games, did not need to demonstrate technological advancement, as they were converting the still-current franchise for a handheld. The developers were free to rewrite the house style, conveying newness and fitting the needs of the Game Boy Advance's weak display. The device sported a fairly lacklustre unlit screen, so bold contrast between player and scenery were essential style choices.
What Graphics Are For
I personally feel that the first purpose of graphics is to convey information, and the second is to convey tone and personality. Looking impressive is of limited benefit to the moment-to-moment experience. Only by conveying information well can the the player experience the game seamlessly and appreciate its tone. Additionally, tone and personality will stick with a player far longer than initial "wow" factor.
However, making a strong pitch to customers is a business reality, so to impress is a necessity. Any creative team who manages to capture all of the above is performing outstanding work.
Nevertheless if there's anything I want to convey in this article it's the following: always know what your players see, and what they need to see. Be clear with yourself about what's essential information, and how the pace of your game affects what needs to be clearest. Colour is rich and powerful tool for this very purpose.
