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The art and engineering of Sega CD Silpheed

fabiensanglard.net

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Re: The art and engineering of Sega CD Silpheed

#11

Post by ndiddy »

cisophrene wrote: post #9
possibilistic wrote: post #2

[flagged]

FYI, besides the obvious shilling, you’re being downvoted because Fabien Sanglard has been writing this kind of deep software RE analysis for the last 15 years, is one of the most knowledgeable people in the world on classic game-engine internals, and certainly did not involve AI in doing any of this.

From the article:

> I spent the past two weeks reverse engineering the FMV format in my spare time. That was a departure from how I normally work since I did not write a single line of code. I will likely write something about my A.I framework (and opensource it) next month. But I can already tell this is an overall pleasant way to work.

Re: The art and engineering of Sega CD Silpheed

#12

Post by possibilistic »

cisophrene wrote: post #9
possibilistic wrote: post #2

[flagged]

FYI, besides the obvious shilling, you’re being downvoted because Fabien Sanglard has been writing this kind of deep software RE analysis for the last 15 years, is one of the most knowledgeable people in the world on classic game-engine internals, and certainly did not involve AI in doing any of this.

This IS AI.

What's with the comment flagging?

Re: The art and engineering of Sega CD Silpheed

#13

Post by xutopia »

jonhohle wrote: post #4

The Sega CD is my favorite console and I was fortunate enough to have one growing up. Silpheed was unlike anything else. Unlike most FMV games, Silpheed actually felt like controlling a movie. During the first level when laser blasts are tearing through the fleet gigantic ships filling the screen with debris, I could barely believe what I was seeing. As the article points out, while it is an FMV game, it tries to foo…

I remember when people would talk about a new game they hadn't yet tried and the first question was "How are the graphics?". They truly did amazing work back then to push the limits of systems so they could present things that the machine wasn't expressly built to accomplish.

Re: The art and engineering of Sega CD Silpheed

#14

Post by ndiddy »

jonhohle wrote: post #4

The Sega CD is my favorite console and I was fortunate enough to have one growing up. Silpheed was unlike anything else. Unlike most FMV games, Silpheed actually felt like controlling a movie. During the first level when laser blasts are tearing through the fleet gigantic ships filling the screen with debris, I could barely believe what I was seeing. As the article points out, while it is an FMV game, it tries to foo…

Yeah Silpheed is a great example of designing a game around the strengths of its target hardware. Because they were able to focus the art design around what could be streamed at high quality off a 1x CD drive, the FMV works a lot better than it did in games like Night Trap and Wirehead that tried to shoehorn live action video into a console that wasn't capable of displaying it at a decent quality. The actual gameplay is similar to an early 1980s arcade game like Galaga, but I agree with you that the presentation makes it worth playing at least a few levels of Silpheed even now.

Re: The art and engineering of Sega CD Silpheed

#17

Post by bluescrn »

pram wrote: post #3

Cool article, but Silpheed is a genuinely awful game. Just warning if you are tempted to play it after this lol

Somewhat enjoyed the (less-visually-impressive) PC version way back in the day, there weren't many good shoot-em-ups on a 286 PC that could barely scroll the screen, but Silpheed played fairly well on it, and IIRC it was one of the few games that supported the non-standard sound card on my parents IBM PS/1. Actually think it might have been bundled with that PS/1

Re: The art and engineering of Sega CD Silpheed

#19

Post by ihgfhkihh »

toast0 wrote: post #6
pram wrote: post #3

Cool article, but Silpheed is a genuinely awful game. Just warning if you are tempted to play it after this lol

I mean, the gameplay isn't amazing. But I wouldn't call it awful. I've played games that are a lot worse... many of which are less fun while also being much less visually appealing. IIRC the sound design for silpheed is good too?

> I’ve played games that are a lot worse…

These things aren’t mutually exclusive. This can be an awful game (which it is) and not be the worst game ever made. And as with anything, it has its strong points too, just that as a complete package, it can’t be called a good game.

Re: The art and engineering of Sega CD Silpheed

#20

Post by flockonus »

> That was a departure from how I normally work since I did not write a single line of code. I will likely write something about my A.I framework (and opensource it) next month.

If the author is around, super curious how they got to enjoy their workflow here in a side project, working with AI. This kind of situation, to me, is often where the joy is gone.

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