Good Tileset Size

[liquidsoap]

I just started playing roguelikes and decided that with the little programming knowledge I have I will attempt to make my own roguelikeish game. The game will just be a learning experience for me and will probably be no good. While making the game I have been experimenting with the size of the tiles I will be using ( yes, the game is using tiles and not ASCii ). Without scaling I have tried 16x16 and 32x32. I am not sure which ones to use. The 32x32 looks a bit better and is easier to see but with 16x16 you can see a lot more tiles on the screen. So my question is, as a person who plays roguelikes, do you prefer bigger tiles but less of them on screen. Or do you prefer smaller tiles but you will be able to see more of the map at once?

[Leaf]

I prefer 32x32 myself.

Though you lose so much at 16x16 anyway that it might look just fine if you scaled them down (with a good scaling algorithm) at load time, and let the player scale the tile size any way they wanted.

When I was working on a Up/down/left/right/A/B controls style semi-roguelike for mobile devices, I had it set up with a native 32x32 tile size, but let the player pinch the screen to zoom in and out and see a larger area.  It looked fine.

[getter77]

64x64 is the current highwater point employed well in ToME 4 and eventually Angband when they can re-align all the duct tape and prayers to support the finished set for it proper....32x32 is still fine though.

For me, I prefer the bigger sets for details and prompting another way to think about things in terms of gameplay.

[Z]

Maybe you should think about alternative approaches?

The usual approach is to have a nice, readable map which shows the whole level. Ragnarok had this map take half of the screen, and a 7x7 region with large tiles.

You can also go the route used by Zaga-33 and MicRogue: simply have small levels, so everything fits, even with large tiles.

My HyperRogue solves the problem in a unique way, but I suppose you do not want to try this.

[guest509]

32x32 is pretty standard. A nice safe choice.

I stand by the notion that 16x16 can be awesome but people try to cram in too much detail. It's harder to do 16x16 because you have to somewhat make the viewer use his imagination. Not like ascii, but sorta similar in the mind.

Check out The Legend of Zelda. 16x16 but clear as can be.

[Krice]

Size is not that important, but smaller tiles can be hard to read because full hd resolution is becoming a standard. The most important thing is make tiles easy to recognize so you know what the tile is supposed to represent. Nethack tileset is an example of badly designed one, it's quite difficult to recognize monsters (maybe just for small size). One of the best tilesets I've ever seen is in Ultima V. 16x16 using 16 colors.

[Skeletor]

The best example I can think about is Infra Arcana.
Check it out.

[guest509]

The best example I can think about is Infra Arcana.
Check it out.

  Agreed. Very interesting set.

[Krice]

The best example I can think about is Infra Arcana.

It looks partially ascii so it's not perhaps a good example of tiles.

[NON]

I found it better to use non-square dimensions. 32x32 are too many pixels for me to draw quickly. But in 16x16 humanoids tend to look "cute", fat, short. So for IA, 16x24 was the sweet spot.