Choosing the correct Sprite & Background Resolution

Unity Engine
1

I’m about to start on my actual game sprites and background elements but I’m afraid to do a lot of work and later realize I made a fundamental mistake with my resolution choices.

My game is 2D with a pixel resolution appearance of slightly better than something like Castlevania Symphony of the Night.

Now, my target devices will be PC/Steam, current-gen consoles and probably mobile ports at some point. So despite the pixely appearance I am currently using a screen resolution of 1280 x 720 because I figure that can be scaled up nicely and really there is no reason fro added pixels of 1080p.

Right there is that a mistake? Or is my reasoning sound? Please don’t tell me to do 640 x 480 since that is how the game is intending to look, and simply have the engine / device scale up as needed. Being a miser about memory is not important to me as the entire game will have a relatively small memory footprint.

Also, and just as important, assuming I have a background image that covers the entire screen (which again is targeted at 1280 x 720) should I be making the background in 2048 x 2048 (with all of the unused pixels being transparent) like with spritsheets so as to scale better? Should ALL of my sprites / backgrounds be the next nearest larger factor of 2? IE: 512 x 512 for a 175 x 375 sprite - 1024 x 1024 for a 500 x 900 sprite, etc?

2

A lot of questions in your post, so just answered in order:

  • Screen resolution being 720p - Impossible to say if you’d see a benefit from 1080p as I don’t know your needs. Will your GUI be high-resolution? Are you expecting your pixels to be blended or are you going for an old school pixel-perfect transition when objects are moving?
  • Scaling from 640x480 - I wouldn’t recommend scaling that resolution up as a memory concern in this day in age, but you might find it makes your life easier if all your assets are in that resolution by default (it would also potentially make hopping to a mobile platform if you fancied it a cleaner transition).
  • Texture size - If I remember correctly, Unity can compress anything with a size in multiples of 4. Keep the file as small as possible but meeting this and you can’t go wrong.

Good luck with the game!