I was trying to make an atari 2600 type game so i was remaking atari 2600 sprites so i could learn ho to make them and i was trying to make the river raid sprite but it wouldnt fit on 8 by 8 but would on 16 by 16 but i thought the games by 8 bits so are they 8 by 8 games?
There are several misconception here.
First, “8-bit” usually refers to the color depth. 8-bit color means 8 bits per pixel, i.e., 2^8 == 256 colors. Atari 2600 graphics were not 8-bit. It had 128 colors, so I guess you could say the graphics were 7-bit, though this is a simplification; I believe each sprite could only by 1 color, so they’re really 1-bit sprites.
“8-bit” has absolutely nothing to do with the size of the sprites, which is what you’re asking about. The size is determined by other things. The Atari 2600 had some really strict and unusual graphics limitations, so it’s tremendously complicated for such a basic-looking result. And when you see something like River Raid, which really pushed the machine to its limits, they were doing all sorts of dirty low-level tricks (probably reusing the same sprite registers at different points in the refresh cycle, etc.) to give the illusion of more sprites than it actually had.
My advice is to not worry about it — make your own game based on the visuals that you see (or want), and don’t worry about the actual hardware limitations.
P.S. If you want a somewhat more beginner-friendly environment of making these sorts of games, check out Mini Micro (link in my signature)!
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That makes sense now thanks!
I’ve never heard the term “8-bit” refer to the color depth when discussing that era of gaming. My understanding is that it refers to the architecture of the system. The Atari 2600 may only have 7-bits of color but it has an 8-bit CPU (MOS 6502).
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