Ideas and Thoughts: How Much Space for Space?

17-Jan-98

I'm going to start off with 2D games.  First of all, think of Super Mario World.  If you can't, you need to play it so you can... I can easily, one of the best games I ever played...

Now, realize how big it is... 1/2 MB!  Yeppers, 1/2 MB, 0.5 MB, 4 megabits, however you want to say it, that's how big it is.  Now, how many stages are there?  Well, I can't remember exactly, but I'll go with 50, though I'm positive there's more.  Now, even if we count the space graphics, music, etc. takes as nonexistent, that's .5 MB divided by 50 equals... 0.01 MB.  1% of a MB.  Not very much space at all, is it?  So now let's assume the graphics/sound/etc. are all of the 0.5 MB.  I'm going to use the ways of making a 2D game use more space that I spoke of in a previous writing for this... Let's see, make it hi-res (x4), double the number of sprites (x2), and double the animation per sprite (x2).  That's only 16x as big.  8 MB.  The size of Super Mario 64.  Now let's say we wanted to make the game 12 MB, or Mario Kart 64 size... that gives us 400 stages.  Quite a lot, wouldn't you agree?  So what's the purpose of this?  Well, of course partially to just show how much can be put on a cart, but it's more than that.  It's to show how once you've got the graphics/etc. that is needed, making the actual game longer doesn't take up much at all.  Remember each stage taking up less than 1% of a MB...

Now, let's say we did something like this to SM64.  Let's say that once you take out the music, space for textures, characters, etc. the actual stage data is half of the game: 4 MB.  Now let's say we wanted to make a 32 MB game.  Well, we'll leave that original 4 MB and we'd still be able to have 7x the number of stages in SM64: Over 100 stages.  Quite big, wouldn't you agree?  I'm trying to say something about Zelda: TOOT here.  I was reading some stuff at the Nintendojo Message Board, and someone was talking of how a game with 4x the area of SM64 wouldn't be big for a Zelda game.  Well, it just depends how the space is used... I mean, let's say it has the same amount of text, items, etc. as in A Link to the Past.  That entire game was only 1 MB, so we'll leave that.  Now let's say the engine, controls, etc. of the game is 2 MB.  Now let's say that 3 MB is the amount of space used in SM64 for textures, etc.  And we'll stick with that 4 MB for the areas of SM64.  OK, for Zelda we've got 32 MB to work with.  Once we get the engine and story/items out of the way, we've got 29 MB left.  Let's use double the textures and all from SM64.  That leaves 23 MB, or about 5 3/4 times SM64's space useage, if it takes anywhere near that in SM64... So what's there in SM64 not counting little areas... 15 stages?  Let's count in all the little areas, castle, outside, etc. to be about the size of 17 normall sized ones.  Times 5.75 equals... about 100 SM64 stages, as with the above example (only coincidentally).  That is not small at all... not to mention that there are two time periods, which will be for the most part (AFAIK) the same...

Basically I'm saying that Zelda: TOOT won't be limited by the 32 MB.

What I'm really waiting to see, though, is Quest.  Even if this game is one of the bigger 3rd-party ones, at 16 MB / 128 megabits, it's only 1/2 the size Zelda will be, and 1/4 the size of 64DD.  So even if it's a fairly short game (which I'm hoping it won't), it'll still show how much can be in even larger carts and disks...

And what about Zelda 64DD, for that matter?  Let's say it's an add-on to the original.  Let's say that we use 20 MB for textures, new enemies, etc.  1 MB for story, etc.  That still leaves 39 MB for area, or about 10x SM64.  Or 165 stages of SM64.  However you want to look at it.  In short, huge.

Now, I've concentrated mainly on RPGs here, so I'm gonna go on a bit more on that, but it doesn't apply as much to games like Zelda...  As far as game length goes, RPGs are perfectly suited to being long, in comparison to other games.  What I mean is this: Take any RPG.  Now take out the battles.  Now take out most of the story.  Now how long would it be?  Exactly.  Likewise, imagine SM64.  But imagine that instead of just jumping on a few enemies, you'd be getting into RPG-style battles all the time.  Now imagine that you'd get a story thing after every couple of stars.  Now imagine how long that is.  Exactly.

Joshua Slone is really into gravy-talking, flying, Arabian elephants.