Best Uses of SNES Features

Sometimes it’s useful to study the various ways that some of the many different and unique capabilities of SNES were used in old games as a way to stimulate your own new indie/homebrew SNES game ideas. So here are some nice examples of novel graphical effects in existing SNES games that use a few of these features (and sometimes even combine multiple of them), in the hope that they may inspire you in your own current or future SNES creations:

Best examples of window/shape masks in SNES games

The crystal ball here uses window masks to hide and show parts of each layer to achieve this unique effect

It’s the race position numbers

Also, at 16:51 I can totally imagine a Luigi’s Mansion SNES game using something like the torch effect there and with the ability to aim in eight directions. The ghosts could also use transparency effects to really sell the whole look and feel too.

Here’s an example from one of the my own tests, which is a mockup in GameMaker 8.1 rather than running directly on SNES, but it shows one more way you could use the window/shape masks, this time alongside Mode 4 for a lovely 8bpp high-colour image on the main background layer.

Here’s another of the own ideas that I spent about twenty mins quickly mocking up, where it would be two giant grey stone heads that looks like they are floating in front of everything in the scene–let’s say it’s some Greek themed title or similar–that slowly move together as if they are about to kiss, but, just as they’re about to touch lips, they pause and the inner shape forms into a golden chalice by changing what’s inside and outside the mask and using HDMA to change the backdrop colour, and then the chalice scales down into the scene and onto the rock ledge, which the hero then goes over to and picks up as a new magical item in his inventory, the chalice of the Gods, where one drink grants the hero invulnerability for a short time or whatever:

Best examples of water and/or reflections in SNES games

Is this even using Mode 3 or Mode 4 for 8bpp visuals on the main background layer there? I’m not sure, but the colours are just so nice that I wouldn’t be surprised to find out it is

This one’s interesting because it uses the SNES’ 512×224 mode to create fake semi-transparency using the higher resolution with smaller gaps in between each vertical line of pixels than would be the case in the standard lower resolution modes

Crap game, but some cool reflection effects in places

Best examples of fake backgrounds in SNES games

With this category I’m basically talking about examples of backgrounds [or foregrounds] that don’t actually use the 1-4 proper background layers as you would naturally expect, given they do indeed look like backgrounds.

And I think the point with the fake background examples, which usually happens when Mode 7 is being used for some cool scaling and rotation trick on a boss or whatever, is that they show you don’t have to just settle for a plain black screen or literally only a colour gradient on the whole area of the screen where the Mode 7 effect is happening, which I see in a lot of SNES games and often quite noticeably betrays the main limitation of Mode 7 there imo, and you can in fact do a pretty great job of hiding the lack of any other background layers there in many cases, sometimes in a large way and sometimes in a small but still appreciated way.

Both entering the station and also leaving after the warning at 5:51

Wait for it. . . .

Yeah, the boss uses Mode 7, so everything with the grey bricks and candles is all done with sprites

Even something so simple as having a basic colour gradient alongside using a couple of choice sprites to add some detail is a minimum effort approach that can be used to pretty effectively convey a basic fake background

You can even use HDMA’d windows/masks to basically make shapes with the backdrop colour only. Using this method means you could potentially display up to five visibly overlapping “background” layers on SNES. And that’s before any use of layer priority shifting, row/line scrolling, and using any sprites to fake even more layers

Everything I’ve posted here is with the idea that someone legitimately thinking about working on SNES, or indeed already doing so, might consider the potential of what they could do in their own SNES games if they see something here that is maybe new or just kinda cool to them and wasn’t something they’d thought about using/doing before.

These effects are sometimes done so well that I think most people wouldn’t even know what was up unless someone else pointed it out in some cases. And I think that’s a great way to demonstrate the many cool possibilities there to show of what the SNES Colour Blasting can do and to maybe get others to start thinking about all the different ways to use such approaches in their new indie/homebrew SNES games. 

So, hopefully some of the examples in this post have been as useful to at least one or two current or future SNES creators as they have been to me.