Help me decide on a resolution

[WhatPixelYouOn]

Hi guys, I've been getting the basic engine for my game done and am now almost ready to start building the levels. Before I do this though, I want to make sure I'm using the best resolution for my game.

Here is a screenshot in it's current state:
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/m...on/Capture.png

As you can see, it's quite small. 240x160 to be exact, which I believe is half of the iPhone 3G resolution. I like the look of big blocky pixels so the idea is for it to look a bit zoomed in, smoothness turned off. I'd like this game to be played across all iOS devices, but for now I'm focussing on iPhone. I feel like the game would benefit from the wider resolution of the iPhone 5, but I'm not sure what resolution exactly I should be using for that. And will it then look squashed on the iPhone 4?

Another concern I have is, will there be enough room for touch controls on a screen size this small?

Thanks for any advice on this.

[jregork]

I grappled with this issue on Polyroll. While using a larger resolution with the 16 bit style graphics did sort of take away from the nostalgia look, it was for the best. I have a game called wawa land, and my biggest complaint is that the character takes too much space up on the screen, which combined with the onscreen controls, means you can't see jack.

Don't sacrifice gameplay. You could also just do what I did on Clash Force and use a border so that the controls aren't in the way of the actual gameplay. But I would still use a higer res than what you are. 16 bit. Era games were around 320x240.

[DistantJ]

I use 240x160 for MANOS, which is half the 3GS resolution, and exactly the same resolution as the Game Boy Advance. It worked great for me, I just had to make sure not to make any sprites too big. For iPhone 5 and iPad you can set the display mode to 'Fit Inside and Adjust Window' and it'll display the extra stuff at the right on the iPhone (roughly 284x160), or the extra stuff at the bottom on iPad.

@jregork, I quite like Wawa Land, have spoken to the creator a bit too.

[WhatPixelYouOn]

240x160 is the GBA resolution? No way! I kinda wish I had stuck with that now! :P I've currently got it at 400x240, which gives me enough room for level visibility, and controls at the bottom. I've a feeling I might tweak it a bit yet though.

Thanks for the help guys!

[DistantJ]

Yup, the exact resolution of the GBA. At first I was worried that 160 pixels vertical might be too restrictive but when I found out the GBA used the same my worries were put to rest as I had a GBA for ages and never had a problem with screen real estate in all the games I had. I'm continuing to use 240x160 for my retro style games, NES or not, becuase I get a lovely GBA look from it then.