Talk:Flip-screen

Sort of flip-screen in The Legend of Zelda

What about, say, The Legend of Zelda ? The screen transitions are not abrupt, but all of the other aspects apply. What would you call it?

Hmm. Based on the description you(?) wrote in the article, it seems much more like scrolling to me.* I'd argue as follows: whether the game world is logically divided into regular (squareish?) 'parts' is less relevant than the actual technique of changing the display screen contents when the player character moves from one part to the next. --Wernher 01:19, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

(* I haven't played Zelda; I was more of a Sega Mega Drive/Genesis guy... Sonic rules.)

I'm with Wernher, totally sounds like scrolling to me. In which case, would you like to remove the example to the page on scrolling? As it happens, when someone re-wrote Sabre Wulf for the PC platform, they turned it into a scrolling game. The maze is exactly the same as in the flip-screen original, but now you scroll around instead, rather like your description of The Legend Of Zelda. --Plumbago 08:43, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

(* For reference, I haven't played Zelda or Sonic. Though I religiously played Sabre Wulf, Jet Set Willy and Atic Atac. Yes, I'm that old.)

Yes, it was I who added the examples. Allow me to clarify my meaning: the scrolling is not continuous as in, say, most platform games; in LoZ, the screen is static until you reach the edge, at which point you go to the next screen, just as in a pure flip-screen game. It's just that the transition is a scrolling instead of instantaneous flipping. (Zelda III does scroll continuously within sections, though.) In that sense, I feel that it's almost the same. Of course, I understand that from the graphics point of view, it's a bit different. (I'm going to go edit the descriptions for clarity.)

My intent in adding the examples was not to say that these games are purely flip-screen games -- which clearly they are not -- but simply to show how they are similar and how they differ. I feel they are useful for comparison. Well, tell me what you think about this, and then we can decide what to do with the examples. Ddawson 03:00, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Got you now. Actually, I've played similar games in the past. I didn't make the connection before, but now I see what you mean. Although Zelda includes scrolling, it's still (I would argue) very much in the mould of a flip-screen game (as I understand your text; still not played it!). I've tried to re-word the article to reflect this (I thought your text above was clearer than that in the article). --Plumbago 08:12, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I like that, thanks. The word 'room' is appropriate, even though the main part is outdoors (the overworld). Ddawson 00:03, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

<yojoedave> Rapid Scrolling - I always used to call it "screen sliding". Mega Man, and perhaps a few other games use Rapid Scrolling to segment off important parts of a level - for example mini bosses (think for example in Mega Man 2 the Blue Hot dogs in Wood Man's Level, or the Hippos in Ring Man's stage in Mega Man 4) - and also the robot master gates. Also, Mega Man rapid scrolls "vertically" one full square screen", but generally uses continuous scrolling horizontally - interesting enough.

Categorization of this article

I noticed that the category marker "Category:Computer and video game terminology" was recently removed from here. This might need to be discussed more thoroughly, as many other similarly related terms/phrases are part of that terminology category. Two examples are scrolling and split-screen. Any comments? --Wernher 19:35, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

I just tried re-listing this article in the category you quote above, but it apparently does not exist. Perhaps the category structure has been reorganised (it has been nearly two years since your comment above), and that category has been rendered obsolete. On a separate issue, I have marked the article as unsourced. There are a number of claims made here, the most important being about trends over time in technologies/capabilities of hardware and the consequent software styles (e.g. flip-screen versus scrolling). We would need external sources to check that these claims are justified. Leevclarke 22:15, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Attribute clash

Further to my undo, I just wanted to add a little bit more about ZX Spectrum scrolling. Because the display attributes were allocated strictly to fixed character square blocks (8x8 pixels), smooth scrolling (pixel-by-pixel) either had to: 1. employ monochrome (i.e. attributes same everywhere; e.g. Bubbler); 2. carefully control colouring to hide attribute bleeding (Light Force is a prime example); 3. ignore it and get on with the rest of the game. Avoiding scrolling entirely (e.g. in flip-screen games) allowed developers to position screen elements so that colour clash was minimised (e.g. Sabre Wulf). But plenty of games scrolled on the Spectrum — but not all of these did so gracefully. Cheers, --PLUMBAGO 17:40, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I kind of agree with your comments in general, but not the reasoning - scrolling on the ZX was in fact dead easy to implement - look at such games as Penetrator way back in 1982. To do full colour scrolling was tricky, but as you are aware, to do anything full colour on the Speccie was difficult to accomplish due to the hardware. My memories of programming and hacking on the ZX remind me that flip screen was so much easier because it was faster to both program and build screen-by-screen than it was to constantly scroll pixel by pixel. a_man_alone (talk) 18:25, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Fair point. I would still argue that attribute clash is a serious problem for scrolling on the ZX, but I'd certainly agree that flip-screen is an altogether easier path for developers (not that I ever programmed that seriously). Certainly, scrolling in games on the ZX never seemed quite as effortless as it did on rival platforms like the C64. Anyway, I'll remove my remark from the article. Cheers, --PLUMBAGO 12:52, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Ok - how about a compromise of some sorts. It was only full colour scrolling that was tricky to implement. How about something like:

• The flip-screen technique was particularly common in games originally made for ZX Spectrum, such as Atic Atac, Jet Set Willy and Sabre Wulf, due in part to the Spectrum's attribute limitations which meant that full colour scrolling was difficult to implement convincingly. Monochrome scrolling was easier to achieve, and frequently seen in games, such as the early Penetrator, the later Stainless Steel, and Quazatron.

Actually, Stainless Steel doesn't have a wiki entry, and Quazatron isn't a good example, because the scrolling was rubbish, but that's the sort of thing I mean. a_man_alone (talk) 13:28, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

That sounds better. You could substitute Bubbler (or Gunfright) for Stainless Steel as it's also a monochrome scroller but has an article on it. In passing, one of the earliest games for the ZX, Tranz Am, did a pretty good job of fast and colourful scrolling (and in only 16K). It was rather simplified compared to Quazatron and Bubbler, but effective. Cheers, --PLUMBAGO 13:53, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Done, I've left in Stainless Steel for the time being, as I don't want the list to be solely Ultimate games, but off the top of my head I can't think of another suitable example. Adjust if you can, by all means. a_man_alone (talk) 16:12, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

First Example??

Is "Adventure" for the Atari 2600 (and "Superman", which came out earlier but used Adventure's engine) the first example of this?? Kirkjerk (talk) 18:03, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Removal of History

The attempts to put flip-screen and scrolling into some kind of historical flow were failing. The Atari 8-bit family, for example, has both flip screen and scrolling games. It was more a design choice than a technical one. I removed the entire History section and included a few examples instead. This is a simple topic. Dgpop (talk) 21:10, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Replaceable non-free image

Is there a reason for the use of the non-free File:Sabre wulf 4.gif at the top of this article? According to Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria: "Non-free content is used only where no free equivalent is available, or could be created, that would serve the same encyclopedic purpose." In theory, a "free equivalent [...] could be created" by creating a free flip-screen game and taking a screenshot. Or in what manner would such a screenshot of a free game fail to "serve the same encyclopedic purpose"? --Damian Yerrick (talk) 13:37, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

No reason other than notability, I guess. While there are many examples, Sabre Wulf (also all the others mentioned in the article - Adventure, Space Dungeon, Castle Wolfenstein, JetSet Willy, etc) are all in the same category - no free examples of them exist.

I recklon your own edit summary on Sabrew Wulf sums it up admirably: "No flip-screen games that are both notable and free are known to exist". I'm sure that now I've typed that somebody, somewhere, will prove me wrong, but good on 'em if they do. Chaheel Riens (talk) 17:06, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

"Explanation does not clarify things" when reverting Zelda edit

Dgpop reverted my edit with the edit summary (Explanation doesn't clarify things.) What was unclear before my edit, and what remained unclear after my edit? Would something to the following effect have been any clearer?

The Legend of Zelda resembles flip-screen games in that action takes place within discrete areas the size of the screen, but it uses a scrolling transition from each area to the next.

--Damian Yerrick (talk) 15:50, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

I agree that your revised wording is better because it is more concise, but we should probably wait a few days for Dgpop to answer. --SoledadKabocha (talk) 01:52, 16 April 2016 (UTC)