Ok, gotta say I'm slightly disappointed. I was really looking forward to the screen being 1280x720 for a full screen HD MK1. Are we still doing that? I would prefer that instead of a 4:3 standard view. I don't see the point of talking so much about aspect ratio, we are doing this by sight, not by exact measurements, aren't we? Everyone should stop talking so much about the aspect ratios, as it would not matter in the long run. The two empty black boxes on the sides (pillarboxes?) would not make it a full screen game. I honestly would prefer a 16:9 1280x720 full HD game.
Aspect ratio is a crucial thing to consider for this project. Essentially what we are doing is making a 16:9 version of a game that was
designed for and
meant to be played in 4:3. Also while some see HD as synonymous with 16:9, it's actually not. If we wanted to we could have this at 4:3 and it would still qualify as HD because its vertical resolution would still be 720. Either way it's not "full" HD regardless, that would require the game to run at 1080p instead of the 720 we are making it for.
The issue with the gameplay being different is a major deal. See, people are accustomed to playing MK1 the way it is originally. They're used to things like the original distances, the original number of sprites in animation, and the relative size of everything in-game. It seems negligible, but players are actually sensitive to those things even if they don't know it, as long as they've played the original game enough times.
Even a small difference in distance for example, can
feel very different and have actual consequences. That goes for both width and height - even if you crop the game to 16:9 instead of expanding it like we are now, sure technically the gameplay would be the same, but visually it would not because the height is different to what players are used to. It's the same if you used invisible walls to confine the characters to the same space of 4:3 - gameplay is technically the same, but not visually. And the visual aspect of gameplay really goes hand in hand with the technical side.
New graphics for a game are a massive visual change as it is - now if you add compositional differences, and also gameplay differences, then it feels like a different thing altogether. So let's just say we threw up our arms and said "**** it, we're staying with 4:3 and pillarboxing it". What happens is those who don't consider gameplay priority would strongly complain that it's not widescreen. But then if we made it either expanded or cropped widescreen, purists would complain that the game is changed either technically or visually. Then you have those who want both expanded widescreen and same gameplay, and wouldn't be happy whether we made it 4:3 or 16:9 because they usually just don't understand. 4:3 and widescreen stretch option isn't an all-around solution either because it looks like shit to most people.
So basically there's a split community response.
But there is an answer. I propose that we make two different versions of the game. It wouldn't be any extra work for anyone except Interloko for the programming, which I hope it would be practical for him to do. We can keep the exact workflow that we've been using to release the 16:9 version, and then for the 4:3 version we simply pillarbox over the extra information, with Interloko doing the necessary changes in coding to confine the gameplay to 4:3. We could even use custom pillarboxes like in MKAK so that it looks nicer than just black bars. If it's one thing that makes people happy, it's options to play the game like they want to. For me this solution is a win/win.
Anyway this is about as much as I can say on the topic, so I'd really like your guys feedback on what I've proposed. It seems like a simple and practical solution.
EDIT:
When I'm saying 4:3 in this post I mean the OPR, which is actually closer to 16:10. Sorry for any confusion.
