Catlantean 3D - Making Graphics Like It's 1993
Summary
Marko Stanic's Catlantean 3D article shares a retro-inspired game project that recreates the feel of early 90s 320x240, 256-color graphics using a palette-based renderer. It covers the design decisions around the VGA-like palette, the concept of a colormap for lighting, and multiple asset pipelines: pre-rendered sprites via Blender, hand-drawn art, and procedurally generated textures with Python scripts. The piece also discusses building a custom level editor, Blender workflows for crisp assets, and plans to release Catlantean 3D as open-source software on GitHub with a paid data archive, emphasizing transparency and a developer-focused approach.