Why You should Avoid Showing the Sky!

This video covers some issues you can have with showing a sensible horizon and sky in a 2D platformers and why it can be problematic to do so.

[NonsensicalD]

I'll add two small notes that kind of got cut in the edit. This video largely covers the problem with skies that you might encounter in almost all platformers. With that said, if you are making a metroidvania or roguelike, you will generally have to make a lot of your game underground for a totally separate reason. That is, you need to make part of the game underground in order to make the map wrap around on itself correctly. In that case you'll get a map like ghost song or aeterna noctis, where you have 2 or 3 areas above ground, but most areas will still be underground. It's a separate point to the video so it got cut, but it still might be a relevant tidbit.

The second point I would like to stress, is that if you are as skilled of an artist as the people making Wonder Boy or Ori, then it can make sense to have an "aesthetic scene" that grabs attention. But if you are similarly skilled as me, attempting to make a nice looking horizon might actually turn out worse than just going for the simple "hollow knight approach". It'll only look nice if you are good enough to make it look nice, otherwise it'll both look bad, and play bad.

[ablationer]

Hard disagree. The "empty" feeling can sometimes be a great way to give players breathing room. A lot of times in games that are meant claustrophobic and intense, it can feel very nice to finally have some open above ground gameplay, even if there isn't much to see. Sometimes a smooth gradient with some nice granular clouds is all you need.

[BrandonBey]

Pacing and giving the player moments of reprieve are where those 'boring' scenes are great.
Understanding how these different environments play a role in the "feel" of a game is where the problem comes. Not every scene should be focused on giving the player something to do. Some are to evoke a feeling.

[kylethompsondev]

Oh woah, I clicked on this in my recommended feed and did not expect to see my game mentioned! Great video, and definitely a real issue that I did not think of until I encountered it myself. The vertical camera panning issue is a big reason why I kept room sizes pretty small in Islets. When a room is too big, it's hard to keep the parallax from just showing emptiness when you're too high up. But when it's small, the parallax range is smaller, and you can plan for it to show something at pretty much any position.

[dutyfreeadventures]

This is titled "why you shouldn't show the sky" when it should be called "why it is difficult to show the sky".

[chargemankent]

I understand the point but I think it's less of a "bad" thing but more like a thing that "can be utilized in different situations"

[achehex]

It's worth noting that those mountains at 1:56, as demonstrated in the clip are very short and relatively close. If you create background assets with the idea that they are bigger in scale and further away, the parallax effect makes their faked movement closer to the camera's and you get to have an interesting scene for longer, and also gives a sense of grand scale to the environment.
Also about Monster boy I think its in general a bad example for this point because of how uniquely it was made. It was new art placed on top of a very old game, so it's not that the level is flat and empty because the art forced the hands of the designers, but the game already had a very flat and simple level, and the artist decided to fill it up with gorgeous environments so the massive empty space felt purposeful.

[Nikku]

This problem dates back to 1989 with Shadow of the Beast, where many parts of the game is just the player running around big open horizons, presumably to showcase the parallax scrolling, which was basically a new thing for computer games at the time.

[homersimpson]

You could put flying enemies in areas that are mostly sky if you want obstacles to avoid.

[DJO_vah]

Can some of you man pls just appreciate the video 🤦🏾‍♂️ so much criticism, he makes a very good point!

[NoahNCopeland]

I think there are some great solutions found in the Sonic series.
There are a few levels large, tall backgrounds that have a detail at the bottom and sky at the top. They do not adequate "sky" with "horizon"
It gives a great sense of verticality and you go up and down throughout the levels, with yes, PLENTY of obstacles.

Great examples:
Green Hill act 2 (mania)
Oil Ocean act 1 (mania)
Marble Garden act 2 (s3&K)

Great video! always appreciate the practicality of your videos

[JuhoSprite]

Man I love these videos man, you always tackle such interesting topics. I encountered same problem when I was making a sidescroller, but wanted the levels to be more open like a metroidvania, but it didnt quite work because how the background worked.

[StellaByLuna]

Unrelated to the video, but I've noticed the line weights in your art are working against you. Your player character has these super thin lines while elements from the environment often have much bolder lines. I'm guessing this is a product of wanting to make your more important elements more detailed and the less important elements more stylized, which makes a lot of sense, but heavy outlines have a strong association with "intractability" (think cuphead), so the end result looks a bit disjointed and ameture as your eyes are being pulled towards the elements in your scene that are the least important. There's many ways to get around this:
Making your character designs more simple to work with a thicker line weight, like hollow knight
Giving your environment art a thinner line weight
Coloring the outlines of the environment art to make it blend in more (I dont think this alone would be enough, but I think it could help
Removing the outline of environment assets altogether (would completely change the artstyle)

[fernandojorge]

I think the actual reason people are disagreeing with this is because this video focuses on metroidvanias, games where vertical and horizontal exploration are common. Whereas there are a lot of platformers where we almost only have horizontal exploration, and in these games the sky problem is rarely an issue.

[EmberOldAccount]

Rain World gets around most of these problems by just having a fixed camera so that jumping won't ruin the effect. Rain World also manages to make the sky background beautiful because by filling the horizon with easily repeatable good looking things, and tons of background clouds.

[anonymone]

There are tons of 2d platformers that show their horizons. The early Sonic games, every Mario game, Kirby, Donkey Kong Country, etc etc.

Not having anything to do in places where you show the sky is a level design problem.

Perhaps your foreground elements should fade as you sink below the surface. Don't let them move higher than the midground that the player was just on.

And if you're platforming above the ground, have the background match the camera's Y coordinate. You should still see those dunes in the distance as you ascend.

[jumbo-bo]

I love that moment where everything falls away, and it's just you and the sky. This could be a useful tool if done purposefully and with careful intention.

[rexxtheawsome]

Great video. You addressed all my concerns or disagreements by the end of the video. I would advice anyone mad to finish it fully first lol

[maxelized]

This topic hits home. I'm using asset patching style with the plan of making something like hollow knight but more color and open sky, and I feel that struggle. Not only big assets are difficult to draw, but raise a good point with the horizon line. Vertical scrolling is really difficult to handle with an open sky.

[BlueSquareInWhiteCircle]

This makes sense irl aswell. If you take a puppet and follow it with a static camera angle as the puppet “climbs up a tree” you get the same monotony or lack of visual interest in the background as you get above the horizon level. But if you play with the camera angle you can play with what is in frame and create a sense of dynamic storytelling. This is simply the nature of having a parallaxing flat background without any control over whats in the frame. But I am sure there exists clever ways to solve it, one just have to be aware of it and put on the problem solver hat :)
The last example of breaking continuity is one such “sollution”