Filesize vs Quality


What do you prefer, higher quality or more efficient file size? Sure, sometimes there may be some wizardry to achieve both, but let's say you have to choose one or the other. I know for some folks a few hundred MB is not much - for others it maybe a lot especially if porting to mobile or web. I have seen comments/feedback in both camps! 

Right now, Asquerla: Origins is built around 60FPS - And I considered 30FPS, or even the default 15FPS. But I went with going more on the quality side just to see how it ran. A lot of the file size of the project comes from 60FPS animation files - They simply have quadruple the frames compared to a default RPG Maker MV resource at 15FPS. The default assets I use also have to be extended and modified to ensure they match the look and don't fire off too fast, but that doesn't affect file size as much since that's mostly scripting and settings.

On the 30 FPS option, we'd save maybe 50-100MB off the game's size just in the animations, maybe a bit more with some optimization. They look pretty much the same in 30 FPS, a bit worse sure, but it's a retro style anyways so it doesn't need to be "insane graphics", just mesh in style well. 

Sound quality is another consideration, but there's a range since I think mixing modern sounds with retro sounds can still sound good.  v0.0.1 went out with 100mb of audio, not too bad, but can get outta control pretty quickly. But it's possible to re-use sound by scripting them in different ways to make new sounds without increasing file size. 

An example of this in Asqueria- Any time you hear "Jingling coins" sound effect, that's actually just the same coin sound effect being played in various timings/pitches.  Reusing too much or reducing quality too much can definitely be a turn off, but doing it cleverly is one of the things I like about the games from the old days, especially 8bit/16bit era RPGs.

So..  filesize or quality? 

Get Asqueria: Origins of the Dream (v0.2.7)

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