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Games with parallax scrolling
Post Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2010 5:21 pm
I started adding tags to games with parallax scrolling:

http://www.smspower.org/Tags/Parallax

What games are missing?
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Post Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2010 11:52 pm
Jurassic Park and GG Aleste spring to mind, both on their 1st stages, at least.
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Post Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 8:47 pm
Choplifter and Shadow Dancer belong in that list, too.
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Post Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 8:33 am
Added, thanks. The list still seems quite short...
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Post Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:03 pm
Another one: Road Rash uses parallax scrolling for the clouds in the background, too.
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Post Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 9:43 pm
Fantastic Dizzy uses paralax as well, in the Title screen!
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Post Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 5:13 pm
Sonic Triple Trouble uses it in Sunset Park 3, for the clouds.
And what about Transbot?
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Post Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 6:07 pm
On Game Gear:
Arena (title screen),
Fatal Fury,
Gunstar Heroes,
James Pond II,
James Pond III,
Legend of Illusion (stage 5),
Power Rangers the movie,
Shinobi 1 (highway),
Shinobi 2 (canyon).
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Post Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 9:12 pm
Thanks guys :) I mostly play platformers which tend to lack parallax for technical reasons, so it's good to get help on this.
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Post Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 9:22 pm
Also, Captain Silver.

I've noticed Master System games have a tendency to only use it in autoscrolling stages for some reason (done so in Jurassic Park, Aladdin, Captain Silver).
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Post Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 8:40 am
There are two (main) ways to do parallax on the SMS and GG - line interrupts and tile animation.

Line interrupts means the game changes the horizontal scrolling for different parts of the screen, which means it can only do horizontal parallax and the game can't have anything apart from sprites on those parts (so it's of little use for platformers; it also explains the weird parallax effect in Shadow Dancer which starts and stops suddenly).

Tile animation means you change the image in the tiles for certain parts of the screen so it appears to be scrolling when it's actually fixed relative to the rest of the screen; Micro Machines and Alien 3 are good examples of this. It allows parallax in all directions but you tend to notice that the parallaxing area is formed of 8x8 pixel blocks (although technically you could avoid that, it'd slow the game down). Also, these areas tend to be 2-colour as it allows the game to perform the effect faster.
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Post Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 2:31 pm
Road Runner, the mountains at the top
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Post Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 6:41 pm
Lord of the Sword
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Post Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2011 5:14 pm
Alien3 has some nice dynamic tiles in use
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Post Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2011 5:19 pm
I'm pretty sure that was in the list from the start :)

http://www.smspower.org/Tags/Parallax
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Post Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2011 7:12 am
California Games (BMX and Skating)
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Post Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2014 5:32 pm
Maxim wrote
Line interrupts means the game changes the horizontal scrolling for different parts of the screen, which means it can only do horizontal parallax and the game can't have anything apart from sprites on those parts (so it's of little use for platformers; it also explains the weird parallax effect in Shadow Dancer which starts and stops suddenly).
Sorry to bump this old topic (and I am probably wrong and/or nitpicking) but is this parallax? I checked Transbot and that's got one background layer with the lower (faked foreground) section just line scrolling at a higher speed than the top half. There's no foreground passing in front of the background which I would associate with parallax.
However, Aladdin, with its background brick wall layer on the first stage scrolling at a different speed to the buildings, is what I would definitely call parallax scrolling.
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Post Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2014 5:44 pm
Layers need not overlap to count as parallax. It certainly helps, though - see the Castle of Illusion intro for an example where they extended the sections using sprites to enhance the effect:
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Post Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2014 7:34 pm
Thanks for the reply. That use of a few sprites is clever, as is the background in Desert Speedtrap where it looks like there are three or four layers but the mountains and sun scroll at different speeds and don't actually overlap.
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Post Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2014 3:29 pm
Sonic chaos in Aqua Planet;

Sagaia have excellent examples.
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Post Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2017 1:23 pm
Aerial Assault has parallax .
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Post Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2017 4:37 pm
Just an appointment. the game i sent to this year competition ia full of parallax and wave effects. Its not a professional one, but i think it can have the record with 4 layers (in cave stage) plus waterfall effects :)that was the idea!
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Post Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2017 5:12 pm
eruiz00 wrote
Just an appointment. the game i sent to this year competition ia full of parallax and wave effects. Its not a professional one, but i think it can have the record with 4 layers (in cave stage) plus waterfall effects :)that was the idea!

looking forward to see that!

The Flash also has parallax scrolling in the intro/boss section.
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Post Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2017 5:20 pm
Yes. That was a big point these years... remember me and my friends crying of pleasure when saw a 16 bits like effect on a nes, msx2, or sms game. That sort of things has been losed in the new (dark) times...
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Post Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2017 5:25 pm
Maxim wrote
Also, these areas tend to be 2-colour as it allows the game to perform the effect faster.


Could you explain this more technically?
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Post Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2017 5:26 pm
eruiz00 wrote
Yes. That was a big point these years... remember me and my friends crying of pleasure when saw a 16 bits like effect on a nes, msx2, or sms game. That sort of things has been losed in the new (dark) times...


Offtopic : I agree and even most games released for the master system in later years didn't have those features. It's strange , sometimes could be laziness or something... but it is amazing to see those 16bit parallax scrolling in 8bit games , it only proves that the system can be pushed and deliver great graphics like its 16bit counterpart and imo james pond 2 looking like you're playing a mega drive game (even tho it's tiles on the background) !
It was because of that game that i thought why did they not put proper backgrounds like on a mega drive and some nes games doing parallax have proven to me that it is possible.

Anyways we should discuss this stuff on this topic :)

http://www.smspower.org/forums/10079-WasTheMasterSystemPushedToItsLimit#97024
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Post Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2017 5:53 pm
Renegade also has some parallax on motorbike section.
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