Technology

To everyone scoffing: welcome to sizecoding! Yes, they really fit the textures and models and music in that limit. No, we don't care what the browser or hardware does for free. If you want tighter technical limits, contests go as low as you can imagine.

Here's a 256-byte raymarching demo for MS-DOS.

Here's an MS-DOS clone of Descent, in 4 KB.

Images are procedurally generated. It doesn't mean random; it means rules were followed. Music is generally MIDI-ish, with a synthesizer also built into the code. Instrument samples can also be procedurally generated, and effects like echo and stretching are commonplace. Models in this game are... well you can see why they don't take much space. But other projects get smooth and detailed objects using tesselation (remember that from 2007?), constructive solid geometry (cube with cylinder cut out), or signed distance fields (you are on your own).

The most useful tool is cheating your ass off. This game does not have doors. Everything's rectilinear. But it's based on levels you already recognize, so your brain hand-waves the missing parts and focuses on what looks like you expect. Contrast it with that Descent demo, which is dead-on. Seriously, that thing is from 1997, and they even nailed the sparkles in the healing chamber. If a bare Pentium with VGA isn't bare-metal enough for you, I'll try to find something tiny and mindblowing on ZX Spectrum, which had to be coerced into doing any damn thing.