While we are adding the finished touches to Smart, I thought I could point the finger at a website with loads of bitmap fonts. Bitmap based fonts are important, especially in games, first of all because they add atmosphere – but also since they allow for more processing than ordinary fonts.
Let’s say you want your text to roll over the screen (also known as a “scroll text”) right? If that was all you wanted then you could opt for a normal font. But what if you want the text to follow a nice sinus curve as well? And also be more decorative than a single color typeface? This is where bitmap fonts make it very easy, because you always have full access to it’s pixel buffer. Naturally they don’t scale well, but for games and demos which usually operate with fixed screen sizes they really spice up the final result.