Hugman

http://www.whatwouldmolydeux.com/display.php?GameID=179

Hugman is a 2D game made in the Unity engine. The game was made by myself (Environment Art and Audio), Emily green (Character Art/Animation) and John Cooper (Programmer).

The Game was made other a weekend for the What Would Molydeux? Game Jam 2012.

http://www.whatwouldmolydeux.com/

Games as Art: Barker vs Ebert

Roger Ebert is one of the world's most respected movie critics and in 2005 he wrote in a series of responses to his readers on his website rogerebert.suntimes.com that "video games could not be art." and he considers "video games inherently inferior to film and literature. " This sparked off debate from gamers, game designers and academics that Ebert admits himself "has taken on a life of its own." One person to join the debate at the second hollywood and games summit was Clive Barker, novelist, director, artist and game designer, most famous for the film Hellraiser. I have found his responses and Eberts further responses on Eberts site.

They both make some interesting points on the subject of games as art. Here is a part I found particularly interesting;

Barker: "I think that Roger Ebert's problem is that he thinks you can't have art if there is that amount of malleability in the narrative. In other words, Shakespeare could not have written 'Romeo and Juliet' as a game because it could have had a happy ending, you know? If only she hadn't taken the damn poison. If only he'd have gotten there quicker."

Ebert: "He is right again about me. I believe art is created by an artist. If you change it, you become the artist. Would "Romeo and Juliet" have been better with a different ending? Rewritten versions of the play were actually produced with happy endings. "King Lear" was also subjected to rewrites; it's such a downer. At this point, taste comes into play. Which version of "Romeo and Juliet" Shakespeare's or Barker's, is superior, deeper, more moving, more "artistic?"

I think that Eberts view here is flawed yes surely if you could change the ending of "Romeo and Juliet" then it would no longer be Shakespeare's artistic vision but your own, you would become the artist. But surely a planned complex narrative created for a game with multiple endings are created by the games designers and still part of there creative vision and not the players, though the player may feel they have control over there outcome within a game the end result will still be one created by the designers. I argue that there is an artistic collaboration within games, the player is also the artist, able make the choices and progress of the game, without the player the game will sit idle. I believe Barker reflects on this by saying "We should be stretching the imaginations of our players and ourselves. "

Control Mechanics as Art???

Can a games control scheme have artistic value? Can it emotionally reach an audience on a cognitive level? A game controller is the direct physical connection someone has with a video game so surely it should be an important aspect of an artistic vision within a game, but often I believe it is overlooked. Here is a post on destructoid.com by Jason Leray titled Shadow of the Colossus' controls are an exercise in art. Leray makes some very interesting points on how Team Ico's Shadow of the Colossus and how its control scheme contributes to its artistic vision. I believe he makes some valid points, for example the games grabbing mechanic used to grab hold of ledges and scale the colossi (the huge beast that must be defeated to progress through the game) instead of just hitting the r1 button the once to grab hold of a ledge you have hold onto the button allowing you as the player to have a connection with the games protagonist. "There is never a rift between what's happening on-screen and what's happening in your hand."

Also mentioned is the control mechanics of Argo the protagonists trusty stead, later in the game you are reliant on Argo's "AI and ability to take care of himself... as some colossi are impossible to beat without his help." This creates a bond between you as the player and argo and contibutes "To a compelling artistic metaphor (friendship)."

Henry Jenkins - The New Lively Art

This Publication by Henry Jenkins Games, the new lively art. Is an application of popular aesthetics to games and there cultural value.  It revisits Gilbert Seldes The seven lively arts (1924) and how it "Might contribute to our current debates about the artistic status of computer and video games." Seldes argued that a primary source of artist expression in america had formed through emerging popular culture such as jazz and hollywood cinema. It also says how critics at the time were quick to dismiss Seldes argument much like todays topic of games emerging as a form of artistic expression. Jenkins concludes that games are in indeed maturing and progressing towards an artist value and that healthy criticism and debate can help drive them foreward.

Chris Crawford - On Game Design

Chris Crawford's book On Game Design has an interesting chapter titled Creativity: The missing ingredient. In this chapter Crawford explains how "Nowadays, games design itself is a cold mechanical process requiring little in the way of creativity." He is not referring to game designers as not being creative people but that "The problem is that in the long grind from inspiration to product, the most creative aspects of the design are ground away until the final result is little more than yesterday's big hit with a few minor embellishments" He describes that as budgets have gone up designers are less likely to take risks than they would do with smaller budgets and thus the creativity of games is affected, money making over innovation and creativity. After-all a majority of games are made to make money. Does this mean they have the right to earn an artist status?

Chris Crawford - Dragon Speech

Click here for a link to a Section of Chris Crawford's famous dragon speech at the Game Developers Conference 1992. He begins by talking about language and how it is used to teach people, and the concept of mass media, a way to teach many people, and that this is the genesis of art. "Because art really is just a way of communicating ideas." He says. He refers to Michelangelo's statue "pieta" that shows mary cradling the crucified body of her son (Jesus Christ) and that the statue he says "Conveys to you, the audience the message of motherly love with tremendous power, it is compelling, it is clear, it is powerful and because of these things, it is so great, we call it beautiful." He later talks about the mind being an active agent and not a passive receptacle and if art puts us as an audience in a passive role then it is in conflict with "The basic structure of the human mind." To explain this further he talks about effectiveness over efficiency if he were to convey his views in this lecture on a one to one basis with someone then they would interact bouncing back and forth with conversation and it would be different, that person would learn more, the one to one conversation is an active audience and the lecture is a passive audience. Though the lecture is more efficient. He explains this problem has been with us for centuries "Every artist, communicator... has been forced to sacrifice effectiveness over efficiency.Until now." He says this problem has been solved because now with floppy disks and computers we can convey our ideas in games and these games can be mass-produced and then the ideas are interacted with, with effectiveness. This says to me the potential of games as a artistic expressive medium.

Flower

Click here for a link to a video about Flower narrated by the president and co-founder of ThatGameCompany Kellee Santiago. In the video Kelle says "We start our ideas with emotion, how we want the player to feel." is this not how an artist would approach a painting? Flower is like an interactive watercolor painting, that moves and changes as you paint the ground with color as you float across its landscapes. The game is freely available on the playstation Network which relates to what Chris Crawford said during his Dragon speech "Effectiveness over efficiency." Looking into the philosophical definitions of art, the game is mimetic, an observation of nature(traditional), the games aesthetics are clear (Functional), and it has been widely praised by critics(Institutional). I believe Flower is interactive art and a good sign that maybe Chris Crawford was wrong in the Creativity: the missing ingredient chapter on his book On Game Design. What Kelle says towards the end of the video backs this up "With downloadable games you can have smaller teams, smaller budgets, which means we can take more creative risks and now we are seeing all sorts of games that would not have been published with out the playstation network." This feels me with enthusiasm about the artistic direction the games industry can go. Sally backs this up further by saying "Were continuing to try and create games that express emotions and hopefully push the boundaries of what games can do." Is this not what artists do with a medium.