The Art of Game Design a Book of Lenses Epub

Games are not art — they're better. It just depends on whom you lot ask.

There's this on-once again, off-again argument inside the intelligentsia equally to whether games should be placed on the same pedestal as books, movies, music, and paintings. But fifty-fifty the newest of the accepted fine arts, movies, accept had at least a century to develop.

Conventional videogames–and I'k taking Pong, the equivalent of cave drawings, as my starting indicate hither–commenced less than 40 years ago. In that fourth dimension, games have mimicked movies, electronically emulated books, and tried their hand at playing on some emotional heartstrings. The big difference is that about conventional art forms are passive and ii-dimensional experiences: You sit down in front of and soak in any the artist presents y'all with. Videogames attempt to create an interactive feel that puts the viewer/ player in control of the palette.

Enter Shanghai-born Xinghan "Jenova" Chen, creative director of ThatGameCompany. Since earning his graduate degree from the University of Southern California Film School'due south Interactive Media programme, he has helped craft several simple-merely-surreal game projects that do more than than cater to a twitch response. His thesis project, Cloud, floated along, accumulating a following on the indie gaming scene. Flow cast players as an e'er-evolving unmarried-celled organism–and that, no doubtfulness, inspired the starting time stage in Spore. The all-time way to describe Chen's latest game, Blossom: Information technology's a first-person gardener. And it's well-worth the $10 request price at Sony's PlayStation Shop.

The levels, if yous choose to call them that, are the dreams of flowers. You are the current of air, fulfilling flower fantasies–yep, information technology sounds kind of strange. Only simply try it. This is a Zen practise with an occasional trophy for completing a task. A meditation pool with an endpoint. More of import, information technology passes my all-important "married woman test": She was entranced as she watched me play, until finally she yanked the controller out of my hand to endeavour her luck with it. The terminal time I got that kind of response out of her was when BioShock came out.

Only back to the erstwhile "games-versus-art" statement (I'm looking at you lot, Ebert). I spent some time chatting with Chen recently nigh the state of gaming and how (if at all) it'due south maturing. Here'south what we came up with:

A Boy and His Blossom

PC World: How would you endeavour describing Flower to someone? Is it a game, art, or something else entirely?

Jenova Chen: Bloom is made with a different mentality. It'south a safety, warm experience. It's like a poem or dance that uses symbolism and scenery to requite the thespian a comforting backdrop.

PCW: And I guess that this would make you the choreographer?

JC: [laughs] Yeah, we're non level designers. We provide all these moves, and considering players are different, they will perform the moves differently. It's a game that is meant not just to play, but to sentinel.

PCW: A game that you picket–technically, that'd go far art. As for the person who grabs the controls, let'south talk a piddling more than nigh the game itself.

JC: The end goal of the player is to make the world a better identify. The player is the consciousness of nature. Y'all're living through the dreams of flowers sitting in pots. Gamers call them levels, simply each of the dreams for the dissimilar flowers has different goals. The Rose, for example, sees a desaturated, drab world of concrete only wants to add together color everywhere. As you complete the dream of one bloom, the second bloom sprouts and fills in a certain aspect of life. The gameplay is that you're this consciousness, this desire. You're bringing life into the world–not the guy killing aliens.

Nosotros thought of this similar a flick experience. You could probably finish this in ii and half hours, only you really go a lot more out of the game after you've finished and come back to revisit each bloom'due south dreams. You find more than to explore and play more. It volition be a proficient therapy–to heal yourself and reflect on things.

PCW: How did you lot come up with the thought of making a game about flowers, anyhow?

JC: I grew upwards in a city, in Shanghai. I was surrounded by skyscrapers and people. I was never surrounded by nature. When I was on my way into Los Angeles, I saw this windmill farm. Grass fields, blueish sky–I'd never seen these things before. Where I lived the sky was purple. Then, as an urban human, I was attracted to these things I hadn't really seen before. When you lot actually go into nature and go hiking, you actually start missing the city and the people. So I wanted to create a space like a window from your living room, and yous get surrounded by nature. Meanwhile, y'all yet experience safe and warm. It's a harmony between nature and urban life.

PCW: Normally, games like this don't appear on store shelves…

JC: That's because digital distribution allows for more risk-taking. It allows small development houses to have chances without having to score funding to publish the game on discs. That cost forces you to make sacrifices along the way. Information technology makes yous cut costs, enforce deadlines and ship a game that you might not exist as proud of. Yous just can't run that gamble. For a game like Menses, it only cost between 500 and 600k, not even a million. [Ed. note: And that's gone on to huge success.] Sony's been peachy to work with in this respect and has been very supportive both with Flow and now Flower.

Selling Games Short

JC: I think I'k pretty stupid to starting time a visitor. I left a lead designer job at Maxis working on Spore to found ThatGameCompany. I was trying to find someplace that was doing what I wanted to do. Nobody was.

PCW: What was missing?

JC: I see entertainment as something that feeds you lot–like food or water, but for your emotions. Videogames used to be a software niche…only it isn't fully mature however. The divergence between a new medium and a mature medium is based upon the variety–more than but one or two emotions. In that location aren't just scary books or movies. Or sad songs. Games are even so largely seen as a toy and not just by the mainstream audience, but past some developers likewise.

PCW: Wouldn't you say, though, that these days games are getting a little more sophisticated?

JC: Well, the people who accept a new technology are the younger ones — the ones willing to conform. That's why the get-go games generally catered to kids. In gild for the business to succeed, they've needed to focus on the kids. To a degree, it'due south nonetheless that way. Kids like flashy imagery and colorful cartoons. And as they become older, they like more competition and to be more than powerful. Many games are based on this empowerment.

PCW: And I guess that feeds into the stigma yet attached to games…and being a gamer.

JC: Aye, no i asks yous if you're a moving-picture show watcher or if y'all're a reader, just when it always comes to games, you're a gamer. That's because we've got a ways to get. People use phrases like "cool" and "fun," merely seeking a more than sophisticated audience ways doing more. People read a book, for example, but at that place'south this thought that they will blot something from it. Something mentally stimulating that they will be able to apply elsewhere.

PCW: At least some games strive to do more, merely I'd have to concur that there'due south still a lopsided focus on something similar graphics.

JC: If you lot recall well-nigh it, nearly movies are divided by feelings. Games are divided by technologies–or the skills that they exam. That oftentimes casts games as dismissible pastimes. Call up of game design every bit a bucket. Crytek created a cute engine and Crysis looks realistic and good. Just if the story doesn't rise to the aforementioned level as those graphics, information technology feels like an uneven attempt and things in the game spill over the sides. If the gameplay isn't as good, information technology doesn't experience right. Because [ThatGameCompany] is pocket-size, we don't take the luxury to pile up one feature like, say, graphics or story and focus on the whole package. Nosotros need to keep things concise.

PCW: Concise is one mode to put it. Hither's how your games work: Tilt the PS3's Sixaxis controller to motility and press a single push button. No instructions, no tutorial, you just drop players into the earth.

JC: We demand to provide content exterior the red zone so that adults and people that normally wouldn't recollect to take hold of a controller, would. And when they do grab the controller, brand it simple to understand. At first, nosotros tried different gameplay with complex controls–even with wellness points–but that didn't experience correct for the emotions we wanted to convey. The music and ambiance combined with the visuals and controls convey more than. That'south why there are no voices, no words, and no instructions.

Games, the New Movies

PCW: Since y'all're coming from the perspective of a USC Moving-picture show School graduate, where would you say games are at present compared to, say, movies?

JC: When films kickoff appeared, it was this brand-new medium that started equally a engineering science innovation. Sophisticated storytelling came afterwards. It's easier to sell a technology if you evoke primal feelings. If you expect at some of the primeval films, like a French one that captured a railroad train coming through a tunnel, it scared people out of their seats. Don't games sometimes become those same reactions?

PCW: No arguments about games tapping fear and adrenaline. That, they've got down. Merely using that moving picture comparing, take nosotros at least made it out of the "talkies" stage?

JC: The game industry started in the '70s and has grown very chop-chop. The very kickoff generation of filmmakers who grew up with films as kids–they went to universities and studied how to arts and crafts films. The George Lucases and Steven Spielbergs.

When George Lucas went to film school, people were surprised that there really was a schoolhouse for film. Now, people are reacting that same way to game schools. In schoolhouse, we studied all these mediums–storytelling, psychology…and I think, as a event, when I mention some ideas to electric current game designers, they'll say, "Oh, this sounds cool, but is it fun?"

I guess my reply would be that we're at the betoken where George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are coming out of pic school.

PCW: Yous heard it hither commencement–THX1138 and The Duel, coming to a console nearly y'all before long! Seriously, though, at that place is this dismissive attitude toward gamers. Exercise you remember this next generation of designers will change people's minds well-nigh games?

JC: People coming out of game pattern schools are now thinking about games differently than those that've come earlier. Nosotros promise that games volition become more respected. In Japan, anybody reads manga–it'due south a national art grade. Successful businessmen and teenagers read them on the trains. In America, comic books are viewed as some nerdy activity. Why then different? The content matured at a different step–and I don't want to see games go lumped into that aforementioned, immature category.

PCW: Sorry for the clichéd question, but can a videogame make you cry yet? Too if the game is too tough, that is….

JC: There are moments in gaming where you'll empathise with a character and maybe feel a fiddling sad. Well, videogames accept fabricated people cry. It's piece of cake to cry if y'all've experienced something deep and emotional. A role-playing game in China I played fabricated me cry–even if it's platitude–but as a kid, if you're exposed to something for the first fourth dimension and conveys a story. If you've never read Shakespeare and someone slips Romeo and Juliet into a game, the showtime time you meet information technology somewhere is bound to brand you cry. The medium improves by the kids who get moved and are motivated to make their own games.

PCW: How many times has it backfired, though? That the game gets in the style of a good story?

JC: I force myself to play some games…like Final Fantasy XII. I had to struggle through because of all the [endless quests]. Even though I really wanted to know how the story ended, after a couple weeks I had to only surrender. The chore of making your character gain more feel to complete the game had no relevance to existent life. And that is where a lot of games lose people.

PCW: Thanks, Jenova.

Maybe role of the problem is that they are called "games." Snobs plough their nose up and think of Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 or something–and instantly file it in the category of mindless diversions. Their loss. You got a better proper name for videogames? Permit me know!

Until next time…

Need fifty-fifty more nerdity? Follow Casual Friday columnist and PC World Senior Writer Darren Gladstone on gizmogladstone on Twitter for more than time-wasting tips.

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Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/533505/games_not_art.html

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