Art games - games that break the mold of what we consider games. There's a heavy link to the word "weird" and art games, since most aren't out there to be played like games. Some take it to extremes, leaving the player to figuring everything out (
The marriage), while some simply adopt the title of "art game" through stylizing the in-game visuals and changing how the controller is used (
Katamari Damacy).
 |
| Well... yeah, I guess you could argue that this is pretty extreme. |
|
Above image taken from http://www.little-players.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/katamaridamacy.jpg
No matter how its approached, art games are always far from the norm. Rather than allow for an enjoyable experience, art games focus on invoking feelings within the player(s). This isn't to say that art games can't be fun - its just that fun isn't a mandatory component of art games. Like art itself; the games are subjective. What one person thinks the is the core meaning of the game will most likely vary from an-others perspective. In the end, though, as long as something is felt or some internal feeling is dwelt upon, an art game has done it's job.
Our project this week was to convert van Gogh's painting The starry night into an art game. With such a broad area to work with, it took us a while to finally decide on what kind of game it was and how it was played. We started out by first looking up some information on the actual painting itself. We found out that the painting was done just before the time that van Gogh's mind was starting to leave him and that he painted it from memory as opposed to actually looking at it. With this in mind, we then looked at the painting and talked about how we felt/what feelings we thought of when we looked at it.
 |
That tower makes me think of Pokemon: The Movie 3.
Above image taken from the Prototype #2 Assignment PDF. |
The
common feelings/themes that came up the most were ones like cold and lonely.
The word "alone" was used quite frequently too. Wanting to add more
flavor to the game, we finalized it by merging the feelings and some facts
about the picture and decided that our art game would instill feelings of cold,
loneliness while touching on memories. And what better way to feel cold and
alone then losing your memories? Thus, Starry Nightmares came into being. In
Starry Nightmares, the player (for there is only one) goes around in a circle
lined with card tiles. There are also four special card tiles in which a player
writes a different memory on each. Each time the player lands on a card tile,
the tile is discarded. The game ends when a player removes either all the
neutral tiles or all of the four special tiles.
RULES:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No. of Players: 1
Materials required:
·
Dice
·
20 tiled circular board
·
16 “memory-fragment” cards
·
4 blank “key-memory” cards
·
Writing utensils for the “key-frame” cards
Rules:
·
The player must write down four personal
“key-memories” on the empty cards and then shuffle the four cards with the rest
of the “memory-fragment” cards.
·
The cards are then placed face down individually
on the tiles.
·
The player then rolls the die and then moves the
according number of tiles on the board
·
Any memory cards on a tile that the player lands
on are to be flipped and read. The player must then “relive” that memory in
their heads. The respective card is then removed from the game and the tile it
was on is considered “empty”
·
If a player lands on an empty tile, he/she must
advance to the next “non-empty” tile.
·
The game ends either when there are no more
“key-memory” cards on the board but there remains at least one
“memory-fragment” card or when there are no more “memory-fragment” cards but at
least one “key-memory” card. In the first case the player “loses” and slips
into insanity and in the latter, the player gets to leave with his/her mind
intact.
Twenty tiled circle as the
board with 20 “memory-fragment” cards corresponding to each tile. These cards
are randomly placed face down on the tiles. Every time a player lands on a tile
the corresponding card is removed from the game and the tile is considered
“empty” for the remainder of the game. If a player lands on an empty tile
he/she must advance to the next non-empty tile.
4 of the 20 cards are “key
memories” that the player writes down on the blank cards. If all four key
memories are lost then the player loses and slips into insanity. If the player
manages to get rid of all 16 “memory-fragment” cards and still has at least one
key memory card left on the board, he/she gets to stop playing the game and
leave with his/her mind intact.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So what
does it all mean? Well, you (the player) are trapped within your own mind. As
you wander your mind endlessly, you slowly start to lose your sanity as well as
your memories. In the end, you escape by losing all your "useless"
memories or by losing all your "true" memories. This isn't intentional,
however, and is merely the way it must be. The player doesn't know they are
losing memories while looking for an exit, and when they wake up, they still
won't know, since they can not remember.
In the end, I felt that this went pretty well for my first attempt at an art game. However, since it was more forced due to it being a school project, I'm not sure whether it was a true success. In the creation of art is usually done to express something to people. With this in mind, it makes sense to draw the parallels to art games. I'd have to say that my favourite part was being so unrestrained in terms of what we could do with the game. Yeah, you can do this in regular game design, but not to the full extent. No matter what you add in a regular game, you still need to ask yourself things like, "Is this fun?" or, "Would I play this?" No matter what you add in, it still needs to be playable and fair (if fair is what you're going for). But I digress... I shall take my leave with a question. Art games: more art than games, or more games than art?
