next »

[thersus]

I liked this so much that I will show it to my History of Art teacher. :D

[gimymblert]

I plan to spam my former school facebook when there is more image

[AD1337]

The first alpha is out!



Play it here: http://playavantgarde.com/

There is way too much stuff to do still, but I thought people might want to play with it. My deadline is today anyway.

[thersus]

Man, this is great, I'm showing to all my former university colleagues and professors hahaha

[VirusN]

AGDGism sounds like a movement where artists procrastinate a lot and always start meaningless discussions on which type of paint is the best for art.

water based > oil based >>>>>>>> java

[Games Inquirer]

Would an aspiring artist not too interested in the game part get enjoyment out of seeing this play out the way it's laid out or is this about hardcore micro management or something? Just curious, doesn't seem like it's a game for me but it could make for a nice gift for a friend.

[Ant]

I only played for a short while but it seemed pretty much just stat management. It's only the alpha though so hopefully that might change - would be cool if the history of the age was entwined, such as witnessing the birth of famous art pieces.

[AD1337]

Would an aspiring artist not too interested in the game part get enjoyment out of seeing this play out the way it's laid out or is this about hardcore micro management or something? Just curious, doesn't seem like it's a game for me but it could make for a nice gift for a friend.

Maybe, I don't know. The game is free.

I only played for a short while but it seemed pretty much just stat management. It's only the alpha though so hopefully that might change - would be cool if the history of the age was entwined, such as witnessing the birth of famous art pieces.

You're right. There are a few historical events and they allow you to paint in new styles.

[gimymblert]

AGDGism sounds like a movement where artists procrastinate a lot and always start meaningless discussions on which type of paint is the best for art.

I'm afraid the correct name is GIMYMism

[Seiseki]

The game is free? Wow..
Such quality work for free, that's crazy

You should try selling school licenses though!

[AD1337]

The game is free? Wow..
Such quality work for free, that's crazy

You should try selling school licenses though!

The game isn't very good. I don't think anyone should buy it.

But you can still play it here: http://playavantgarde.com/ (reposting the link for the new page)

[Seiseki]

I tried playing it but I suck
Not very good? I thought it was awesome! Despite my failure to become a famous artist :D


Edit:

It does feel a bit random though, because I have a hard time knowing what to do and why..

It should be more clear what you gain from the studies in the academy.

The gui for making paintings should point out more clearly what the stats used for the selected work are and your stats in relation. Right now the text is quite small and it's really hard to compare.

And possibly make it easier to make paintings, making the selection smoother/faster, by adding larger buttons or clickable icons.
Remembering your last choices or having a default choice would speed it up too, if you're only using paper and ink for example, you'd only have to select two other options.

edit2: Wow, when you get a painting accepted into the salon, you get a huge money boost.
Other than the salon though, I think it's quite hard to get publicity.
And those bastards kept refusing my art nouveau self-portrait master pieces, yet when I paint something excellent or superb in realism they're all over it..

Would be nice to have a time line next to the date, so you can see how far away the salon submission is.
I always manage to miss it unless I have a master piece that I've saved..

Really looking forward to new events and such.
Also, is there a point to doing paintings with low demand?

As I said earlier, there should be a more clear causes and effects.
For example, I have no idea what the perks and flaws actually do, nor why some things are high in demand and others aren't.

And I keep clicking different combinations to see which ones are high in demand.
Would be nice if it was easier to see. Something subtle like making the text bold for stuff that is more popular.

[gimymblert]

I tried playing it but I suck
Not very good? I thought it was awesome! Despite my failure to become a famous artist :D


Edit:

It does feel a bit random though, because I have a hard time knowing what to do and why..

It should be more clear what you gain from the studies in the academy.

The gui for making paintings should point out more clearly what the stats used for the selected work are and your stats in relation. Right now the text is quite small and it's really hard to compare.

And possibly make it easier to make paintings, making the selection smoother/faster, by adding larger buttons or clickable icons.
Remembering your last choices or having a default choice would speed it up too, if you're only using paper and ink for example, you'd only have to select two other options.

edit2: Wow, when you get a painting accepted into the salon, you get a huge money boost.
Other than the salon though, I think it's quite hard to get publicity.
And those bastards kept refusing my art nouveau self-portrait master pieces, yet when I paint something excellent or superb in realism they're all over it..

Would be nice to have a time line next to the date, so you can see how far away the salon submission is.
I always manage to miss it unless I have a master piece that I've saved..

Really looking forward to new events and such.
Also, is there a point to doing paintings with low demand?

As I said earlier, there should be a more clear causes and effects.
For example, I have no idea what the perks and flaws actually do, nor why some things are high in demand and others aren't.

And I keep clicking different combinations to see which ones are high in demand.
Would be nice if it was easier to see. Something subtle like making the text bold for stuff that is more popular.

Congrats you had perfectly real life art making, this game is a perfect simulation!

[AD1337]

snip

Thanks for the feedback, those are all relevant points. Thanks for playing!

[Seiseki]

I could totally see this as a board game btw

[ANtY]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/06/can-art-be-games-avant-garde/

dude! gz 

[AD1337]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/06/can-art-be-games-avant-garde/

dude! gz 

Thanks!

I haven't even read that yet, I can't bring myself to do it, I get nervous.

So what happened was I contacted the guy who does "Live Free, Play Hard" on RPS to suggest the game for that series, and I thought it might be featured with about 5 other games, but I never expected a dedicated blog post.

It's cool but I'm in shock.

[melos]

Ooh, cool go into the comments and talk with some of the people there!

[Seiseki]

Nice article! This game could get a lot of publicity due to how niche it is!

[kinnas]

Man, Bouguereau is such a dick. The artrenewal.org guys are not gonna like this : D

So! After hanging out at the academy for a while and becoming the best artist ever I decided to also become the king of the world. With a decade of annual salon masterpiece gold medals I financed my world conquest plans of drinking every artist in the city best friends for life. Then, backed by this taskforce of ultimate creativity I went and adonished the universe with hundreds of frescoes and carved statues, all of them carrying my likeness, turning the world into a strange artistic Orwellian society where the artist Kinnas looks over you no matter where you go (all works of art meticulously crafted following the principles of BESTISM, which puts forward the artists supreme skill in every faculty of creation.)

Alas the great old powers of the world were not happy with their new overlord and overthrew me in a revoltion they called "The Great War". Such is life!

So! Some thoughts and ideas on the mechanics. In general the game feels too detached, the number growing game underneath is still too simple to fool you into thinking this is a game about being an artist, but such is the work in progress. Underpaintings rarely look like pictures themselves! So here's some ideas for mechanics based on the glamorous life of an artist: rent and materials. Having to pay rent every month (half a year? year?)  and having to buy your art materials beforehand yourself from a supply store.

Say you need to rent an apartment, at first this can be the romantic freezing attic people always associate with artists. It can remain that for a long time if you keep doing the avant-garde underdog thing but if you make it big with the salon business you can rent new apartments and with that grow your reputation in the bourgeois and aristocratic society. (In fact eventually buy out some apartments and rent them out yourself, becoming a bona fide bourgeois artist?) Also a separate rent on the studio, at first start out with drawing sketches late into the night in your little attic apartment but if you want to do bigger paintings you have to get more room, either a studio apartment or rent a seperate studio and pay rent for both of them. But the studio also needs an easel which you need to buy from the art supply store along with all the other materials.

So before making art you need to go to the store and either buy a few sheets of paper which cost more per piece but less upfront, or buy a bigass roll of paper to cut from for a long while which costs more upfront but less per page. I'd say to even let people buy their different pigments seperately, have a button labeled "colourbox" or "pallet" or something and clicking it shows bars for how much of vermillion red and cadmium yellow and burnt umber etc there's left (with the artist annoyingly always running out of white and needing to run to the store for one more tube, just like in fucking real life!) Or just abstract it to a single bar on how much paint you have left if this is sperging out too much.

But the idea is that you have to manage your money better on specific equipment and rent, so that money becomes more of a moneylike thing and less of just some kind of a number. For instance loaning money could be something akin to going to ask a friend in the cafe for some (and they can really only loan you money if they've recently sold a painting? But in a pinch they can always give you some paper and pencils so you're not locked out). If selling paintings is going be a more involved process in the future, going through some gallery or art dealer kinda thing you could also ask for money in advance from your art dealer and having to give him the painting afterwards for free etc.

But most of all, and this is a hard thing to balance, I wish that money stayed relatively sane and didn't logarithmically fly out to space. Make it hard to find buyers for really expensive paintings so you have to make cheaper, smaller ones to keep the day-to-day boat afloat with the the big ones serving as vanity pieces. Make it expensive to live in a fancy apartment but half-force players out of cheap ones because they're bad for your health/stamina in the long run.  On the other end of the spectrum, let the artist beg for money on the streets when he has hit rock bottom, find temporary work as physical labor in the docks or in the factory (let this colour his perception of society), or go and be a model in the academy or with sufficient skill, teach a guest lecture?

Uh.. yeah! Great project, keep on rocking it!