TIGSource Forums

WHAT IS IT?

Avant-Garde is an RPG/Simulation single-player web game set in Paris during the rise of modernism. You are an artist. Create paintings and even your own artistic movements, meet famous artists such as Monet, Van Gogh and Picasso at the parisian cafés. Win medals and fame at the Salons or drink your way into debt and commit suicide as a starving artist - it's your life and art.

BY WHO?

I'm creating this game mostly by myself in AS3. Music will be created by my friend Morvan - check out one of his songs here (http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/465106).

I've been working on the game for 2 months now.

WHAT ELSE?

I'd like to hear your opinion and feedback on this unique game as I post here with updates and news about its development. More screenshots will follow soon with details on what I have so far. I'm very interested in what you have to say about this project.

Please comment!

(http://i.imgur.com/1Pidm.jpg)

ATELIER

Here's a screenshot of the Atelier, the artist's studio, which is basically an inventory, where players can see the result of their creations.

The player can resume an unfinished painting, sell it or create a new one. Another option appears once a month every year. The game is turn-based, and managing between whether to resume a painting or try a new one is an important dynamic - time is a limited resource.

This is an incredibly fascinating original project. Definitely will be following.

Thanks!


Thanks, the backgrounds are all paintings of that time.

Excellent question. Short answer: you don't draw, it's more about management. The long answer goes below with a screenshot and more details:

(http://i.imgur.com/uH4LO.jpg)

CREATING AN ARTWORK

When creating a painting, the player chooses:
1) Subject (Still Life, Nude, Portrait...)
2) Medium (Pencil, Watercolor, Oils...)
3) Surface (Paper, Canvas...)
4) Movement (Realism, Impressionism, Surrealism...)

At first, the choices are limited. As the game progresses, more options are unlocked. These choices are quick to make - they only require 4 clicks, but they have a huge impact on the game. For example, if you make a realistic still life, pencil on paper, that artwork's quality will depend on only 2 of your stats: Form and Perspective, and it's going to take only 1 month to complete, selling for a small price. But a realistic, historical oil on canvas painting will take up to 10 months, depend on all your stats and sell for much more.

Jonathan Blow (Braid) actually made a prototype that involved drawing and painting on a digital canvas, it's in a talk you can find on youtube. Turns out it wasn't fun for the player because it took too much effort and time. I'll learn from that and make painting creation quick and effortless, but still with a big gameplay impact.

The positive response is encouraging, keep the comments coming guys!

wow, what a cool idea!

the concept faintly reminds me of the game king of dragon pass because of the mix of adventure and strategy/rpg/sim gameplay. the painting mechanics sound like they could be a ton of fun.

Thanks! Interesting comparison. I think there are similarities considering both as turn-based strategy games with RPG elements. I found it hard to classify the genre for this game, I'm still torn between RPG and simulation, but I believe RPG speaks more to the player experience: living the life of an artist during modernism.

I hope the painting mechanics are fun! It's the core mechanic, everything else is built around it. Incidentally, it's also the most finished part of the game.

It's always nice to see a different take on the rpg genre and this one is looking great. The HUD is pretty crisp as well; hope to see more soon :)

Holy shit

Awesome!

Will you have random events where Apollinaire invites you to his home for your inauguration as a new face in the Parisian avant-garde scene? Joined the surrealists at one point but failed to meet the strict commands of Breton and now face expulsion? Move to Zurich to join the Dada scene as triggered by the onset of the war? In later stages have the option to be disillusioned by the conservative nature of the so-called avant-garde and move to America and invent conceptualism? Or just slowly die in poverty as the world moves on and the values of the new modernist aesthetic you held dear in your youth loose ground to more modern apporaches from america?

Can you publish manifestos? Is there a 'hip & now' slider which shows who you hang with, whether you side with the more avant-garde but poor and socially shunned Impressionists in the Salon of the Rejected or join the ranks of the new realists and mingle with the bourgeois and old aristocracy and paint portraits (you sellout you!). Or can you do the ties-to-russian-avant-garde pro-communist peredvizhnik thing in Paris? Can you choose to be an immigrant artist living in one of the bohemian colonies? Choose which hill you inhabit and do some silly petty hill vs hill thing?

Holy fuck the possibilities for awesome story beats are endless!

Son, this topic is waaay too cool to let suffer the shallow-indie-experiment syndrome, this needs to be HUGE. HUUUGE! :addicted:

I love the idea of this! May I request game mechanics for models and muses, please. Oh, and absinthe!

No, damn, you have to implement this. This is so cool feature, adds a lot. Thinking of this game, it feels like it would be the essence of the game. I understand however that it is impossible to paint in like Caspar David Friedrich, but it could work more in impressionism/expressionism/abstract axle of art.

Then you create algorithm that reads the painting and through whatever conditions the game then values it.

Anyway, it is lovely to see game project like this.

This is an art style I can get into.
Yes.

I love everything about this! The idea is fantastic and the art style looks great. Looking forward to seeing this progress.

Actually, I'm wondering now if there's any way that I can help contribute to this? Even if it's something small, I'll do what I can.

Thanks t-recx!


Thanks a lot for this huge post, your excitement is very inspiring and so are your ideas.

Your ideas describe my goals for the game very well. Important figures such as Apollinaire, Victor Hugo and Nadar will be in the game. Participating in movements such as Surrealism will be in the game as well. Travelling around Europe will be included, but I think I'll keep Paris as the main location of the game (you can go to other countries, but you return to Paris). America isn't currently in my plans, as the timespan of the game is intended to be 1863-1914 and the american scene wasn't majorly important yet. I guess I need some limits to be able to finish this game, and not including America is an important one. Perhaps in another game?

You can publish manifestos, it's how you create a new artistic movement. I have considered that "artistic taste" slider, and it could be included. Yes, the fight between conservative realists and revolutionary modernists will be a main theme. Again, the scope will be limited to Paris for now.

I am focusing very heavily on allowing the player to create his own cool narrative by playing the game. For example, a player's game experience could be described as: "I started as a starving artist, studied under Bouguereau, became rich, won the Salons of 1883 and 1887, then joined forces with Monet and the Impressionists, broke off with them and created my own revolutionary artistic movement, slowly destroyed academism with modernist expositions and manifestos, then went broke and committed suicide."

The game's scope will be big, but it has to be manageable for me. I could always leave things for other games, such as other countries and times. For now, it's Paris 1863-1914. I think that's what I can manage.


Thanks and yes, models and inspiration will be included, as well as alcohol. I am still unsure how to include models, but the game couldn't be without them, considering their importance at the time. The other two elements I think will work as modifiers, think of "buffs" and "nerfs": they make some stats higher and others lower. In this game, stats aren't "strength", "intelligence" and so on, but the fundamentals of art: "form", "perspective", "color" and so on.


That's exactly what he tried to implement, and it was a failed prototype. His program could correctly judge the player's painting and it was completely functional, but it wasn't fun or engaging for the player. I agree it could work for a more modern approach, in which the player paints abstract paintings, but that's not what I want for Avant-Garde. Maybe in another game!


I think I'm okay working alone for now, but thanks for the offer.

I've talked a little about stats, so here's a bigger post on them:

(http://i.imgur.com/U0NWz.jpg)

CHARACTER CREATION

In Avant-Garde, the player has stats like any other RPG. But these stats are not "strength", "intelligence" and so on, but the fundamentals of art. I call them skills.

These skills determine the quality of your paintings and how much they will sell for. They can be improved through experience and learned from education. At first, the higher your skills, the better your paintings will be. But as time goes by, the opposite can happen: the lower your stats, the better your paintings will be. This happens depending on the artistic movement you are a part of. If you paint a cubist watercolor, having a low "Form" skill will actually make your artwork better, because Cubism rejects the fundamental of form that realism valued so much.

It's this unique take on stats that brings everything together in Avant-Garde.

This sounds like a fun way to learn some art history. I've already learned a bit just reading this thread, didn't know about the cultural scene in Paris and so forth.

Yes, it should be a fun way to learn art history. It's a bit sad that educational games have such a stigma on them. What's wrong with learning? We always learn about history from movies and nobody calls them educational movies. I'm just rambling now.

Here's a gif that shows how details are presented on mouse hover:

(http://i.imgur.com/NB1g9.gif)

In other news, my music guy is making some awesome music. Expect it soon!

Oh, and thanks to Dom2D for showcasing Avant-Garde in the TIGSource Devlog Magazine (http://venuspatrol.com/2012/11/tigsource-devlog-dom2ds-visual-showcase-of-awesome-new-games-issue-5/)!

And here's a bigger gif that shows the entire process of creating, finishing and selling a painting:

(http://i.imgur.com/n4DpI.gif)

wah interesting, I imagine this would be a weird meta trip for some, I'm excited what this turns into

By some do you mean artists? For them, I think it will be extra interesting, but the game makes art very accessible. Thanks for being excited!

I am going to be the thread asshole and wonder what's so exciting for everyone about menu based management over public domain paintings, but good luck anyway

We all like to play artists.

(though I still have a wish for the painting feature)

What's wrong with menu based management games?

It is true that the game is actually just a bunch of menus. But when you strip most games of the eyecandy and awesomeness, they're all "just clicking" or "just pressing keys". The menu-based nature has bothered me, though, and if you have any suggestions I am open to them.

These "public domain paintings" you cite are artworks of the transition between academism and modernism. Sure pixel art is cool and stuff, but these are the masterpieces of realism, impressionism and other avant-garde movements. These paintings are beautiful and interesting, public domain or not. And most people haven't seen them, I'm sure you'll agree there's at least one painting in this thread that you weren't aware of. If I can bring these paintings to people's attention through this game, that's good enough for me.

If my menus are fun and engaging to play through interesting gameplay, immersion and characters, that would be great. I'm aiming for that.


Not coming. I rather learn from past mistakes rather than making them again. Jonathan Blow tried it, it wasn't fun. Too much effort and time for the player. This is why creating a painting is as easy as you see in the last gif.

now that I think about the game, I'm starting to think it can be interesting, my initial reaction was due to the fact that I always cringe when I see a game that use old famous paintings as background, generally the game itself is totally crappy .
I can start to see the point of your game now, I was just a bit intrigued by the over-the-top enthusiasm displayed by other forum members.

The good reception has always surprised me. I don't know if it's the unique historical setting that excites people so much.

I didn't expect enthusiasm when I started, I was aiming for a niche within a niche. But it seems this game could be widely played. I guess that's true for any game, as long as it's engaging.

How is this going?

As of today, it's back in development.

It was on hold in November while I made For King, which was a GitHub Game Off runner-up (https://github.com/blog/1337-github-game-off-winners). Then I started a new job in December and then took a 10-day trip. Just got back and now Avant-Garde will be resumed.

My goal is to have at least an alpha version, preferably beta, done by March.

Here's a screenshot without any progress whatsoever:

(http://i.imgur.com/t9mM7.jpg)

Screenshots with actual progress will be provided as soon as it is made, which is hopefully soon!

I'm an amazing artist!

(http://i.imgur.com/5PsS1.jpg)

Working on stat increase through studying. Progress bars should fill up, then the number increases and the progress bar resets. I'll work on a gif when I have it done.

Also made the study options reflect the academic training more accurately. First students copy drawings, then sculptures and casts, and finally life drawing from nude models.

Edit: the gif!

(http://i.imgur.com/dVDLu.gif)

(http://i.imgur.com/GoBj1.gif)

Trying to make the stat increases nicer. There is still stuff missing, such as info on what each study is and does.

Glad to see this is still going strong!

Well, it is going!

(http://i.imgur.com/IyIcJ.gif)

Added leftovers bar after a skill is improved, and red bar when a skill decreases.

I like this, not only because of the interesting concept, but because I really like RPGs where you pick flaw(s) in character creation.

Awesome! I'm thinking of redoing character creation to make it more immersive. So instead of picking numbers you'd answer some questions about your past (where you were born, if you are a child of poor farmers or rich aristocrats) and personality. But that's for later!

For now, I'm working on making the 19th century paintings of the backgrounds come to life, so it feels like you're there, in them.

(http://i.imgur.com/5Tq4k.jpg)

My latest test includes parallax layers and blur focus, try here moving the cursor around the screen and over the couple or over the background:
http://www.fastswf.com/gEIIiV4
I was testing with higher resolution images as well, but then the blur gives poor performance:
http://www.fastswf.com/VBpT4Ew

That's nice!

Maybe try making the blur effect a little faster?  It felt (to me) that it took slightly too long to 'adjust'.

Thanks for the feedback! I've made it a bit faster: http://www.fastswf.com/MZ1svYQ

What is this wizardy?
I never understood how people could 'cut up' another's art and fill in the empty spots with art that matches the original work

Photoshop. Well, I did that rather poorly and quickly. In the final one I'd spend more time making it impossible to distinguish between my paintover and the original.

For now, I'm experimenting with the possibility. Here's a version that includes the game's UI:
http://www.fastswf.com/-r97hrs

Awesome idea, love the classy feel to the GUI.
The blur and parallax idea is very nice, but I think it would look better if you decreased or even removed the vertical scrolling. Since people move sideways but it's not often you move up or downwards. (if you want to simulate a person looking/walking across a scene)
Also, I think less is more, you don't want it to pull focus from the GUI and gameplay itself.

And I have to say, this makes me really excited too!
I love historical settings, especially if you get the right feel and atmosphere.
This could be really immersive with some subtle background chatter and laughing in the café, people walking and chatting on the streets, bells, etc.

Will you be featuring events and happenings, through like a news paper or something, that has an overall effect on gameplay? Like allowing you to paint something with a new theme, like a social commentary or criticism on society.

Neat! It looks and works awesomely  :-*

I really like your GUI.
 ;)

Looking over the skills, will you be factoring in popularity?
I don't think all artists became famous because of their skills and having popularity could allow you to make crappy paintings but still sell them for a ton.
But at the same time, popularity could enhance your flaw. To balance it out.

Also, what about the dark side of art, forgery, theft, copying someones idea before he's finished, etc? :D

Thanks!

I've made the scrolling only horizontal, let me know how it looks: http://www.fastswf.com/NvRHdzo

Events will certainly happen. I'll try the newspaper look for them. Their effect on gameplay will be varied, but it's mostly choosing between a few options (your reaction to the event) and they will influence your stats, popularity, money and such.

The factor of the "new" will appear in the form of new artistic movements, starting with Impressionism and then others such as Expressionism, Fauvism, Art Nouveau, Surrealism, Symbolism and so on. You will be able to create your own movements as well by writing a manifesto.

Thank you.

Yes, popularity is a factor that will affect the price of your paintings. It's represented by the star icon in the top right.

There are no plans to include the "dark" side like forgery and theft. Maybe in another game?

Looks much more stable now, but if the player is only going to keep his mouse over the buttons, there's not much use to the parallax in this case, especially since the buttons are aligned vertically.
But what if the player clicked on actual places in the streets? Like an actual café, academy and atelier.

I didn't see it as someone walking down the street, I saw it as someone standing on the street looking around, perhaps for inspiration.
But maybe my eyes just wander a lot while I'm walking.

Trying out new buttons. These are glued to the background and seem like they're places on the street:

(http://i.imgur.com/byTjA.jpg) (http://www.fastswf.com/jYOgp1g)
http://www.fastswf.com/jYOgp1g (http://www.fastswf.com/jYOgp1g)

It's a good painting but if you want to organize buttons by locations then maybe not for this menu. The Cafe button especially is in a very peculiar place right now : D I can't think of a better painting from the top of my head either though : (
 
Googled "impressionist boulevard", the resolution's going to be a problem but a street view more akin to this (http://www.terminartors.com/files/artworks/5/4/4/54496/Beraud_Jean-Le_Boulevard_St._Denis_Paris.jpg) with more interesting and different building types might suit better if you want to place the buttons as if they're on the actual buildings. (Also if you want to go that route then there's also the effect of having the building outlined with a highlight when you mouseover it)

Though I'm guessing you want to use famous paintings in your backgrounds to subtly tickle that "oh I think I know this picture I'm totally knowledgeable on art history!" nerve.

For what it's worth I think horizontal scroll lock felt the best if you want to keep that painting as the backdrop. You can just show off that parallax by adding another set of buttons to the right : )

Thanks for the feedback. I've come up with 2 possibilities still using this painting, though the one you linked seems interesting as well.

http://i.imgur.com/KRJR9.jpg

Both try to link the buttons to the background in a better way.

Edit: making the signs look more like signs:
(http://i.imgur.com/NOcqb.jpg)

That definitely makes them more integrated into the piece.
But they're not really taking up enough space in comparison to their importance.

I think it's problematic because the first layout you had worked really well with the painting, due to the couple on the right side and most things in the image being vertically aligned.

Personally I love the idea of having the buttons integrated in the painting, but the best way would be if there were actual signs and maybe larger buildings with the right perspective to click on.
And that would mean heavily editing the painting or using one that better suits that purpose.

Yes, it certainly was more evident with the big buttons. I think this subtle menu has its charm, so I've tried polishing it a bit. I don't know if it will make it to the final game, but it was a nice experiment.

http://www.fastswf.com/7Q5MfKM
New: focus blur on the text, 2x slower vertical scroll, higher quality and contrast images.

I've fixed the signs and text wiggling (now they move with the background much better) and added some rain: http://www.fastswf.com/FkT2j4w

Also working on random events:
(http://i.imgur.com/nPorRRp.jpg)

Tres bien!  :lol:

rain needs some more work

Avant-Garde OST - Paris (https://soundcloud.com/user9012285/avant-garde-ost-paris). My musician sent me that song today, it's great. Check out his other songs here (http://morvan.newgrounds.com/).

I'm working on the Café screen, where you talk with other artists to improve relationships, drink and create new artistic movements:

(http://i.imgur.com/vJShl8u.jpg)

The rain is a nice touch, but I didn't notice the man to the right before, he looks like a giant now that he's on the background parallax layer..

Also, you could totally move the entire sign post a bit towards the viewer, that way the signs will be larger.

You really nailed the mood for the café and that song is awesome! :)
I never thought I'd get this excited over a game like this, but the mood and immersion is superb!

ooh, glad there is still progress :) I like the song and that painting.

The rain is a nice idea but looks odd when the foreground layer is in focus. And there's still something that bugs my eyes when I mouse over the signs, it almost looks like they're still moving but I know they're not :s

I like everything you're doing here and I'm really excited to play the game. The only thing which jarred a little is that last painting of the cafe. It's absolutely beautiful and captures the mood well but judging from the outfits it's from a later period than the rest of the game, which seems firmly rooted in the 19th century. Or perhaps you're going to extend the timeframe into the early 20th? That would be cool too.

(PS - is the gladiator game on hold for now?)

Yeah, I spotted the man on the right as well, he can make things look weird. I think he can have his own layer if I have time to do that.

Larger signs sounds nice, I'll see how that looks.

Thanks!


Nice, thanks a lot!


Hm, yeah. I think I'll just try to make that menu work, I think its uniqueness compensates for it not being so practical, I don't think going back to a standard menu would be better, even though that one isn't perfect. There's still the main menu and the game's logo - I've made some progress with those today but don't have enough to show yet.


The painting is indeed of the early 20th century, you're right. The game goes on to 1914, and, since the café exists throughout all that time, I think I'll bend time a bit and use that early 20th century painting even though the game year at the beginning is 1863.

The gladiator game was abandoned in favor of the GitHub Game Off competition, as it happened in the same timeframe as the sports competition here. I ended up being a runner-up in the GitHub one, got some shirts and cups.

Today I ust worked on the Café some more, maybe I can finish it today and move on:
(http://i.imgur.com/CSayBsp.gif)

Very smooth looking UI. Nice!

I post here for subscribing further advancement :) great idea!

However I'm not too comfortable with certain (typical) implicit assumption made about the creation process and the birth of those trend.

And what about the role of critics which to me seems essential, for example, "les demoiselles d'avignon" had stay hidden in a cave for a decade as picasso and his friends circle they didn't think it was worthy attention for the public, it was an experimentation a rivalry between matisse and picasso (yo mamma!). It was André Breton and André Salmon with Jacques Doucet who have brought it to the public (none are painter). I know this example is loosely outside of your time period but that's also a well known case.

Thanks! Since the game is so much about interacting with the UI, I've tried to make it nice and readable.


You raise good points. Though I am not sure what you are referring to with "implicit assumption", if you could be more specific I would be able to improve that aspect.

I would love to add everyone to the mix: critics, models, artists, buyers, dealers... There are many people involved in the art business, and if I have time they will all be included. But my focus with the game is on artists, so my efforts go to them first. I think critics could be included in random events when a painting is finished or almost finished, and they could either decrease or increase its value. Thanks for the suggestion.

I've been working on logos to help me spread the word about the game with pretty images, and this is the latest version:
(http://i.imgur.com/gXvoC1f.jpg) (http://playavantgarde.com)
You can see other attempts at logos here (http://i.imgur.com/Fb8zVxN.jpg) and here (http://i.imgur.com/Ufs23sG.jpg).

I just set up a site as well, though it has nothing yet:
playavantgarde.com (http://playavantgarde.com)

I personally like the van Gogh inspired one (#3). The first two are a bit too bland IMO, remind me somehow of the title screen of a TV show from the 1990s. The problem with #3 is that the graphical aspect pops out more than the actual name of the game which I think is also the case with #7. Numbers #5 and #6 are attempts to blend between the two styles, but I find them neither here nor there.

This critique might sound overly harsh, but it is not meant that way. I just think that logo design is incredibly hard! And when you're making a game about masters of painting it might perhaps be even harder.

When it comes to a poster or even only font type, of course Toulouse-Lautrec comes to mind immediately, although he doesn't really match the period of your game. But have you considered trying something in his style for a logo?

Those logotypes are sick! Awesome job there

Yah real nice. I agree with kleiba I'm fond of #3 and #7 the most, though the A in your choice would make a good thumbnail logo by itself.

This game is looking really interesting. Never have seen something like it.

Well I'm not sure I want to detract you from your game and you should keep your cap first :P since i'm known for wall text bombing thread >.>
Therefore I will only be vague and say that I would have drawn comparison through art history and what happen with the modernist and how they haven't really radically departed from what happen before them in the practice of art. Going back to the like of Durher and Leonardo Da Vinci, taking Rembrandt art style evolution from clean to "rougher", how the composition of "the raft pf medusa" was stolen by delacroix for "liberty leading the people" (this one need more check), and how basically modernism, pushed by the threatening of photography and cinema, had to push in front what always was the main focus of artist's practice. And how the myth of the radicalization was a self fulfilling prophecy when those experimentation was brought to public by critics and the bsod and real death threats (Malevitch for example) that followed which prompt artist to further radicalize as the core "made apparent" of the practice was attacked. Basically of those movement are the ultimate conclusion of the tradition, Bauhaus is still about composition, impressionism and pointillism is still about light rendering, and so on ...

Maybe I would go on a wild tangent about art and math and how they were originally closely tied to each of other and how subtly they remained "conceptually" despite the perception people had from art, which might explain the misconception about art and how it tied back to the experimentation and the bsod reception of it and the further radicalitio of art. Funnily we are going through similar time with "video games, interactivity and procedural" which threaten perception while it is teh conclusion of the original ideal of "art".

That's way out of the scope and focus of what you are doing, it's just me overreacting to when you say "having a low form SKILLS STAT" meant better painting in "low form painting like cubism" ... HECK NO! I thought! Actually picasso was the most skilled painter drawing like chief by 14years old and cubism is not much a rejection of "form" as experimenting with the traditional representation but by trying to represent "form" from many point of view instead of a single one, which is like the next step of skills as you have to understand the form to deconstruct it and reconstruct it.

A more accurate representation is to have skills go up and allow for a skill tree like progression where new skill are experimentation, for example understanding the form is required to break off from the traditional execution and start cubism, skill would represent the artistic maturity that allow the creation of new thinking.

Even today, in art education, at least understanding (at best mastery) of previous art trend is required to graduate and start doing your own things. That was pretty much the case back then. It would be more accurate if as skill increase, the more painting target you can set, like for example "perceived form factor" (let's put that way) slider down to create cubism. Painting would be create simply by adjusting various slider with skill deciding the actual efficiency of the target and the range from which you can set that target.

For exemple before mondrian got to his famous grid you can see that he had started with pretty tame tree which got increasingly wild before setting to grid. Somewhere in the forums I have post image to highlight progression of thought and the impact on the art of some artist to show that, can't find them back. However the best book about it is "l'homme de thé", which at some point highlight some natural progression in the artist mind.

EDIT:
Mondrian's tree just before he go grid, you can see the progression happening
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/ff/Mondrian_gray_tree.jpg)

Thanks for the comments guys. I'm keeping that logo for now, but I'll create something better if I have the time. Problem is, there's not much of it.

I updated the site a bit, if you want to check that out.


Ah yes, this is why I like this game. It's controversial, it stirs passions. I love that you are passionate about this subject, enough to write that huge text, but you know what? So am I.

Modernism has many characteristics, and only one of them isn't enough to define it - you need all of them. But there is something at the core, something that shapes the rest: destruction. The guy you mentioned, Picasso, is the one who said modernism is a sum of destructions. By the way, Picasso was a decent realist painter, either at the age of 14 or when older, but he was hardly the best.

The question is: destruction of what? Of laws, rules, conventions, and of the fundamentals of art. I am not trying to portray modernism as a series of steps towards progress. The game shows modernism from the point of view of the fundamentals: as a series of destructions and rejections.

In the game, you witness each destruction adding up. First: form. In Impressionism, it's all about the image in the retina: a flat projection. Color is more important than form, and while form isn't destroyed yet, it is made irrelevant. The destructions go on until every single fundamental of art is gone, even the last one: expression, killed by abstract paintings that say nothing.

My portrayal of modernism is daring, controversial and full of problems. Is it avant-garde? Is it conservative? I don't know, but it's what I feel is important.

The role of photography in the destruction of realism will also be included in the game.

Thanks very much for your post, it really helps me make the game. Sorry if I seem confrontational, but trust that I'm always soaking in your suggestions.

No that's fine, I wasn't sure If I could reasonably "hijack" your thread too :P then I'm glad it has some useful impact.

But that's true I have a more "meta analysis" on this trend regarding art "practice" history and the fact I know too well that artists are champion of "rationalizing" their thought "after the act". This era will remain the most controversial and I don't think anyone can change that (well until the next crisis from people like David cope). However finding in this time does had freed art and since them we have perfect, reintegrate and surpass whatever idea they had back then, motion design for example or any design discipline is much more richer and expressive. I would not say abstraction had destroyed expression, some like mondrian did focus on line for line sake (thus enriching rules of composition) but other have deepen the expressiveness of abstraction (Kandisky in "point, ligne, plan", Malevitch and so many other).

Or at least it's understanding, because abstraction is not new, it's there since the beginning, look arabic culture, celtic knot, etc... If there was invention in art, I would say modernism, despite what their artists believe, was not about it, it was about rediscovery and reinvention of the old to the modern, after all the whole cubism come from exposition on so called "primitive" art, and picasso was influenced by the cuban artist Wilfredo Lam which itself was inspired by voodoo art in cuba. Basically the so called "destruction" of modernism was more about social status since art in occident was always tied to power (from the church to the state until romantism rip it by elevating the artist status, borrowing the sacred discourse to satisfied their ego and imposed their newly created social status, thus starting art for art sake free of mecenat).

Modernism is basically just this trend as justly technology was destroying the status of artist regarding representation. Text is the ultimate abstraction of image, there is no beauty in a text you can't read, that was the problem of abstraction, a problem of education (and circlejerking too), and a lot of older paintig was all about the abstraction reducing form to just a support to explore a techniques, the theme being basically a dress up because it's required by "convention" (still life is basically having a reccuring subject (vanitas) to concentrate on composition, ie the abstract skill of painting). Oh i'm doing it again, I will stop now :p

I still hope you will consider gameplay aspects I mentioned   :ninja:

Whatever just make that great game ;)

Thanks for the reply, Gimym, it's very insightful. I agree with you more than you think.

I have added the game to IndieDB:
(http://button.indiedb.com/popularity/medium/games/21396.png) (http://www.indiedb.com/games/avant-garde)

There's a news post there with the newest screenshots.

Also, I have a release date for the first alpha version: March 1st. I don't know how much will be finished by then, but however finished the game is, it will be playable then at the game's site (http://playavantgarde.com/).

The reason for a March 1st release is that it's the deadline for my master's project - the reason this game exists. Unfortunately the game won't be 100% finished as I would like it to be by then, but a playable alpha will be. The game will lack a few features, but may lack a lot of content, especially dialogues and storylines.

These dialogues and storylines will be released after March 1st in updates, as I am able to finish them. The idea is to release content by artist: the first alpha, playable on March 1st, will be "Alpha v1: Courbet", in which Gustave Courbet's dialogues and storyline should be mostly done. Other storylines will be missing, but next updates such as "Alpha v2: Manet" or "Alpha v3: Bouguereau" will add more storylines related to those artists to the game.

hooray! Exciting. looking forward to 3/1.

That must be one of the coolest master's projects ever.

That's a pretty neat idea  :gentleman:

:)

Thanks guys!

I've been working on movement creation:

(http://i.imgur.com/ihtjxt3.gif)

Looking forward to see how much fun it actually is to play.

I think it doesn't matter at all how accurate your whole scenario is. The pseudo-accuracy actually makes the thing interesting. The game always produces a layer of abstraction. It will always collide with someones world view about what art history or 19th century painting is. I kind of like if this is played out confrontatively. Its like the beauty of building nuclear bombs and some ancient pyramid in Civilization simultaneously.

Make sure to include some of those anti impressionist newspaper cartoons of the era!

:gentleman:

This is a big gif. It's the (completely made up) dialogue in the 1863 Salon de Paris, showing how the Salon des Refusés came to be. A bit on the comedy side.

(http://i.imgur.com/2GP4MgR.gif)

Known bugs: there's one instance where "Player" isn't being replaced with the actual player name.

lool remind me that gif with world war 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_3Gaj07zjc

A button that gives you reference for the background paintings and when you click it searches it on wikipedia:
(http://i.imgur.com/JhWVKoi.jpg)

A lot of historical artistic movements added:
(http://i.imgur.com/RYNOJup.gif)

New image for paintings in Avant-Garde. The back of a canvas is a recurring representation of an unknown painting (see the background!). Also added icons for Salon results (R for refused and medals):

(http://i.imgur.com/H12Dy8C.jpg)

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

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

The first alpha is out (http://playavantgarde.com/)!

(http://i.imgur.com/2fbE9wd.jpg) (http://playavantgarde.com/)

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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


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

I'm afraid the correct name is GIMYMism

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)

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!

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

I could totally see this as a board game btw :)

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

dude! gz  ;D :handthumbsupR:

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.

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

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

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!  :gentleman:

I think having to buy supplies and pay for rent would put focus in the wrong places.

What I think might be worth considering is if paintings didn't sell instantly, but instead you would have to wait for a buyer. The painting would indicate the recommended price and you could set it higher or lower to get a buyer faster or wait longer..

Whatever kinnas said I support

This game idea is amazing, and I think it looks beautiful.

The sound is great as well, but maybe could use more variety in the music.

I really love the idea of this game, but I feel the main mechanic is just missing some little oomph to put it over the edge.

Also, how is this not on mobile devices?

Great work overall!