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[ChevyRay]

Watchmen was awesome.

[Bree]

Watchmen was awesome.

What he said. I always find it interesting how society can take a bunch of tired cliches, and by throwing them together it all of a sudden becomes something wildly creative. The funny thing is that after a while, eventually that new idea becomes a cliche, to be mixed with other cliches into something new.

[Shambrook]

like what problems such people might have, and how they might be hated by normal people, or what psychological problems would lead someone into fighting crime, etc.

Batman, X-men & Spiderman, then Batman again.

[GregWS]

If you come in to a discussion thinking that your audience is stupid and needs to be hit over the head with "the truth," then your audience will know that.  They will want to disagree with you because of that, and you'll have a hard time just communicating anything at all.

I couldn't agree more, and I think my original post didn't get that key point across.

I have to disagree with rinkuhero's argument about stating the obvious in art for one huge reason.  Directly stating the obvious to someone, regardless of the issue, almost never changes anything.  If someone came up to me and said "Global Warming!  We have to do something!!!" I would probably just call them crazy and ignore them.  I know Global Warming is happening (and for the record I do care), and by directly stating the obvious, that person is just frustrating me.  If, however, that person went and created some interesting public art that caught my attention, art that indirectly reminded me of Global Warming, then I would likely, at the very least, be disturbed whenever I remembered seeing that art.  Much more likely, that art would force me to act because of the bad feeling it evoked in me; it served to remind me of my guilt, guilt that I'd chosen to forget about.  So my main point here is that directly stating the obvious in art should never be done (don't you hate those songs with blatantly obvious messages too?), but indirectly stating the obvious is an effective way (the only way?) to gently remind people of the obvious; and as far as I'm concerned, we all need to be reminded of certain obvious, inconvenient truths in our lives, myself definitely included (sorry for that film reference, but it conveys what I'm saying perfectly).

So I think that games could, through a well crafted analogy, indirectly communicate an idea.  And as games are active, not passive, games can be far more evocative than any passive art because the player is directly involved in whatever is going on; they are an integral part of the painting, if you will.

It's not as simple as, "love your enemy," and "don't use violence," when on a personal level this is very hard, and on a practical level there can be real risks in not using violence.  Find a way to take your general concept and make it real and specific and something you can relate to; something where you can really relate to the mindset that you want to argue against.  I think you could find something much more nuanced and interesting than the simple idea you started with.

Oh, don't get me wrong, there is a lot of complexity there, but I think a lot of it is artificial.  I can even give you a completely non-religious reason for why I believe what I do.  Here, this (http://www.matthewgood.org/2008/08/who-gets-to-save-the-world/) sums it up a lot better than I could:

The belief that weapons ensure the survival of [what we believe to be just, simply proves how weak our belief is to begin with]. Because, in bitterly plain language, if an idea is that good then it needn’t be promoted with weapons of war to ensure either its safety nor its progression. Only the advancement of power is achieved through the application of military significance, not the ideals that it claims to defend. And if the promotion of an idea requires force to ‘enlighten’ others to its ‘truth’, then it is not a truly sound one.

Who, then, gets to save the world? The precedent of the sword and rifle, the cannon and bomb have only ever produced the belief that through their possession ideological protectionism is assured. But what has little transpired in history is the organic growth of an idea that forgoes the need for force to be included as one of its essentials. The removal of threat introduces the possibility of progression, not the other way around.

To many that might seem naively idealistic and entirely unrealistic. To that I can only respond by saying – show me an example to the contrary that has not caused incalculable suffering and I will gladly concede the point.

Progress, Baby!

[Zaphos]

Oh, don't get me wrong, there is a lot of complexity there, but I think a lot of it is artificial.  I can even give you a completely non-religious reason for why I believe what I do.  Here, this (http://www.matthewgood.org/2008/08/who-gets-to-save-the-world/) sums it up a lot better than I could:

I think that article is a good example of how not to make an argument.  The author says a bunch of vague things about history and the power of ideas, and doesn't anticipate any disagreements with his point.  The tone seems alienating and dismissive to anyone who doesn't already agree with him, which will give those people an emotional incentive to continue to disagree with him.

[agj]

if the point is obscure and only interesting to a specialized audience, it's also useless except to that audience -- an example is Balance of the Planet by Chris Crawford. It's a really great game if you're interested in environmental matters, but if you're not it fails to draw you in.

...So you're telling me that environmental matters are not relevant to everybody?

For starters, I heavily disagree with the notion that for a game to be of (I guess) artistic merit it somehow needs to have the whole world as its target demographic. Why can't there be a game aimed at school kids from low-income families? You don't have to play that game, of course, because you were not in mind when it was made. But when we're talking about a game about our environment, well, I'm speechless.

You don't need to actively care about an important matter for the message to be relevant. In fact, quite the contrary: the less interested the player is in the subject, the more the game can cause a positive impact, by inducing awareness.

[GregWS]

I think that article is a good example of how not to make an argument.

I don't think it was meant as an argument; in fact, I'm positive that it wasn't.  It could be used as a launching point to create an argument, but really it's more of a reflection.  I do agree that the language isn't straightforward, but I don't think it's vague, just academic; I'm not a huge fan of that style of writing either.  I should have just paraphrased.  Anyway, I think we should stay on topic now.  Sorry.

You don't need to actively care about an important matter for the message to be relevant. In fact, quite the contrary: the less interested the player is in the subject, the more the game can cause a positive impact, by inducing awareness.

This is one of the huge points I'm getting at here.  I think art is one of the greatest (and most undervalued) tools for getting a point across.  The key is making a game that the player will want to play even if they aren't interested in the subject.  I think this can be accomplished in numerous ways: very high quality gameplay that players really want to experience, the use of an analogous subject that the player does find interesting, etc.

I don't know about everyone else here, but I would (at least at some point), like to try my hand at creating a game that really gets the player thinking, and maybe even convinces them to bring positive change to something negative about the world (or themselves).

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

...So you're telling me that environmental matters are not relevant to everybody?

For starters, I heavily disagree with the notion that for a game to be of (I guess) artistic merit it somehow needs to have the whole world as its target demographic. Why can't there be a game aimed at school kids from low-income families? You don't have to play that game, of course, because you were not in mind when it was made. But when we're talking about a game about our environment, well, I'm speechless.

You don't need to actively care about an important matter for the message to be relevant. In fact, quite the contrary: the less interested the player is in the subject, the more the game can cause a positive impact, by inducing awareness.

The environment is of course relevant, but it's not something most people are passionate about. It's also localized to this particular planet. I wasn't saying art should have only humanity as its audience. I believe good art should be appreciable by any intelligent species, not just humans. So even things that are too specific to earth I think make a work worse than if they were truly universal.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Additionally, I think the best art is also timeless, relevant to future humans and past humans, not just those of the present time.

As an example, think about the best art from ancient Greece or even ancient Sumer (Gilgamesh), some of that stuff is thousands of years old. Gilgamesh is 5000 years old. Yet it's still relevant today.

I think that's an important quality of art, and if art is too specific to a particular time, place, or audience, it could be just as effective for those people, but it won't stand "the test of time" as they say.

[GregWS]

You could say that the best art is timeless.  And to an extend I would agree.  But you're devaluing the important role art can play in changing hearts and minds in the present.

That said, the environment isn't just a current issue.  If you approach the topic from the "be green, sustainability, etc." angle, then yes, it is definitely stuck in the present.  But really, that's a horrible angle to approach the issue from, because it reeks of quick fixes and feel-good language.

I think an art game about the environment would explore people's relationship to their environment.  I'll note here that everything around us is the environment; our polluted cities are just as much a part of the environment as the pristine wilderness.  You can disagree with that last statement if you want, but I don't think it can be refuted.  OK, so here's a perfect timeless environmental topic: how humans (or even simply how intelligent life) shapes its environment.  I doubt that that will get any less profound anytime soon.

[muku]

@rinkuhere:

That's quite a radical point of view. Can you cite any piece of art which is completely detached from time, location, environment (social and otherwise) and the human race? The closest thing I can think of is abstract geometric art, but that is actually quite strongly tied to a certain era with specific ideas and concepts.

Even this

As an example, think about the best art from ancient Greece or even ancient Sumer (Gilgamesh), some of that stuff is thousands of years old.

is very specific to the human race.

[Craig Stern]

I think that's an important quality of art, and if art is too specific to a particular time, place, or audience, it could be just as effective for those people, but it won't stand "the test of time" as they say.

I don't think there's anything particularly radical about this. Some creative works age better than others. Some are positively incomprehensible if you don't happen to know the context in which they were created, while others can be appreciated by just about anybody with the chops to uncover the metaphors and underlying theme.

[GregWS]

OK, I just played the most incredible, and incredibly depressing art game.

I went over to Cactus' forums to look for his smaller games, and I found this gem called "Space Fuck!"  Cactus described it as "An erotic space adventure with a deep moral message."  At first I thought it was something of a joke, but no, it's a very depressing game that teaches the player a highly valuable lesson.

You can play through it in under 10 minutes, so unless you really have no time, definitely give it a try.  I'd like to hear what everyone has to say about it, as I think it's the perfect example of a game that does some of the things discussed in this thread.

Get it here: http://cactusquid.proboards99.com/index.cgi?board=games&action=display&thread=79

And if anyone knows how to put a link into one word instead of just showing the whole thing, please explain how. 

[Zaphos]

For linkage:

Code:

[url=http://cactusquid.proboards99.com/index.cgi?board=games&action=display&thread=79]Space Fuck[/url]

Creates this link: Space Fuck

Space Fuck is neat.  It's simple enough that I almost write it off as just too obvious or as having a moral that really you could get just as well from one or two sentences of text.  But I think it does manage to add something important through the game experience -- because it draws out the experience, you get to feel afraid of the other culture and empathize more with the reasons the cycle exists in the first place.  There's also some value in the ability to keep playing, and effectively ask the game, well what if I had been different?  Though the game's answer is depressing ...

[GregWS]

Thanks so much; I've wanted to know that since I joined, and no one answered last time I asked in a different thread. 

Space Fuck is neat.  It's simple enough that I almost write it off as just too obvious or as having a moral that really you could get just as well from one or two sentences of text.  But I think it does manage to add something important through the game experience -- because it draws out the experience, you get to feel afraid of the other culture and empathize more with the reasons the cycle exists in the first place.  There's also some value in the ability to keep playing, and effectively ask the game, well what if I had been different?  Though the game's answer is depressing ...

And what you said is exactly why I think games can do a great job of getting a point across in a way that two sentences simply can't.  As you said, you get to experience the reasons for the cycle, instead of just being told them.

I'd quite like to see this game expanded and tweaked just enough to be less obvious in its message.  I still can't believe Cactus created it in 4 hours.

If you read down the thread where the game was posted, Cactus actually explains why he didn't create a different ending for a pacifist play through (essentially, that even if you're a pacifist, someone else will be violent; very pessimistic indeed).

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

@rinkuhere:

That's quite a radical point of view. Can you cite any piece of art which is completely detached from time, location, environment (social and otherwise) and the human race? The closest thing I can think of is abstract geometric art, but that is actually quite strongly tied to a certain era with specific ideas and concepts.

Even this

As an example, think about the best art from ancient Greece or even ancient Sumer (Gilgamesh), some of that stuff is thousands of years old.

is very specific to the human race.

I think that a lot of the themes dealt with in great art aren't specific to humanity. For instance, Gilgamesh is about the search for immortality and the crushing inevitability of death, and how we can live on in our work. I imagine that theme is relevant to *any* mortal species, not just humanity.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

So basically what I meant was something like this: most good art has a well-integrated theme (which isn't the same as a moral or a message, people often confuse those with theme), and best themes are the most universal and timeless ones rather than themes too specific to a particular audience, and the best themes are also not usually common sense or so simple it's pointless to deal with them.

That latter part varies a lot by person, because what's obvious to me might not be obvious to you, and vice versa, but one can still say that if an artwork's theme is too obvious to a person, then it's not going to affect that person very much. For instance, another game about how working together is better than working alone and is kind of pointless to me because it's something that's pretty obvious and something that's been done to death (unless they treat it in a new way and say something about it that hasn't been said), but to someone who it's not obvious to it would be good art.

[GregWS]

Oh no; what you just said sounded like we were discussing "what is art" or even "good art," and I want to keep this thread more focused on actual ("most people would agree") examples and the practical side of things.

So, what do you think of "Space Fuck!"?  What does it do well, what should change?  And if you don't think it's an art game for whatever reason, then just don't post about it here.

Sorry, I don't mean to be snarky, but I don't want that "what is art" thing starting up in this thread too.  I mean, last time I read it (which was admittedly awhile ago) that thread had actually started into Metaphysics.  Which is all fine and well, but it didn't seem to be going anywhere.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I intended the post to be practical, though. When creating art it's important to integrate it around a theme and it's important to choose a worthwhile theme and one that isn't too specific. Those are practical considerations.

[Brother Android]

I don't know that a good way of going about things is to say to yourself, "I'm going to make a great work of art today!" In general, that produces pretentious, self-consciously "arty" art. If you have something to say/accomplish, then say it or do it; that is what makes art art. If you don't, then nothing you can do will make your game a work of art. Not that that is a bad thing, necessarily; some games are just games, and are quite enjoyable as such.