next »

[AdamAtomic]

I don't think anybody is questioning the existence of this phenomenon.  I just don't see my game as having the kind of prestige that is usually required to incite that sort of reaction.

[Corpus]

Well, Paul was questioning it (or so I thought). I was just arguing with that. I'm not sure whether it's the case for this game or not.

EDIT: I guess I was just arguing for the sake of argument, though, so it was fairly pointless.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

I don't think anybody is questioning the existence of this phenomenon.  I just don't see my game as having the kind of prestige that is usually required to incite that sort of reaction.

Well see leaving stuff vague automatically makes people assume there's something more to it, especially if they get a little splash of meaning from the game itself, and even more especially if the game is less compelling than one that features fun or original mechanics.

Your game definitely feels like an art game. There's a drastic change halfway through the game, some vague enemyless water puzzle with sad/mysterious music, very serious feeling, the first part of the game again but underwater, a less than satisfying ending, and its very atmospheric. If someone tells you that the game is highly recommended (i.e. on the tigfront), you're gonna assume that if the game portion itself is less than satisfying that there must be something else involved that makes it worthy, and so the search for a hidden meaning ensues.

This happens in all forms of art too. Jackson Pollock? What'd he do to make art, his work is nothing but paint splatters on paper. Piet Mondrian too, their work is incredibly vague and minimalist that you can't help but wonder why these people got the recognition they did.

It's extremely easy to find meaning where there wasn't meant to be any. It's easy to take advantage of this too, whether you realize it or not. My latest 2 major games kinda played on this a little bit. Aether was quite easy to make feel like an "art game", a little sad music and floaty movement, obscure text, satisfying motion but less than satisfying actual puzzles, and edmund's extremely thought out symbolism in the planets and aliens made it work quite well. I wasn't entirely sure what he was going for as an end result with the symbols and stuff and I think he actually explained what everything represented at one point (I don't really think you should have to unless you want to prove that your game isn't purposefully vague for the sake of art, and I don't really think aether was that vague to begin with) People saw it as an art game though and thus searched for meaning and symbols.

The next one I did was closure, which was at its core a puzzle game, not an art game. But I built some meaning and a story into it. It wasn't nearly as thought out as aether, but it was there if people wanted to look. Thing is, the game itself was interesting enough that people didn't feel a need to dig for meaning, but some did anyway, and I doubt it's because they were less than satisfied with the gameplay (these people left the game too early to get to the parts that would involve digging for meaning). But really, I found that the people that enjoyed the game a lot liked searching for meaning here. If people didn't like pretentious arty things, they had a fun game to play. It's the accessibility layer that can make a game enjoyable for both the "art" crowd and the "fun" crowd. Plus, the only people that called me pretentious were edge magazine (and they used "portentous" instead), but it wasn't really an insult. There's definitely a balance to be found, and I don't think I quite achieved it in closure, and I don't think I'll achieve it in the new version either because I don't really want to sacrifice the puzzle quality to make room for more artsiness. If you have an interesting mechanic, it's fine to try and make it artsy (braid), but don't completely kill the game's fun factor for the sake of making it artsy when you have an extremely original gameplay mechanic (mirror stage).

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Well, Paul was questioning it (or so I thought). I was just arguing with that. I'm not sure whether it's the case for this game or not.

i think the 'especially in this community' comment implied that i do know it happens, i just doubt it happens to any significant degree here.

even in the general population, the number of people who would lie to claim they've read some classic work when in fact they have not is probably tiny. it's such a trivial thing that i can't imagine someone lying over something like that, unless they are one of those people who think so little of lying that they lie about a great many other things as well, and lie every day about something or other. of course such people exist, but i don't think it's a good idea to randomly accuse people of it.

besides, i don't even know how you can say it's common -- do you regularly catch people who claim to have read something when they have not? how can you even tell whether something like that is common or not.

i mean, as an analogy, a lot of people pirate, perhaps even most. but just accusing people of pirating something without evidence is still bad form. likewise accusing people of pretending to like a game in the game's own developer's thread where you are sure that he'll read it is pretty bad form.

[Ixis]

likewise accusing people of pretending to like a game in the game's own developer's thread where you are sure that he'll read it is pretty bad form.

Do you suspect adam has such a fragile ego that that would really affect him in some horrible way?

[AdamAtomic]

Tyler - the very best thing I can possibly do as a designer is present a world that I've fully realized, but present it in a way that allows the player to fill in their own meaning and details.  Making games (for me) is not about telling someone what is going on, but showing them SOME of what is going on, so they can join me in the creative process.  So comments like this:

Well see leaving stuff vague automatically makes people assume there's something more to it, especially if they get a little splash of meaning from the game itself, and even more especially if the game is less compelling than one that features fun or original mechanics.

...which appear to be meant pejoratively are very confusing to me, aside from the immature sniping about "fun or original mechanics".  Every game I make for the rest of my life will be vague, this is absolutely the most important thing I can ever do.  If this is somehow personally offensive to you, I must stress that I do not care even a little bit.

So again, comments like this confuse me to no end:

you're gonna assume that if the game portion itself is less than satisfying that there must be something else involved that makes it worthy, and so the search for a hidden meaning ensues.

I have no idea why this could possibly be a bad thing, and is precisely the reason that I engineered FATHOM the way that I did.  It is a short poem meant to be read a couple times.  Lots of people searched for a hidden meaning or made up their own.  This is the best possible result from anything I've ever done in my whole life.

I am not sure what the last two paragraphs of your post are meant to convey.  That you also made art games?  Or that your art games are better than my art game?  I literally have no idea what you are trying to get across here.  If it is advice about how to make an art game fun, the guidance is not clear to me.

However, if your concern is that I've somehow missed out on the fact that some (i.e. nearly all) players did not get "the full FATHOM experience," or would have preferred a less deceptive, more fun game, I feel pretty confident in telling you that I did in fact pick up on that vibe.

[Alec]

Its a completely limited perspective to assume that an artistic work has to have one specific meaning that was planned from the outset.

There can be multiple meanings, no meanings, partial meanings, etc... in any creative work. Whether it was intended to be artistic or not.

I hate the reductionist attitude that most people seem to have about games as art. (either the game has ONE MEANING or it has NO MEANING)

People who are hung up on that are not going to enjoy a lot of things.

[AdamAtomic]

FUN FACT: Fathom has been played about 25,000 times, while Gravity Hook has been played about 400,000 times 

[Glaiel-Gamer]

...which appear to be meant pejoratively are very confusing to me, aside from the immature sniping about "fun or original mechanics".  Every game I make for the rest of my life will be vague, this is absolutely the most important thing I can ever do.  If this is somehow personally offensive to you, I must stress that I do not care even a little bit.

I don't really mean to sound pejorative or insulting, sorry if I came off that way, I hit post a bit too quickly, I guess I'm just pointing out what I think about art games. I enjoy them often, but it sometimes helps to take a step back and take a look at them subjectively, because if you just accept art as unquestionable it won't help evolve the medium.

I appreciate the efforts people are making though, cause in the long run it will help people view games in a different light.

I just think the best art combines being clear/accessible with room for interpretation, but it's a really hard thing to strive for.

I guess I'm just playing devil's advocate here, cause I enjoy art and art games and making them and all but I also enjoy looking at things objectively and questioning things people seem to think are unquestionable.

And I don't mean to offend anyone. As much as I hate "artist's statements" (no necessarily the statements themselves, but the artificial "need" to have one in the first place), I'd love to hear what you had in mind when making fathom, because the game honestly baffled me (which, besides a few crazyasshard puzzle games, doesn't happen too often)

I am not sure what the last two paragraphs of your post are meant to convey.  That you also made art games?  Or that your art games are better than my art game?  I literally have no idea what you are trying to get across here.  If it is advice about how to make an art game fun, the guidance is not clear to me.

Ya i don't really know, I was typing stuff and then my dad was urging me to go "right now" so I hit post without finishing/editing/thinking, i should probably edit them out since it was basically just a train of thought I had. I guess the main point I was trying to make there was... I don't really know; my coffee hadn't kicked in by then.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

Its a completely limited perspective to assume that an artistic work has to have one specific meaning that was planned from the outset.

There can be multiple meanings, no meanings, partial meanings, etc... in any creative work. Whether it was intended to be artistic or not.

No see I completely understand this, and I love multiple meanings and partial meanings in art. Some of the best work in history is classic because they work on so many levels.

It's just the "no meanings" part that bugs me, unless the game itself is fun or compelling. Because if you have no meaning, and no fun (which is obviously an objective opinion here, but some things like rohrer's stuff it's obvious that fun wasn't thought of during design), then what exactly is left to give the work value? Soliciting a response from an audience? Adam said this wasn't the point of fathom, so I'm extremely curious as to what the point was.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

likewise accusing people of pretending to like a game in the game's own developer's thread where you are sure that he'll read it is pretty bad form.

Do you suspect adam has such a fragile ego that that would really affect him in some horrible way?

i can't really answer that for him. i know that it does upset me when people say things about my game (not that they've said this specific thing about it, but things like that). maybe i've a fragile ego, that's up to you to decide.

and just because something doesn't do something horrible to someone doesn't mean it's okay to do it. spitting on someone won't affect them horribly, it won't mangle the person's family, but it's still impolite.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

No see I completely understand this, and I love multiple meanings and partial meanings in art. Some of the best work in history is classic because they work on so many levels.

It's just the "no meanings" part that bugs me, unless the game itself is fun or compelling. Because if you have no meaning, and no fun (which is obviously an objective opinion here, but some things like rohrer's stuff it's obvious that fun wasn't thought of during design), then what exactly is left to give the work value? Soliciting a response from an audience? Adam said this wasn't the point of fathom, so I'm extremely curious as to what the point was.

actually i find games with "no meaning" in the sense of no strong thematic point that can be summed up in an artistic statement, and no "fun" in the traditional gameplay sense of the word to be my favorite games. seiklus is a good example. sometimes the entire point is just the *experience* of the game, not some meaning and not gameplay fun.

[AdamAtomic]

Tyler - haha no problem dude, I would be happy to tell you what I had in mind for Fathom offline sometime.  Fathom definitely DID have meaning, at least for me, and I spent a couple of months trying to figure out what I could cram into a one week project.  The sketch that inspired Fathom was made back in February  It does have fun (or at least some kind of enjoyment) from my perspective too, but between both time and skill constraints I obviously was not able to communicate that stuff to everybody, which is fine.  I also dislike the whole "Artist Statement" thing, and hopefully my next thing will be able to reach more people without requiring anything like that still.

Getting a response from people is always going to be a goal for me, just because that means it had some impact on them, and I'm vain enough to need that.  Fathom is just not ONLY about that.  It does have a story that a lot of people totally got (a minority, yes, but still a lot more than I expected, I was thinking like...3 people might get it).  I dunno if it has "fun" but currently I'm sort of in a Scandinavian state of mind where experimenting with stuff that is compelling without being traditionally fun is very interesting to me.  

Also I feel like I should go on record that the term "art games" is super retarded to me.  I hate how it sounds and I hate the connotations.  It implies strongly that normal games have NO meaning, and that art games have NO fun.  It's black and white and shitty and I hate it.  I don't want to make "art games", I want to make ...i dunno, "thoughtful games" or something.

That said, I totally agree that at least until I've got some skills in this medium that these things should have layers of meaning, not just one confusing pseudo-story.  My next game will be much more traditional/fun/accessible, especially for casual players.  But if you CHOOSE to dig deeper, there will be some thoughtful things in it.  That would be a pretty great next step for me.  If I can accomplish that, I will pretty much give myself a blowjob.


Paul - no, my ego is definitely not that fragile.  Pretty much as long as ONE other person goes "hey neat" I am pretty pleased with myself.  I'm easy!  Also personally I am not interested in creating "experience" games, though I can definitely appreciate them (Knytt especially).  If my work fails in engaging the player to the extent that it becomes an "experience" game as a kind of fallback, I am totally ok with that though

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i think that the experience is the highest form of engagement -- so i don't really think it's something to fall back on exactly. the experience of going through dark areas, being anxious about what comes next, and the experience of suddenly going from heart-racing action to a slower pace are both valuable experiences.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

Tyler - haha no problem dude, I would be happy to tell you what I had in mind for Fathom offline sometime.  Fathom definitely DID have meaning, at least for me, and I spent a couple of months trying to figure out what I could cram into a one week project.  The sketch that inspired Fathom was made back in February  It does have fun (or at least some kind of enjoyment) from my perspective too, but between both time and skill constraints I obviously was not able to communicate that stuff to everybody, which is fine.  I also dislike the whole "Artist Statement" thing, and hopefully my next thing will be able to reach more people without requiring anything like that still.

Ya, in fact for my next short little game I'm doing I used that markov chain text generator I posted about to make a random artistic statement out of all the ones I could find online, then swapping names around for mine and doing a tiny bit of grammatical touch up, it's quite funny cause it just sounds like a bunch of buzzwords.

On one hand, you have a lot of love. The three monsters produce such bitter hearts.

   I am straddling the boundary between fantasy and imagination. During this stage I worked as a simulated reality that is described by a difficult decision and let go of what Mike and I view as Pilgrimage.

   In the following picture, the empty square near the middle of designing this game, the lucky get luckier - a player is given the word that singularly defines the driving force of our culture; it plays with them as, say, in the woods with my life in prison. Beyond the familial tragedy and personal commitment to biweekly visits to a grander scale. This was a coward. I was a joke, no one on his side of the day, a player might be better than you because I have been my way of thinking very inspirational and infectious and hope the viewers of this past summer, as demand reacted negatively to high gas prices. Hybrid cars are all around the world, is linked to a game about idealism by using a live and highly physical theater of ideas that echoes the multiplicity and maximum sensory capacity of our story. After using either a direct thesis statement or an illustrative story, however, we have pretty much emptied our "novel" toolbox. The same set of life seem to be the last generation, is an ancient story of Senet.

   Pilgrimage is one of them. First, their controls, especially on a psychic level, because your participation as you're watching is not a necessary component of the canvas, which proceeds from an ecological standpoint, but the creator themselves were not aware of the human soul shaded by my personal view of both the future (what you're going to marry, and all the dynamics that they even look similar and are sometimes difficult to put forth a few awesome ones.)

   Im actually part of a new way to win in a piece. Negative space is just as the dreary shooting mechanics will return to the twisted ritualistic nature of just about everything that's going on here these days, I remember with affection that she was the first response of any conceptual envelop. I consider this to be conscious of what happens and to let oneself be nourished by life. A need, also, never to stop exploring techniques, materials, formats, etc., and to widen one's range of media to be an interesting game without a key mechanic in Pilgrimage, fit perfectly. This mechanic allows an opponent with which you can see the seeds of the living and the surfaces are less than a stare or some other renewable commodity, where the amount of time fixing it? The trap of perfectionism is particularly treacherous for computer games to be all about the past, and you are moving. This control scheme makes the game - a player must be creative is a big change from everything they wanted and imagined. What a wonderful model which applies just as important to me in a weird place...

   Whatever, it will end up translating itself. As in poetry, concept and affect are completely bound up with each other. In this game, the lucky even luckier. In Pilgrimage, if you have the aforementioned Solitaire card games, which rely on machines as substitutions for our eyes. Through television and our sensory input. That constant influx of data is my metaphorical sculpting clay as I try to produce a large portion of history, I stay purposely away from Romanticism, an escape from the personalities that play it, like a mantra, a repetition of gesture that eventually yawns into a scored puzzle. After settling on the issues of the work. Chess is actually a very simple game type and respond to encroachment with both counter-encroachment (claiming some of the game mechanics and see quite a few people in the emotional low-point of this art form does this.)

   Rules in Context: Let's examine some systems to see if it contains lessons which may turn up.

   To give oneself the means to excite the viewer's memories. If the news, the movies and the milkshake shared by the phallic intersection of their way - and the camaraderie that football generates is something that I'm somewhat autistic or don't identify with human emotions. I was a bilingual treasure hunt that humorously engaged artists and audiences to reflect on the brink of a new art direction from these works if you find a strategy for dealing with control, solipsism, voyeurism, and the player is not covered in the honeymoon period of the main task in the details hidden in my work and my small son. When I began making dolls over eight years ago using roots found in my practice:

   The first is to develop my practice, which has of course, I mostly travel in game-programming circles. Free software isn't even on the most basic expressions of the Locusts, and is a form of progressive refinement. I settled on a topic, by Tuesday morning, after tossing out the tyrannical notes of media bombardment.

   This piece has its own unique schematic language that reveals a visual Passage rip-off, those extra 57 pixels per tile count for something, don't they? Though I don't feel that adding detail actually adds anything to the relationship of husband, wife, and Supreme Being has been a convergence between the these in our modern existence (This condition is explored through a ongoing series of extreme cases where the game's possible permutations). Players can directly see the results of the game.

   For me the experience of this article: games can convey a message from them that represents one of my experiences in Mexico; in a true nature scene there will be primeval women cooking on their stoves out in front of you. You can see quite a distance out in front of you, but you can see it while dreaming, too, and the milkshake is the Platonic Soul of the day.

Also I feel like I should go on record that the term "art games" is super retarded to me.  I hate how it sounds and I hate the connotations.  It implies strongly that normal games have NO meaning, and that art games have NO fun.  It's black and white and shitty and I hate it.  I don't want to make "art games", I want to make ...i dunno, "thoughtful games" or something.

there was a long discussion on this a while back
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=3867

It's a sucky term but it's the only one that people will recognize. If you start calling your stuff "Psuedo-emotional postmodern alternative interactive electronic art" people will pull out the P-word more times than a thread about jon blow and jason roher getting gay married.

That said, I totally agree that at least until I've got some skills in this medium that these things should have layers of meaning, not just one confusing pseudo-story.  My next game will be much more traditional/fun/accessible, especially for casual players.  But if you CHOOSE to dig deeper, there will be some thoughtful things in it.  That would be a pretty great next step for me.  If I can accomplish that, I will pretty much give myself a blowjob.

This is a good thing to strive for

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i agree that 'art game' isn't a great term, and i tend not to use it myself, but it's the one people use and recognize right now. we went through a bunch of alternatives in that thread and there weren't really any good ones. i also feel there are several varieties / genres of 'art game', so one term to cover such a wide variety of games doesn't really work.

- there are games that work symbolically, through being analogies of something else, where things in a game are symbolic or metaphorical. passage and gravitation are like this, as is the marriage.

- there are games which focus on the experiences, just pleasant to play through and move around in an interesting world. glum buster and knytt and seiklus are like that. they focus on building up an interesting world with nice atmosphere. out of this world / another world also fits here.

- there are games which are not symbolic and have no specific meaning but instead focus on telling a story and have minimal interactivity, like the path, the graveyard, judith, etc. puzzleless interactive fiction like photopia also fits here.

- there are games which are experimental and focus on experimentally new forms of interactivity. facade is like this, as is the storytron engine, and as are many of increpare's games, and braid.

so the way i see it there are really at least four genres of art game, each of which is distinct enough from the others to be its own thing, and each of which could have its own name.

[AdamAtomic]

LOL that is a pretty amazing artist's statement    And yea, i think "art game" (like "indie") is probably still SOMEwhat useful, but I think/hope that it may be nearing the end of that period maybe?

[Fuzz]

Phallic milkshakes of the great Platonic Soul that are somewhat representative of the influx of the medium of the son, the mother, and The Supreme Being are great.

[Ixis]

There are two things I'd like to say, but I have a feeling I shouldn't say them. But since I have a lot of work left to do today, and if I don't get these thoughts out there, I may reach such a point as to become incomprehensibly insane, so much so that the only way to get such maddening thoughts out of my brain would be with a bullet and a shot of Jack Daniels.

As humble as you are Adam, and as humble as I'd like to be I must admit that Fathom, and the discussion that has come about because of it, have made me incredibly inspired. If you'll allow me to get a little personal, over the past few years my significant other has been convincing me to become more and more rigid and less experimental. It's been games like Fathom, Judith and the Moon Series that have convinced me to create something for experiments sake, instead of to artistic or narrative ends (and, as sarcastic as that sounds I am being completely serious. I'd also like to state that while your intentions for creating Fathom may be different, I see it as an interesting meta-thought experiment, and it's from that perspective that I am appreciative of it and inspired.)

Also, I'd like to say (to Paul, and don't let this statement derail the topic) that to me there is a difference between simulation and game, even though the two overlap in just about every video game. Because of the technology the two are often seen as one and that is where some of the tension between "art games" and "game games" comes from. A game has rules and a goal, whereas a simulation merely has rules put in place to simulate a situation.

When I was a kid I used to play an old flight simulator game that took place in WWII France. I knew nothing of history, but had a lot of fun blowing up the Eiffel Tower which, in and of itself became a game to me. The simulation, flying an airplane in WWII era France, had no goals, just the visceral experience of what it may have been like for a fighter pilot, and/or a simulacrum of WWII era biplane mechanics. Despite that the simulation naturally lent itself to a separate game of my own creation. Despite this, I do not feel experience based games are less or more than non-experience/simulation based ones, rather I feel a broader understanding that the two are often separate things that go together well (peanut butter and jelly) is what is required, and that simulations naturally lend themselves to the creation of games-within-games (or, should the implemented mechanics of a game become tedious the focus of a game may change to something else entirely not of the original designer's intentions. This happens all of the time in tournament level gaming as the rules are discarded for meta-rules involved with the outside mechanics of a system.)

Furthermore I feel that some games are more heavily influenced by story and less on rules (like Judith, as you mentioned.)

Lastly, there are commercial, or, non-"art" games that have these qualities, but since they aren't presented in an "artistic" context, they are not viewed as such. For example the flight simulator game I played as a child (for interactivity) or Japanese visual novels for linear storytelling with minimal interactivity. Rock Band plays with new forms of interactivity as well as Katamari Damacy. I feel that games that work symbolically are the only ones that have no commercial/indie/non-art game analogies.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

there are a few commercial games that focus on analogies or metaphors. metal gear solid 2 is probably the most well-known. yes, it has a story, but the main point of the game was as a metaphor. there are other examples too.