i'm interested in vidya as an artform (and creating it), but one thing i worry about is the writing in most things is lacking. But i've found that good novel-writing wouldn't transfer very well at all, so do you know of any poetry that attempts non-linearity?
I don't mean a choose your own adventure, and i'm kind of iffy about hypertext working in this case. Are there any works that just sprawl around a page? works you just explore?
I've tried my hand at writing some, but I wonder how someone else would go about it?
What on earth does literature have to do with vidya?
Ryan Jackson
i'm specifically looking at the writing in it and am looking at transferable qualities from literature. Especially poetry, due to its freedom of form.
Do you know of any especially interesting non-linear poems?
John Parker
>i'm interested in vidya as an artform then why do you feel the need to make it depended on another artform like poetry? why corrupt the medium?
Logan Cox
Choose Your Own Adventure books are as close to games as reading a book can get.
William King
'corrupt the medium' i am interested in both narrative games and lyrical games. i don't think it would corrupt anything to learn from other media, and consider how their tools may be transferred.
not interested in books. i'm interested in writing.
Kayden Campbell
You could look at John ashbery's poetics for guidance especially his very early and very late poems. But poetry won't help you at all because the forms are so distant imo.
Honestly, work from where games are now. Some of the best storytelling in games is interactive. Look at some examples like Chrono Trigger and FF6 and those pre-Skyrim elder scrolls games (before they devolved became "quest: kill 5 rat men in this randomly generated cave"), Planes cape Torment, Fallout 2/NV. Fun and actually tried to create unpretentious narratives. I've also heard some good things about dark souls series but never played
Aiden Barnes
i'm familiar with most of those, but i think the actually language could be elevate (not purply, but more carefully written)
I'm especially impressed with antichamber's use of parable\, but it lacks a certain fullness that some of the rpgs you've mentioned have.
I think the traditional dialogue boxes used in snes/gba rps could be easily used for poetry (if extremely careful about it)
The other thing (which i didn't include in OP) is that games also allow for impossibility in sculpture, which i think is worthwhile (see: pathologic)
I do need to read more Ashbery
Eli Murphy
>i'm interested in vidya as an artform Don't bother. Video games are an immature as fuck platform, they're either barely interactive movies or glorified slot machines.
If you want an artform, get into boardgames. It's a rapidly innovating (unlike vidya) field, and there's a fair bit of actual art and theory involved.
(Given the lack of clue among vidya designers, today's boardgame is tomorrow's vidya anyways. Might as well start at the source.)
Nathan Hughes
>Don't bother. Video games are an immature as fuck platform
Oh, i'm working on some boardgames (some i hope to serve as blueprints) but i don't want to focus on how games have failed (but i do want to be mindful of them)
boardgames are cool though
Daniel Gomez
>i'm interested in vidya as an artform videogames aren't art though
Daniel Howard
Check out The Witness: A Brilliant Game That You Shouldn't Play as an example of why brilliant art in video games is done through interaction and not storytelling
William Collins
that's a YouTube title, I forgot to specify.
Isaiah Roberts
i'm predisposed to believe puzzle games are ahead of the curve for that exact reason, but I believe you can have interaction and storytelling. I will watch it though (it's the 41 minute one right?) sidenote: would you say this witness succeeds in the way The Talos Principle failed? I haven't played it, but TTP really bothered me how close that got to 'it' before missing the mark.
>Mid Tier Theater Calligraphy Dance Cuisine Interior design (as a concept) Conceptual art Graphic design
>Useless Shit Tier Television Ceramics Glassware Woodworking Printmaking Jewelry Fretwork Metal work Ivory Carving
>Not Even Art Tier Videogames
Ryder Martinez
It's "A Great Game," but yeah I'd also recommend that video. An actual substantive long-form video critique, something exceedingly rare for the medium.
Isaiah Howard
sculpture is a higher form than film, and the greatest work of art bar none is David
Daniel Edwards
that's good, i think a lack of that type of critique is a big part of the stymied growth of the medium
Elijah Bailey
Chicken or the egg.
Andrew Long
Errant Signal is the only other critic I follow, both make great videos.
Personally I think the best art in video games comes from the interaction being a substantial part of the art, rather than being a way in which the player unlocks the next piece of art. Minecraft, The Witness, Papers Please and Shadow of the Colossus are a few examples I think where the interaction *makes* the art. Games like The Last Of Us tell a fantastic story but player interaction is limited to unlocking the next cutscene (though admittedly it has some fantastic immersion now that I think about it..)
The point I'm making is that video games aren't in their prime when telling a story like a book or a poem - they're at their most artistic when the interaction, the "game" itself is a main artistic tool.
Elijah Hughes
i agree with you on almost all accounts, except i think there are two types of games that both have individual merits.
There are games that have mechanics as its metaphors driver and then there are works that are effectively digital sculpture. I think both works have great things to contribute, but trying to reconcile the two is hazardous, especially due to narrative/gameplay dissonance.
The OP picture is from The Beginner's Guide, which i think is a powerful piece of sculpture, with a narrative that is unfortunately necessary due to the way players perceive game design.
Sebastian Evans
>fashion: high >woodworking and metal: useless I really hope this is bait
Kevin Lopez
I can safely say that every post in this thread is idiotic and would benefit from being deleted
Oliver Anderson
>There are games that have mechanics as its metaphors driver and then there are works that are effectively digital sculpture Wow. For someone who claims to be interested in games your vision sure is myopic. Good games are pure, immersive gameplay not some juvenile meta-commentary on the medium or an attempt to cramp literary/cinematic/poetic elements into a fucking toy. Doom is a good game. The Last of Us is a subpar movie.
Jaxson White
When did i say TLOU was good?
Good games are pure, immersive gameplay did you even read what you quote? mechanics is a synonym of gamplay I literally just said there was another genre that could also be effective. That literally can't be 'myopic' at best i am too allowing according to your decision that all video games are toys.
Why would those elements have to be 'cramped' why couldn't there be space for them too? Why does the idea of video game attempting anything other than just being a toy bother you so much?
I just wanted to find some non-linear poetry btw. Any suggestions?
Jackson Powell
I hate that game. The epitome of try-hard artificial difficulty. The actual puzzles are really simple once you find out whatever obscure logic is behind it through rote repetition. Actually brilliant puzzles: SpaceChem and Infiniminer
Ethan Morris
The who bloke who made the video completely misses the point. It especially starts falling apart at the end.
Isaiah Edwards
SpaceChem and Infinifactory*
Cameron Scott
M8 I'm working on some Versu type shit. Look up their work and papers and see what you think.
Also Knots by Laing plus a bunch of Russian poets.
Hunter Hernandez
Play Space Funeral and Goblet Grotto (and Magic Wand If you liked the other two) for a good idea of how some lit influenced games are written.
Nathan Rivera
>Shit talks video games with a tier list
Justin Stewart
I've always felt that video games could better make the case as a legitimate art form if developers focused more on the qualities unique to video games themselves (gameplay, as opposed to anything else). There are certain board games that I would consider works of art for how elegantly the rules of the games shape an experience, and I don't see why that couldn't be considered comparable to how language/music/visuals/etc. are used expressively in different art forms.
Not necessarily saying that video games should completely forgo stories; just that it shouldn't detract from the gameplay. To me, the desire to force story into video games reeks of insecurity by developers who want to be taken seriously.
Austin Murphy
will do! have the book on a list so i won't forget it and i'm on the versu site now.
I've 'beaten' both of those, and GG is my favorite of the two. Starfucker and The Fisherman are my favorite interactions for the sheer strangeness of dialogue.
John Sanchez
This. It's the disease killing indie development, imo. All the great games of the past have exceptional level design, mechanics, etc. Story and graphics are usually secondary.
Isaiah Wilson
I understand where you're coming from, but I also feel like the nonlinearity of a game gives a different potential to game-narrative in general, and that can also be taken advantage of. I don't want to make Heavy Rain or anything like that, but I do have an interest in storytelling. What's your favorite boardgame that's not Chess/Go/Dominos/etc?
Jack Walker
>but I also feel like the nonlinearity of a game gives a different potential to game-narrative in general
See, this is one point that I can concede and admit that there's some potential for video games to explore narratives in an innovative way. I've actually been interested in the concept of choose-your-own adventure books lately and possibly exploring what can be done with the format.
I think the problem with this in video games is usually that I've never really feel like the choices I have to make are consequential outside of whatever my pragmatic concerns are (what type of ending I want, the kind of item I want to get, characters I want to save, w/e); maybe this is just an extension of the lackluster writing in video games.
And I'm not too heavily into board games yet, but I played DnD/Magic for a long time. The amount of thought that goes into the mechanics of the latter is impressive, and it's cool learning about how much thought is put into the "feel" of the game. Cosmic Encounter might be my favorite board game though. I also like Netrunner.
