This is my last year at DePaul University, and I’m finishing up my last few game dev classes, one of which is “Art Games”. The class focuses on how games can become an art form as well as how to create games with a focus on being art rather than a traditional game.
Immediately we have to ask the question, are games art?
Of course they are… At this point, it’s ridiculous to think games can’t be art!
Yes, not all games are considered art, or even should be considered art, but that doesn’t mean games don’t have the potential to be art. Even though the market is saturated with games that some may not consider as such, there are a number of games that everyone must view as art. Go a head and try and tell me that “Journey” wasn’t a piece of art, you’d simply be wrong.
Games can and are an artistic medium. I won’t argue the idea any farther; there are plenty of articles out there that will do a much better job than I ever could, and I’m not here to try and change anyone’s mind. So now that we have that question out of the way, let’s just get to making art games!
Creating Art Games
In this class I need to make a few games… errrr, I mean a pieces of art. At first, it didn’t seem like a difficult thing to do, but as I started brainstorming ideas I started understanding that my view of games is limited. I was stuck looking at games in a more traditional sense with more standard ideas of what a game can be.
Does fun factor in?
One of the main issues I struggled with, and continue to struggle with, is that I still want to make my art games fun. Does an art game even need to be fun? Probably not, it really depends on what you want your message to be and what your view of art is.
I can’t see it that way with my own view. A piece of art should have some pleasing aesthetic to it. Art should be beautiful or interesting, why else would people enjoy it? Would a painting that is poorly created even be considered art? I guess I could consider it bad art, but art nonetheless. So I guess it can be considered art.
But I don’t want to create bad art!
I feel that even as I push my games as an artistic creation, they need to have something “beautiful” about them, they need to be designed well and be fun. I don’t think there really is a reason to purposefully make an ugly painting, why make a game that isn’t fun or interesting?
A few of the assignments for the class have us coming up with a number of Art Game ideas. As I come up with the ideas for each assignment I’ll post them here.
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