New Kingdom Hearts II Trailer.

[chriscaffee]

YOU CANT RUSH ART

[Esrever]

YOU KILLED THIS THREAD, YOU BASTARD

NOW WE MUST DUEL

[chriscaffee]

I CREATED THIS DISCUSSION SO I CAN KILL IT

[SDHawk]

The point of a game is to be fun, and there is no one aspect that single-handedly determines enjoyability.

Actually, the point of a piece of art can vary widely and simply defining it as 'fun' is a small section of what games (and other arts) can make their players feel and implying the only goal is to entertain is practically saying it isn't art.

But, to the main debate:

Gib's is right about every element needing to work together to work, but Chris is also right there should be a central idea to the work.

The problem with Gib's is he never specifies what each part is supposed to cohese to, except each other. Chris's flaw is mistaking the need for a central idea for a game and placing it upon a single element.

Rather, every element needs to be based around a universal "theme" (or possibley multiple themes) of what the game is about and how it wants the player to feel about it.

Don't mistake theme for setting, a game about the concept of leadership, for example, could be anything from leading troops into battle to leading a civilization through the ages.

[Green Gibbon!]

YOU CANT RUSH ART

That's quite true, but CE is right about one thing: in the real world you have to. Out of all the projects I ever turned in in all the studio classes I've ever taken, there are probably only about three or four I would say were genuinely complete in time for the deadline. You almost inevitably reach a point where you're like, "Okay, I have to get this to a finishing point by this date, I can only do this and this, and I'd like to do this, but right now this is more important. I'm not satisfied, but I'll have to turn it in like that." The problem is that "this and this" are never the same thing twice, so it's not a situation you can create a blueprint for in advance. You sort of have to play it by ear, and things almost never go according to your original plan, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.

All I'm saying is that you guys are trying to look at this with a quantitative mindset, and it's not a quantitative problem.

[Green Gibbon!]

Rather, every element needs to be based around a universal "theme" (or possibley multiple themes) of what the game is about and how it wants the player to feel about it.

Yeah, what I'm saying is that to achieve this unity, you have to construct all the pieces together with reference to each other. That's what makes it a "whole" theme.

[Esrever]

I'm used to approaching art from a quantitative mindset! I'm a filthy commercial artist.

[Green Gibbon!]

Well, I'm a philosophical art fag which makes us bitter enemies.

[Esrever]

Perhaps now we can use archtypical jabs in the place of actual arguments!

You pretentious naval-gazing mobile-constructing self-indulgent egomaniac.

[Green Gibbon!]

Polish fartslapper.

[G.Silver]

However, a bunless hamburger is no hamburger. It is a cooked patty of meat.

In Japan it is.


I might be arriving too late but whatever.

I agree with Gibbon for once but it might only be in semantics. You cannot seperate the gameplay from the rest, because the "game" (if we are really going to call it that) is, apparently, not a set of rules and regulations, but an "experience," you need all those things. This sounds like it only applies to games that are striving to be movies, but it's not. We can take Katamari Damacy for an example--the gameplay cannot exist without the visuals on screen. Katamari requires a round ball (not a square), and it requires varied and interesting objects to pick up. You could do ok with an assortment of geometric shapes, but there's no sense of scale (another critical element of katamari) unless you can recognize the objects as thumbtacks and elephants. You cannot reduce all games back to a pong state, because the gameplay--the "feel" will be gone, and at the pong level you actually no longer have the technology needed to drive the game. You cannot have Sonic without curved surfaces, you cannot have Mario without the computational power required to produce a satisfying rebound off the head of a goomba. The games that are the least like other mediums, the games that are action-packed and full of motion, are the ones who depend on visual elements most of all to distinguish themselves and make themselves interesting, and you can expand into other complimenting elements from there.

But there's such a thing as overcomplimentation, even if it is a made up word--keeping games minimalist is indeed holding games back from something, but expanding games ever outward had brought us where we are today, where the only people who can afford to make the games that meet a certain standard are the ones with million dollar budgets, huge staffs, and a certain aversion to risk-taking, and suddenly appreciation for minimalism is looking pretty good.

That's not a videogame, it's a diversion. A simple time killer that may be fun, but by itself has no place in the realm of art.

Video games, television, books, movies, music, and lowly paint on canvas (and especially mud on cave walls) are all diversions. They are diversions first and foremost before they are art. Diversion is the practical end of art.

What about mandalas? Sure, they're beautiful, painstakingly made from colored sand, but transient--they destroy them as soon as they are done. It's not art to them the way art is to the west, the art is an activity, maybe on some level done for, what--meditative purposes?--but what could possibly be more a diversion than meditation?

[Baba O'Reily]

The arguement is over. They've degenerated into name calling.

[Green Gibbon!]

Delphine puts on make-up with a paint roller.

[Delphine]

I put on makeup?

[Baba O'Reily]

This thread makes me go 'Ewww...'

[Locit]

but what could possibly be more a diversion than meditation?

But when meditating, one must not be distracted by any diversion.
Hmmmmmmm?