Games to Teach Following Directions in the Art Room

Games are non art — they're meliorate. It just depends on whom you inquire.

There's this on-again, off-once again argument inside the intelligentsia as to whether games should be placed on the same pedestal as books, movies, music, and paintings. But even the newest of the accepted fine arts, movies, have had at least a century to develop.

Conventional videogames–and I'm taking Pong, the equivalent of cave drawings, as my starting indicate here–commenced less than 40 years ago. In that fourth dimension, games have mimicked movies, electronically emulated books, and tried their mitt at playing on some emotional heartstrings. The big difference is that most conventional art forms are passive and two-dimensional experiences: Y'all sit in front of and soak in whatever the artist presents you with. Videogames attempt to create an interactive feel that puts the viewer/ actor in control of the palette.

Enter Shanghai-born Xinghan "Jenova" Chen, creative director of ThatGameCompany. Since earning his graduate degree from the University of Southern California Film Schoolhouse's Interactive Media programme, he has helped craft several simple-but-surreal game projects that do more than than cater to a twitch response. His thesis projection, Cloud, floated forth, accumulating a following on the indie gaming scene. Flow bandage players as an ever-evolving single-celled organism–and that, no doubtfulness, inspired the offset stage in Spore. The best way to describe Chen's latest game, Flower: Information technology'southward a first-person gardener. And it's well-worth the $10 asking cost at Sony'due south PlayStation Store.

The levels, if you choose to telephone call them that, are the dreams of flowers. You are the wind, fulfilling flower fantasies–aye, it sounds kind of strange. But just endeavour it. This is a Zen exercise with an occasional bays for completing a task. A meditation puddle with an endpoint. More important, it passes my earth-shaking "wife examination": She was entranced equally she watched me play, until finally she yanked the controller out of my paw to try her luck with it. The final time I got that kind of response out of her was when BioShock came out.

But back to the old "games-versus-art" argument (I'm looking at you, Ebert). I spent some time chatting with Chen recently nearly the state of gaming and how (if at all) it'south maturing. Here's what we came up with:

A Boy and His Bloom

PC Earth: How would y'all try describing Flower to someone? Is it a game, fine art, or something else entirely?

Jenova Chen: Flower is made with a different mentality. It's a safe, warm experience. It's similar a poem or trip the light fantastic that uses symbolism and scenery to requite the player a comforting backdrop.

PCW: And I judge that this would brand you the choreographer?

JC: [laughs] Yeah, nosotros're not level designers. We provide all these moves, and because players are different, they will perform the moves differently. Information technology's a game that is meant not only to play, simply to watch.

PCW: A game that you sentinel–technically, that'd make it art. As for the person who grabs the controls, let'south talk a fiddling more about the game itself.

JC: The cease goal of the role player is to make the earth a meliorate place. The player is the consciousness of nature. You're living through the dreams of flowers sitting in pots. Gamers call them levels, but each of the dreams for the different flowers has unlike goals. The Rose, for case, sees a desaturated, drab globe of concrete but wants to add together colour everywhere. As you lot consummate the dream of ane flower, the second blossom sprouts and fills in a sure attribute of life. The gameplay is that you're this consciousness, this desire. You're bringing life into the world–not the guy killing aliens.

We idea of this like a moving picture experience. You could probably finish this in 2 and half hours, but you actually get a lot more than out of the game after you've finished and come dorsum to revisit each blossom's dreams. You find more to explore and play more. It will be a skilful therapy–to heal yourself and reverberate on things.

PCW: How did you come up with the idea of making a game about flowers, anyhow?

JC: I grew up in a city, in Shanghai. I was surrounded by skyscrapers and people. I was never surrounded by nature. When I was on my way into Los Angeles, I saw this windmill subcontract. Grass fields, blue sky–I'd never seen these things before. Where I lived the sky was purple. So, every bit an urban man, I was attracted to these things I hadn't really seen earlier. When you really go into nature and go hiking, yous actually offset missing the city and the people. And then I wanted to create a infinite like a window from your living room, and you go surrounded past nature. Meanwhile, you lot nonetheless feel safe and warm. It'southward a harmony between nature and urban life.

PCW: Normally, games like this don't announced on store shelves…

JC: That'due south considering digital distribution allows for more take chances-taking. It allows small evolution houses to take chances without having to score funding to publish the game on discs. That cost forces yous to make sacrifices along the way. Information technology makes you lot cut costs, enforce deadlines and send a game that you might not be as proud of. You simply tin can't run that risk. For a game like Period, it simply cost between 500 and 600k, non fifty-fifty a one thousand thousand. [Ed. note: And that's gone on to huge success.] Sony'due south been great to work with in this respect and has been very supportive both with Flow and now Bloom.

Selling Games Short

JC: I call back I'grand pretty stupid to start a company. I left a lead designer job at Maxis working on Spore to found ThatGameCompany. I was trying to find someplace that was doing what I wanted to practice. Nobody was.

PCW: What was missing?

JC: I come across amusement as something that feeds yous–like food or water, simply for your emotions. Videogames used to be a software niche…but it isn't fully mature even so. The divergence between a new medium and a mature medium is based upon the variety–more than just one or two emotions. There aren't but scary books or movies. Or sad songs. Games are still largely seen as a toy and not only by the mainstream audience, merely by some developers also.

PCW: Wouldn't you lot say, though, that these days games are getting a little more sophisticated?

JC: Well, the people who take a new technology are the younger ones — the ones willing to suit. That's why the offset games more often than not catered to kids. In order for the business organization to succeed, they've needed to focus on the kids. To a caste, information technology's still that way. Kids like flashy imagery and colorful cartoons. And as they go older, they like more competition and to be more powerful. Many games are based on this empowerment.

PCW: And I guess that feeds into the stigma still fastened to games…and being a gamer.

JC: Yes, no i asks you lot if y'all're a film watcher or if you're a reader, but when it e'er comes to games, you're a gamer. That'southward considering we've got a ways to become. People employ phrases like "cool" and "fun," but seeking a more than sophisticated audience means doing more than. People read a volume, for instance, but there'southward this thought that they will blot something from information technology. Something mentally stimulating that they will be able to utilize elsewhere.

PCW: At to the lowest degree some games strive to do more, merely I'd accept to concord that in that location'southward still a lopsided focus on something similar graphics.

JC: If you think about it, near movies are divided by feelings. Games are divided past technologies–or the skills that they exam. That often casts games equally dismissible pastimes. Think of game blueprint every bit a bucket. Crytek created a cute engine and Crysis looks realistic and proficient. But if the story doesn't rising to the same level as those graphics, it feels like an uneven try and things in the game spill over the sides. If the gameplay isn't as adept, information technology doesn't feel right. Because [ThatGameCompany] is modest, we don't accept the luxury to pile up i feature like, say, graphics or story and focus on the whole packet. We demand to keep things concise.

PCW: Concise is 1 way to put it. Here's how your games work: Tilt the PS3'south Sixaxis controller to move and printing a single button. No instructions, no tutorial, y'all only drop players into the world.

JC: Nosotros need to provide content outside the red zone so that adults and people that normally wouldn't think to catch a controller, would. And when they do take hold of the controller, make it simple to understand. At first, we tried different gameplay with complex controls–even with wellness points–merely that didn't feel right for the emotions we wanted to convey. The music and ambiance combined with the visuals and controls convey more. That's why at that place are no voices, no words, and no instructions.

Games, the New Movies

PCW: Since y'all're coming from the perspective of a USC Picture show School graduate, where would you say games are at present compared to, say, movies?

JC: When films commencement appeared, it was this brand-new medium that started as a applied science innovation. Sophisticated storytelling came later. Information technology's easier to sell a applied science if you evoke key feelings. If you look at some of the earliest films, similar a French i that captured a train coming through a tunnel, information technology scared people out of their seats. Don't games sometimes become those same reactions?

PCW: No arguments about games tapping fear and adrenaline. That, they've got down. Only using that movie comparison, have we at least made it out of the "talkies" stage?

JC: The game industry started in the '70s and has grown very quickly. The very first generation of filmmakers who grew up with films every bit kids–they went to universities and studied how to craft films. The George Lucases and Steven Spielbergs.

When George Lucas went to film school, people were surprised that in that location really was a school for film. Now, people are reacting that same manner to game schools. In school, we studied all these mediums–storytelling, psychology…and I retrieve, as a result, when I mention some ideas to current game designers, they'll say, "Oh, this sounds absurd, but is it fun?"

I estimate my answer would be that we're at the signal where George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are coming out of picture show school.

PCW: You heard it hither first–THX1138 and The Duel, coming to a console almost you lot presently! Seriously, though, there is this dismissive attitude toward gamers. Do you think this next generation of designers will change people's minds about games?

JC: People coming out of game design schools are now thinking about games differently than those that've come up before. Nosotros promise that games volition become more than respected. In Japan, everyone reads manga–it's a national art class. Successful businessmen and teenagers read them on the trains. In America, comic books are viewed every bit some nerdy activity. Why and so unlike? The content matured at a different pace–and I don't want to see games get lumped into that same, young category.

PCW: Sorry for the clichéd question, simply tin a videogame make yous cry yet? As well if the game is too tough, that is….

JC: There are moments in gaming where you'll empathize with a character and perchance experience a little pitiful. Well, videogames have made people weep. It'south piece of cake to cry if you've experienced something deep and emotional. A role-playing game in China I played fabricated me weep–even if it's cliché–but as a kid, if you lot're exposed to something for the first time and conveys a story. If you've never read Shakespeare and someone slips Romeo and Juliet into a game, the showtime time yous come across information technology somewhere is bound to make you weep. The medium improves by the kids who become moved and are motivated to make their own games.

PCW: How many times has it backfired, though? That the game gets in the mode of a good story?

JC: I forcefulness myself to play some games…like Last Fantasy XII. I had to struggle through because of all the [endless quests]. Even though I really wanted to know how the story ended, after a couple weeks I had to but requite up. The chore of making your grapheme gain more feel to complete the game had no relevance to real life. And that is where a lot of games lose people.

PCW: Thanks, Jenova.

Maybe office of the problem is that they are chosen "games." Snobs plow their nose upwards and think of Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 or something–and instantly file it in the category of mindless diversions. Their loss. You got a better name for videogames? Let me know!

Until side by side time…

Need even more than nerdity? Follow Casual Friday columnist and PC World Senior Writer Darren Gladstone on gizmogladstone on Twitter for more time-wasting tips.

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Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/533505/games_not_art.html