Submitted by SBoxle on Wed, 22/04/2009 - 10:45am
Anyone following my personal blog will have seen I played Braid recently, and it got me thinking. This evening I just happened upon this article, which is actually quite old (from the WIP days of Braid) but has a very interesting insight into Jonathan Blow, the brains behind Braid.
I feel like I have more to offer gaming having read this, as it reaffirms some of my own views and values from another perspective.
The underlying premise seems to be approaching games as an artform. He talks a lot about what you can, and what he wanted to, communicate through games. He sounds like a bit of a bohemian developer when he talks about just surviving, but hey... That's indie as we know it, right? Juggling where he wants to take games with having an actual income. I could go on so many tangents here, but basically it makes me wish arty games were more commercially viable. That more people believed in gaming as an artform, and here reins the profitability vs creative debate. Whatever the case, in my mind the most important thing when making games is to avoid stagnation, no matter the genre. This seems to be the main driving force behind making arty games, but it strikes me as crucial for all game development.
Stagnation is a result of mindless repetition. Games' successes will always be contextual to the time of release. Noone will ever be able to reskin WoW and dominate the market. It's been done. Everything you've played has been done! It's not even safe anymore, the best you can do is make it work better. That's safer, but what a way to live... This can equate to the difference between success and survival. Sometimes it's a real struggle to communicate this concept. Some developers just get it, as if it were so obvious. Some stare blankly, some want to obliviously jump on the ride, and some just think I'm crazy.
Success itself is a variant. There are limitless types of success one can achieve. Even failure is a success in some regards. The only time you really fail is when you haven't tried. How else will you learn?
At this point I feel like I need form of disclaimer, so people don't misinterpret where I stand (or what type of games I'm keen to make). While Braid was intended to be an artistic game I can clearly distinguish it from other experimental games. The commercial value brought to the game by its original and varied puzzles would've been obvious enough to pursue the project and reap rewards. There are a lot of other arty games I've played for 5 minutes and thought, "Ok, that's an interesting social experiment" or "It looks nice, but what's the point?"
It's important to keep a sensibility in game development. Your time is valuable, and so is that of your players. If you want to impress them provide something new, that's also well-reasoned. Part of Jonathan's message was the game needs to work as a whole. If one element doesn't complement the rest it shouldn't be there. Don't try mashing the square into the triangle, it's not gonna fit! All you really need is half the square. Hmmm...
S
Agreed
I think what it comes down to is the fact that gaming - as an artform - is still extremely young. We're still finding extremely creative and new ways to use gaming. One of the things I found really interesting at last years GO3 conference was the guys from a University talking about using gaming for simulations to teach mine workers how to get to safety in the case of an underground fire or gas leak.
There's a lot more potential in games than there are in movies, for science and for art. The science is there and simulations have been around for quite a while, which is odd given that art hit movies pretty quickly compared to games. I think we're certainly seeing a rise in games using art to tell a story or as a very distinct style, and I think as the industry grows and new talent comes in we're only going to see a surge in games like Braid that hit the art and story so well, and make so much money.
Games are only really now just starting to test the waters of more distinctive, deep storytelling. AS much as I love Halo for it's story, it's obvious that they made a distinct effort to keep that story in the books and not in the game itself, and so there's only references to it. But as the audience that grew up with Halo gets older, I can see the gaming industry maturing and far more story and art oriented games resulting from an audience with an older age group.
I think what it comes down to is that it's very hard to develop games as a big developer that don't cater to some audience, and the audience that truly appreciates art and story is currently too small to cater to. As much as Braid was a success, I don't think it was a success for its art or story. It's going to be up to indie developers to keep taking those risks, keep pumping out those artsy games, getting the support and growing a market from the ground up. Only then might publishers actually attempt to cultivate it more than they currently do.
Yeppers
There's certainly a massive market for games that let people zone out and get their trigger-happy on, slay 500 zombie seacows, trample opponents with legion of troops, etc. It seems the more competitive the game the less immersive the story is. There's just such limited space for details, and even my gaming is an abundantly pvp experience. You get the joy of playing against friends rather than some deeper experience.
I'd also expect overstimulation to hinder arty game production for a mass audience. That and playtime constraints. I had the added immersion of being able to sit down and play Braid through all at once. I know more casual gamers that duck in and out of games for only 15-20mins at a time, and that seems like a common length of commitment.
Looks like there's some problem solving to do here! It'd be interesting to try and make an arty pvp game that was actually emotionally compelling... In a good way - you know, not just insighting rage between players.