Videogames and Aesthetics

This week I’ve been looking at some games and game art. Additionally, I’ve also started to look for some serious relevant literature. By’s serious’ I mean something that can be used as a reference for my research proposal document) Took a couple of books on games and video game aesthetics. Hoping to find something useful and relevant to my project. In any case first glimpse at academic literature is not looking great. Either I don’t know how to look for relevant info or it’s just not there. In any case it’s quite early on and I hope that things will become more clear and therefore and information easier to find.

Happiest find so far is a quote from article ‘Games take on another dimension’ published by Financial Times:

‘In the modern gaming era, there will always be a battle between interesting art design and the other considerations that go into making a game. But the bolder the art design, the more players will feel they have escaped reality and visited another place. For Blow, “There’s a message in the visuals, and the effort that’s been put into the graphics. It’s a subliminal thing, a message which says that somebody really cared about putting this experience together ... it says you’re in good hands.”’


I think Jonathan Blow has been spot on with it, because it seems to describe very well what I like to create. I want to create art for games that matter, which looks like they’ve been created by people for people: games that have some personal touch and are interesting to look at.

Dennis, R. 2012. Games take on another dimension. Available from: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/9b08c878-2cbf-11e2-9211-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2nGj0OVpc
Here is David  Hellman (Braid) artist webpage: http://www.davidhellman.net/
and his blog on  Braid game art: http://www.davidhellman.net/blog/the-art-of-braid-index


GAMASUTRA article : Videogame Aesthetics: The Future!

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130840/videogame_aesthetics_the_future.php?print=1

Article mentioned Orisinal webpage with some free to play games. http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/
Games are really simple, but some of them look quite nice. I might use some of the game ideas for my projects game assets production. Also, since the games look very simple I could possibly try and attempt to write the code in Flash to make a game.


Also came across a page Buzz Feed Geeky  page '36 Beautiful Landscapes That Prove That Video Games Are Art'. Not all of the artwork would be relevant to my project but there are a few that would be relevant to my honours project:

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
Skyloft from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
The desert and mountain from Journey
The planet Pandora from Borderlands 2
The planes of Telara from Rift.