Art and Gaming

by Daniel Ball

Art has always has always played a huge part in gaming. The pixels that made up our favourite 8-bit brothers in Super Mario Bros. can be considered art in some form—arguably without any real purpose other than to personify the junk bouncing around the screen—still it is art nonetheless.

However, with technology changing and the great gaming mechanics being cloned to the point that we’re now bored, so much so in fact, that generally we consider Mario-esque platforming bland and derivative and every new fighter the same old crap, it’s a nice wakeup call as to the potential games still have when you notice there are unique, arty games out there.

Shadow of the Colossus

The arty game revolution couldn’t have come at a better time. Lately we’re subject to sequels that bring nothing new to the table at all and developers too scared to touch new ideas for fear of losing money on what they perceive as still working formulas.

It’s fantastic to see games finally being used as a medium for expression of the artist as opposed to a product.  Braid is a fantastic example of an arty game. Aesthetically, it’s amazingly pleasing, the storyline has real depth and the gameplay is fresh and fun. It’s independently developed and honestly a lot more fun than a lot of today’s releases. Its creator dumped more than a truckload of money into the project but when it was finally released every gamer than was willing to could jump into the creator’s mind for a few hours and share his world, which I think is a beautiful thing and solidifies the idea in my mind, that video games are a brilliant (albeit a relatively new) form of artistic expression.

Braid

A game that I recently found myself immersed in (as brief as my trip into its world was) was The Graveyard. A game where the objective (if you can even call it that) is to simply traverse a graveyard as an old lady and sit on a bench before finally making your way out of the graveyard. Sounds far too simple to be enjoyable, right? That’s what I thought too, but I came out of the experience feeling quite satisfied. It’s, in one word, beautiful. Birds fly around and seem to land randomly (yet so perfectly) around you, mingling on the gravestones and generally embracing life. The old lady you control moves exactly like an old lady should and adds a great sense of realism. You move slowly, but it feels right. The song you hear is deep (I don’t want to spoil anything for those wanting the genuine experience) and you’re free to listen to it as many times as you want by simply standing up and sitting down again. Alternatively you can just remain seated and enjoy the scenery.

The Graveyard

I highly recommend the game to anyone looking for a unique experience or something different to the constant stream of bile that is mainstream game releases these days (generally speaking).

The aforementioned games left me in a state of awe and with a renewed outlook on gaming in general. We all knew games were a powerful form of expression but no one had the guts to do anything about it, that is, until now. I hope gaming continues to go in this direction because we’ve possibly seen all we can handle of mediocrity in the industry.