Here's a question that I'd like comments/answers on: What are the stereotypes of "art games"? If possible, post your answers before you continue reading the following paragraphs...
Many games came out of TOJam 2009, every one of them a feat unto themselves considering they were made in three days or less. The first one I've given a spin (having missed the TOJam Indie-cade) is Benjamin Rivers' The Ascent. He also did Snow, spoken of in an earlier post on Aboot Play, and seeing as I thoroughly enjoyed that experience I am now willing to trust Rivers with my life. Or lives, as the case may be. I'm sure he has a stash of 1ups he's willing to toss my way.
The Ascent is a short, vertical platformer that might take five or ten minutes to complete, depending on how unforgiving you find the murder flowers.
Yes, there are murder flowers. They murder you, and they are flowers.
Considering its pedigree, you might get a totally different take-away from The Ascent than I or anyone else does. There's very little story, or why, to the game, and the only way for you to go is up. Because of the ambiguity, a little spark of hissy-to-the-fit showed itself on the TIGSource.com forums where user Anthony Flack states that The Ascent has "got all the trappings of a stereotypical 'art game' ... we are fast approaching the point where these elements become cliche." Rivers responded, saying "... while you may think a lot of the game's elements are decidedly and almost comically 'art game' in nature, I have made no statement as to any metaphor or intent. That, so far, has been entirely the construct of the player."
Everything ended nicely in the forums, but it still begs the question: What is a f*ckin' "art game"? Would The Ascent cease to be one if it used only saturated primary colours and was fully 3-D with a soundtrack by Korn? If The Ascent is the epitome of an art game then is Shadow of the Colossus one too? The Path? What about Rez? Must a game purposely withhold story elements, have a funky art style, strange controls, or perhaps no controls at all? If you want to make an "art game", are you allowed to leave nothing to question, beating the player over the head with everything you can? 'Cause I never really knew why I had to save the princess in Super Mario Bros. and I still managed to enjoy the game without feeling the need to analyze it (though, I imagine the ingestion of large amounts of mushrooms that sprout out of the bricks you just smashed your skull into would explain away most of the game).
The Ascent is art. It's also a game. Not necessarily in that order either. Whatever, play the damn thing, then you can decide why "We're sorry" is carved out of the bottom of the tree. The game is freeware, has already received one substantial update, has controller support, and I guarantee you'll have an opinion on the "art game" argument after you've cursed those damn murder flowers five times over.
5 Comments
1 Miguel S. wrote:
I don't really feel that the Ascent is an art game. Just to be clear, I'm not saying that it isn't art and nor am I making a value judgment either way on 'art games'.
When I think of art games I think of very specific types of games where either:
A) The game mechanics are meant to convey meaning themselves through pure mechanics (eg The Marriage, Passage)
B) The game is light on traditional game mechanics and instead relies heavily on art and sound design to convey it's artistic message. (eg The Path)
Both types of 'art game' share in a common a tendency to either subvert the traditional concept of 'winning' the game or in many cases they're just plain un-winnable.
Other then it's short length the Ascent is a very traditional game in it's structure and format. It requires hard core traditional platforming skills to win and it's mechanics seem to be more about play then about meaning.
It's a beautiful little game and one of the gems from this years TOJam but I don't really see it fitting into the quote unquote "art game" category just because it has a purposefully ambiguous plot and a short length.
2 Ryan wrote:
If I was gonna label something an art game, I'd probably agree with most of what you've said Miguel. In The Path, you lose if you win, and vice versa. It's quite a strange way to play a game (I also have some issues with how you "win" and the implications of knowing what's going to happen when you do "win", but that's for a discussion when there's beer involved).
In the end, I'm asking for objective answers to a question where the only way to "win" is to answer subjectively. I'd call The Ascent an artful/platform/post-apocalyptic game if I had to give it a label.
3 Barry wrote:
To me, it seems like it's the same thing as in any other medium. Any game has a spectrum between being artsy and being entertaining. If you think it's artsy, then it's art. If you think it's entertaining, then its entertainment.
Entertainment is usually associated with popularity among the majority, while art is popular with some minority.
So, in my world view, if a game is entertaining, then it's just a game, if it's not, then it's more of an artsy game.
As such, I would consider The Ascent not an art game because it is not (if you will) "crappy" enough for my standards.
4 Ryan wrote:
let it be known that E.T. and Irritating Stick are the two most fantastic art games ever made! I kid I kid.
Thanks for the insight, Miguel and Barry!
5 Nadine wrote:
The murder flowers made me swear...a lot. I kind of don't weigh in on the art / not art in the gaming world, I kind of figure its whatever the maker of the game decides to classify it as.