PATRON SAINT

The patron saint.

Who is my patron saint. 

This project, my work in video games. 

My patron saint is increpare. 

Make video games. Make video games about everything. Make video games about unorthodox and intimate things. Make many types of video games. Make video games quickly. Make video games slowly. Make dumb games. Make smart games. 

Dont stop making games. Make hundreds of games. 

Be thoughtful.  Be impulsive. Be deliberate.

~ ~ ~ 

Most of the games I make nowadays are dedicated, in some part, to the influence of increpare. His games feel simultaneously accessible from a technical point of view but wildly inventive and experimental from a creative point of view. 

When I first began thinking about games, I remember there was a shift moment when I was playing increpare's games where I went from thinking: how does he do this?? to Oh, okay, I think I could make something close to this. I don't mean this in a bad way. Nor do I mean to say that I ever thought I would have ideas as inventive as increpare's. However, being able to look at a creator's work who inspires me, and think, if I set myself to it, I could imitate that, is a really powerful thing. Furthermore, he has such a range of games, from tiny to huge, from hastily drawn pixel graphics to complex 3D environments that not only could I see how to built a simple game, but I began to see the path from simple to complex. And yet, that never devalued the simple games. Some of my favorite games of his are the simplest. That was also revolutionary for me. 

~ ~ ~ 

So yeah. Increpare is my video game patron saint. His creative output constantly inspires me to create more. To create better. To create odder. To create more honestly. 

Progress Report #1

Progress.

Progress update #1.

Well, my computer broke-partially broke- recently. The mouse and keyboard are caput. Which sucks, considering video games are normally created using computers. So, I'm figuring that out. Thankfully I got my hands on a mouse and a bluetooth keyboard, and should have a more permanent fix sometime next week, but it has definitely slowed my progress. That said. There has been some.

Inspired by both Getting over it with Bennet Foddy and the quieter moment in Frog Fractions where you ride on the back of a water dragon as a sillouette and a narrator recounts a fake history of boxing, Leo wanted to experiment with using very direct voice overs during gameplay.

Here's a brief trailer of Getting Over It with Bennet Foddy that gives a good sense of the kind of direct narration that is present throughout all the gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzjuQ3K72u4

This is the referenced scene from Frog Fractions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkfKAHbS6oU

So, Leo recorded a series of three of them off the cuff on a nice mic, recounting small stories from his childhood. The last of the recordings turned out pretty well and I decided to use it as a spring board to experiment with a new scene.


But wait, before getting to the scene, I want to describe some other things that have happened.

So we decided that we wanted to go for a collage aesthetic for the game. Cutting out images from magazines and scanning them in, or just finding them online and cropping them. Leo has a fair amount of practice with this style given his experiences in animation, however I'm a novice. While this isn't some of his animations that deals more overtly in collage (I don't think those are online), this quick rotoscope he did shows a couple elements of using found images to create a cohesive style: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6P2XP5R55c

So early last week Leo gave me a crash course in Photoshop, how to easily crop objects out of images, and stuff like that. I ended up practicing and using those skills all week long on a book I was making for my other class this term Artists Books. As a side note, I think the book came out well and it was also about video games, but more relevantly it was really good practice actually using Photoshop in preparation for this project.

Here's a picture of the work in progress of the book, the background image has been altered/tweaked/created using Photoshop.



Earlier this week we met with Anne Haydock, the film professor teaching Leo's senior seminar, about both the progress we've made as well as setting up some initial deadlines. We agreed on February 6th to have a substantial initial working prototype. We also talked about copy right and fair use in the context of collage art and our project. She said she thought that what we said we wanted to do was protected, but that she'd look into more specifics about games.

So returning now, to the voice recordings that leo made. After listening to them he thought that he needed to work on writing them out in a slightly more planned way moving forward. However, since we both thought the 3rd one he'd already recorded was promising I decided to use it as a jumping off point for workshopping a scene in Unity.

I wanted to figure out how to capture gifs in order to include them here - because motion is really important in seeing a game scene - but unfortunately I couldn't figure it out in a timely manner, especially with the state of my computer, so that will have to be for the next blog post. However, here are some screenshots from the scene.










The recording is about a memory in gym class. The scene is slight currently, with the gameplay involving dragging a ball around the screen and knocking these action figurine-y looking guys off the stage. Various things/people spawn in at timed moments in the recording. Moving forward my next goal is to being creating lots of small scenes like this, in response to recordings or written text from Leo or myself. My goal for this upcoming week is to try to make two or three more very quick and diverse prototypes, just to begin testing out a bunch of different gameplay mechanics as well as aesthetic choices.

Thats all for now.

 

Rewell Altunaga: Video Game Photography

This past week the Cuban photographer Nelson Ramírez de Arellano gave a talk at Lawrence University. I attended this talk. 

While admittedly knowing nothing about Ramírez de Arellano beforehand, I found his talk on the history of Cuban photography as well as his own personal development fascinating. However, there was one particular part that sticks out to me now.

Ramírez de Arellano briefly mentioned the Cuban photographer, Rewell Altunaga. Though known for a wide body of work (something I know now after researching him) he was brought up in the context of work that he had done based on pictures taken by Igor Kostin. Kostin, as Russian phographer, is best known as being one of the 5 photographers in the world to have taken pictures of the Chernobyl disaster on April 26^th 1986 (source: his Wikipedia page). This is a nice photo essay by the Guardian of some of his pictures he took in the immediate aftermath of the explosion: 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2011/apr/26/chernobyl-nuclear-disaster-in-pictures.

According to Ramírez de Arellano, though I couldn’t find anywhere online that was able to coorberate this claim, Kostin’s images were later used(sold?) to a video game developer who based their digital recreation of Chernobyl off of Kostin’s images. Though Ramírez de Arellano didn’t say which specific developer, I suspect that he was referring to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game franchise, probably the most high profile game franchise that takes place in Chernobyl.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a first person survival shooter, here's a little bit of what it looks like: 

Now coming back to Altunaga, according to Ramírez de Arellano, fascinated with the idea that the 3D space in the video game was based on the photographs by Kostin, he decided to try to recreate the original photographs inside of the game. This is dope. I think this is really really cool.

I tried my best to hunt down Altunaga’s photographs, however the best I could do was find this one Diptych he has up on a website dedicated to hosting the portfolios of Cuban artists. Here they are:

After Igor Kostin (Diptych)

After Igor Kostin (Diptych II)

I'm pretty sure the black and white filter was added in post. 

Unfortunately I wasn't able to track down the original Igor Kostin photographs these are apparently based on. I would love to be able to see them side by side. However, I was able to track down a handful of other resources about Altunaga. 

Apparently he's still very active, making lots of photography and video projects in video games. Here is one of his more recent projects:

ELEGIA (2015)

"Shot with Battlefield 4, this work is an immersive experience that throws the viewer in the middle of the ocean. It is dedicated to all the desperate men and women who died in their attempts to reach the promised land." -Rewell Altunaga (source: GAME VIDEO/ART)

To provide you with a little bit of context, this is a trailer for Battlefield 4, at the time one of the biggest budget military shooters out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okqZyq8LgCg

It is a game where you shoot and kill hundreds of people. 

What is so powerful to me about Altunaga's work is its transformative power. The lens which he looks at Battlefield 4 through is much different than the ultra-violent military machoism that the setting and tone of the game suggests. He's able to create such a quiet, somber, personal piece of photography, inside of a blockbuster bombastic game. I find it pretty powerful. 

It's also no where near the only time he's done it. This is a pretty fantastic - and long - interview with him: http://www.gamescenes.org/2013/07/rewellaltunagacubangameart.html

The interview covers work he's done in Grand Theft Auto, Half Life, Mario. Kane and Lynch 2, Arma II, and many other games. 

Photography in games is something that I've thought about for a while now, occasionally framing and taking screenshots in the games I play. However, Altunaga's work has definitely re-inspired and reinterpreted this pursuit of mine. One of my favorite parts of his work is what he brings to the games. Before, when taking screenshots, I always felt limited in terms of what the world of the game offers. But the way he contextualizes the screenshots he took in Battlefield 4 made me realize that the art of video game photography deals just as much with what the photographer brings to the picture, than solely what the game has to offer visually. 

As I finish writing this blog post I'm reminded that I have a folder on my laptop full of various random screenshots of games I occasionally take while playing. As far as I remember, unlike Altunaga's work, none of these had much intentionality at the time they were taken. But I thought I'd share a couple of them here.

 

Two of these are games I made, one of them is online: Vermont. The rest are from various games makers. If I recall correctly, one is part of Conor Sherlock's Walking-Simulator a Month Club, and the other is by Kitty Horrorshow (both excellent, excellent, developers).

That's all for this week. 

Maybe next week I'll have some more screenshots to share. 

Who knows. 

The Rough Timeline for NEW DAD

ANNOUNCING ~~ANNOUNCING ~~ ANNOUNCING
NEW ~~ HOT OFF THE PRESSESs ~~ READ ALL ABOUT IT!
The Rough Timeline for NEW DAD

Weeks 1+2 are dead and gone. Goodbye weeks 1 and 2.

Week 3 - Now!
-Continue experimenting with the visuals of the game
-Nail now our workflow involving Unity, Photoshop, file sharing. This is very important because it allows to us continue making rapid prototypes.

Week 4
-Continue mapping out the game
-Rapid prototyping of the various gameplay mechanics + scenes

*Week 5*
-Block out and settle on blocking out the main story/gameplay beats

Week 6
-Work on game

Week 7
-Work on game

*Week 8*
-Do an art pass, try to remove what we can of temp art and begin settling into the "final" (haha, wow, what is final any more? What about the 1.1 look of the game, 2.0 look of the game?) look of the game more

*Week 9*
-Continue working on the game and the art.
-Work on some polishing of the mechanics
-If we have time consider adding, if it makes sense: main menu, save states, graphics options.

*Week 10*
-'first draft' of the game, playable, fully mapped out.
-If we have time: think about making a website for the game, submitting it to Steam, making an itch.io page.

Overall Goal: Create a functioning "first draft"/prototype of our game. Not all of the art or polish might be complete, but the vast majority of the game has been mapped out and is in a playable state.

Video Games: A Blog Post

My name is Eli. I like video games. I make video games. 

What’s a video game I hear you ask? Well, there’s no need to be ashamed, I sometimes ask myself that very question. When in doubt I like to defer to the definition that The Catamites provides in the Harmony Zone: 

For me, I find this to be a sufficient definition of what video games are, as long as one understands that sometimes, often times, video games contain none of the following: skeleton, red key, score thing, or a magic door. That’s okay I think. 

~ ~ ~ ~

I’ve been making video games for a couple years now, and once in a blue moon I accidentally finish one of them. In the event of such a mental slippage I often post the resulting video game here; Crawlspace. If you find yourself with the urge to play one or two, I might recommend: Cabin, Blue Flashes, Vermont, or Crisp Ricies. Though they’re all truly works of art, in their own terrible way. Sometimes one or two get written about by larger outlets, which is truly cool. Maybe one I’ll be my very own video game super star. But probably not until I’m 72 years old working on The Elder Scrolls Skyrim 16: The Las Vegas Chapters. 

Most of the games I make come from personal places; memories, experiences, friends.

~ ~ ~

Before moving on to what I’m going to be working on in this class, I would like to share with you a couple video game creators who I love and have inspired me greatly. I've linked to both their websites, as well as specific projects I particularly like. 

Increpare - https://www.increpare.com - Blackness and Stars

Kitty Horror Show - https://kittyhorrorshow.itch.io/ - 000000FFF0000

Loren Schmidt - http://vacuumflowers.com/projects/

Jenny Jiao Hsia - https://q_dork.itch.io/ - Morning Makeup Madness

Robert Yang - https://debacle.us/ - The Tearoom

Catamites - http://harmonyzone.org/Videogames.html

Grace Bruxner - https://fisho.itch.io/ - Witch Game/Bin Game/Bug Game

Each of them deserves your attention, far more than I do. Follow them. Play their games.

~ ~ ~

In this class I’m going to be working with Leo Leventhall to make a video game. We intend to make a video game about abuse, and specifically the manipulative process of gas lighting. This is going to be a really difficult project for a couple of reasons. 

1. Making video games is hard. I’ll probably come back to this later, but I’d just to say it now. Video games is hard. Making them is hard. 

2. The game is about abuse, specifically emotional abuse, which is something I don’t have a whole lot of personal experience with. The game will largely draw upon Leo’s personal experience. This is something we’ve talked about a lot, and I will have to be considerate when offering creative design advice without undermining Leo’s experiences or input. I think we’re up to it though. 

~ ~ ~

Recently I made a couple google searches researching video games and abuse, and I’d like to share the results with you. While neither of these are entirely indicative of the state of videos games and abuse, I think they paint a fairly accurate atmosphere of how video games have dealt with the topic in the past and the present. 

Google Search #1: “video game abuse” 

The first result you get is about a game made in 1995 by Bungie, the studio later responsible for the hugely successful Halo games. 

Here is a cover of that game: 

This is a brief summary of the plot of that game taken from Wikipedia: 

The protagonist of the game, Nick Vrenna, has been unjustly incarcerated in a prison where the staff are performing unethical medical experiments upon the inmates. A prison riot occurs and an experiment goes horribly wrong. The people inside the prison - except for Nick, who seems to be immune - get infected with a substance called Abuse that transforms them into monsters. With the water supply in danger of being infected, Nick arms himself and fights through the horde to prevent this, and then escapes from the prison complex. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abuse_(video_game)

Here is a video of some game play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q0SbdDfnFI

Google Search #2: “video games about abuse"

The first result is Wikipedia's List of Controversial Video Games. In the next few results there are various links referencing a recent trailer for the upcoming game Detroit: Become Human. The trailer showcases a scene of domestic violence, between a father and his daughter. The player inhabits the body of an android maid whose choice whether to intervene or not changes the course of the scene. 

This is from the Guardian article about the trailer titled 'How not to turn child abuse in to a game': 

When these game mechanics are married with the theme of domestic abuse and, in particular, child abuse, the obvious implication is that, to escape the violence a victim, or those around them, need only make the "correct" choices to resolve the situation. It's a deeply troubling misrepresentation of the reality for anyone who has suffered from, or who knows a survivor of, domestic abuse. (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/05/detroit-become-human-how-not-to-turn-child-abuse-into-a-game)

Who knows if we’ll fare much better. But I do know that we’ve already promised Anne Haydock that our game will not be a First Person Shooter. 

~ ~ ~

Currently the name of the project is: NEW DAD. 

The game opens with the player being introduced to a man in a mask. He is your new dad. When you touch his mask it falls off. Things appear to go poorly from there. However, we’re still in the very early stages of making the game. We spent some time recently beginning to story board out the game/narrative on index cards, but it’s still very much so a work in progress. So instead of going to deeply into the game right now let me talk a little about the production and technical side, oh and I’ll show you a couple screenshots of the prototyping we’ve been doing. Ya know, to satiate that video game appetite I’m sure you have. 

We’re making the game in Unity 3D, a game engine that I have a fair amount of experience in. We plan on making large parts of the games art using hand drawn graphics, or found collage. 

This is a screen shot of a mock up of the opening of the game I did. The meat is not final. None of it is final. 

This is a screenshot of a later part in the game. We struggled for a while getting the 2D and 3D physics in Unity talk to each other, but I think we found a solution. 

~ ~ ~

These are a list of Video Games whose name we’ve said about frequently while talking about the design of this game. Take from them what you will: 

-Undertale

-Paper’s Please

-Getting Over it with Bennett Foddy

-Her Story

-A Night in the Woods

I’m sure there are others too, I’ve just forgotten. 

~ ~ ~

I think that's all for now folks.