games as art, DigiPen student games

The DigiPen students in GAT 400 had 11 weeks to learn XNA & C# and build a game prototype. We asked them to build their games around "One Cool Thing."

One = focus
Cool = desire
Thing = it exists, you shipped it

They chose:

Jetpacks
Deformable terrain
A specific classic arcade game, built from scratch
Bullet patterns
Every country in the world
Jump physics
Phototropism
Helicopter modeling
Color subtraction
Cooking recipes
Target practice
Control-matching
Music-driven battle mechanics
Music-driven procedurally-generated terrain
Puzzle combat
3D flythroughs

It didn't matter what they picked. What mattered was that it was a) specific, and b) sprang from desire.

The process went like this.

1. Start
2. Code appears
3. The game starts to emerge
4. Keep building
5. Some Really Fun Unanticipated Thing appears
6. Veer to follow that
7. Tidy up what's there -- splash, art, audio, UI, menus, dialogs

What made it art is: They would veer to follow what was emerging. Art is the search. The dialogue with one's creation.

On our game at work, we have done a faithful job: pursued the mechanic, sculpted it into a cheerful, workable game. But at its heart, our game does not spring from someone's specific desire & longing. It's the difference between "This guy" and "This guy with whom I am strangely fascinated."

Desire. Specificity.