Notgames Forum

Hello Forum,


i want to share some experiences i had, thoughts and issues that came into my view during the last 3 months. A time when i somehow re-discovered computer games (and what is spoken of notgames here … i will simply use the term 'game' below). And a time when i went through the process of making one.

In February i decided to give Unity a try for it seemed the most easy way to actually start playing around without too much preparation work needed. I approached this without a clear cut idea what to do, even less that there should a finished work in the end. Neither did i want to start a business from this ... say, i was curious about the production side of computer games. No, i was simply curious about making a game!

After three nights of trial, error and hacking together found and self made code i had something that roughly resembled what most people these days call ‘computer game’ ... well visually at least. Polishing and smoothing out rough edges took a few more weeks opposed to these 3 nights of initial work.



In the end my screen looked like this:

(http://woods.dpupp.com/stuff/woods_dark.jpg)




Looks a little dark? ... wait, let me turn on the light:

(http://woods.dpupp.com/stuff/woods_light.jpg)




Already very early in the process darkness turned out to be one great way to overcome hours and days of asset creation needed to make my virtual world coherent?, beautiful?, immersive?, realistic?, accessible (in terms of visual access)?



Virtual darkness saves labor, virtual darkness gives time. (I feel it is not a coincidence we see so many flashlight games these days)



Making a game reminded me about the sheer amount of labor involved.

(http://woods.dpupp.com/stuff/devs.jpg)



And this seemingly goes well together with my experiences when looking for open source gaming. On the game side as well as on the engine/asset side. I could not find much of a community.

––– I understand the following paragraph is a way big topic because it involves the word ‘art’ but i already typed it, so:
It bothers me that so many games are (have to be?) products. And what does that mean for games as art? Nowadays i consider it ... say, a fairly ‘special’ type of art: that art that comes in the form of a product. That has you pay a certain price beforehand and only subsequently exposes you to a meticulously crafted work to have your mind stimulated. (The thread on having games eligible for art funding somewhere here is also interesting in this regard).
–––

Lastly, i found the never ending catalogs of game jam submissions so interesting and fun to check out. I love the radical nature much of this stuff has to it. 48h, no time & labor for polishing. For example:

http://vacuumflowers.com/typing/
(be sure to click the image if typing doesn’t work)


So, what is now called ‘We Are in the Woods’ can be found here:
http://notgames.org/forum/index.php?topic=767.0
If you give it a try, please do it at night (again like many other games these days?). This is the time when it was made and the time when the executable feels at home.


Hello everybody,
David




If the mods feel a different place is more suitable for this thread please feel free to move it ... well ... it is some sort of introduction.


... and one more article on virtual storytelling and labor:
http://nightmaremode.net/2012/11/creation-under-capitalism-23422/

Very interesting concept. I'm going to spread the news to my own little group. Thank you.