Link to scribe.rip, not medium.com
Game engines as an art form
41–50 of 54 posts
Re: Game engines as an art form
#42RPG Maker 2000! As a teenager I spent a huge amount of time messing around with it, mostly playing and dissecting other people’s games and engines. It also served as an introduction to online communities, pixel art, and other interests that remain relevant today. Good times.
Re: Game engines as an art form
#43> If you had asked me why I’d been so dedicated to developing the same game engine for so long, I probably wouldn’t have had a very good answer for you until somewhat recently. Perhaps I would have cracked a joke about game engine development being a basic human need for me, right up there with food, water, and oxygen, but obviously we all know that’s not a real answer. I was exactly this person for a long time. I to…
> I've realized that game development is a great coping mechanism to help you feel safe and in control. You are the master of your own universe. This is THE reason I started programming when I was 11 years old! I was always dreaming of this universe that I would create. I even tried to make an RPG game using Game Maker. I stopped when, after a couple of weeks, I had a barely working fighting system and nothing else.…
Haha. Similar for me. I spent months and month writing a 2D 360° scrolling game engine in x86 assembler, and a level builder. I drew all the sprites and tiles, labored over animation, parallax, collision detection, multichannel audio and optimized the bejeezus out of it so it ran as efficiently as possible on my 486.
Turns out I don't like designing games, I built just enough level to test everything, got bored and started all over again... haha.
Re: Game engines as an art form
#44> If you had asked me why I’d been so dedicated to developing the same game engine for so long, I probably wouldn’t have had a very good answer for you until somewhat recently. Perhaps I would have cracked a joke about game engine development being a basic human need for me, right up there with food, water, and oxygen, but obviously we all know that’s not a real answer. I was exactly this person for a long time. I to…
Many people have learned that making your own engine from scratch is a bad idea if you want to make a game. Your takeaway that game development itself is somehow dysfunctional doesn't necessarily follow from this.
Re: Game engines as an art form
#45> If you had asked me why I’d been so dedicated to developing the same game engine for so long, I probably wouldn’t have had a very good answer for you until somewhat recently. Perhaps I would have cracked a joke about game engine development being a basic human need for me, right up there with food, water, and oxygen, but obviously we all know that’s not a real answer. I was exactly this person for a long time. I to…
> After getting some counseling and getting married, I've realized that game development is a great coping mechanism to help you feel safe and in control. You are the master of your own universe. For some reason it also helps you feel worthy, like you've accomplished something.
> I'm not saying gamedev is bad, but I think a lot of people unknowingly use it to self-medicate.
This goes for any form of art: writing, painting, music, filmmaking, etc.
Re: Game engines as an art form
#463D A&V multiplayer is the final medium/media. Game engines are the final craft. Programming is a higher art than painting or music.
> Programming is a higher art than painting or music. No it's not, and it is imho a delusion to think otherwise. Programming is engineering, it is about finding the best solution based on a series of requirements (performance, readability, time, etc). There's very little creativity involved in programming as it is the case with pretty much any engineering field. I don't understand this narrative of making it seem a c…
Yes, math is art! Math is worldbuilding, one theory at time. There's an astounding amount of creativity that goes in our definitions and proofs.
One could instead consider that math already exists, and we are just discovering it; but this is as useful as saying that all images already exist (in the set of all pixel matrices) and digital painters are just discovering images that were already there all the time.
The end result isn't all that matters; it also matters how we get there.
Re: Game engines as an art form
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Team Shanghai Alice / Zun (aka: that one crazy developer) does all his own artwork, music, and programming for the Touhou series. A lot of people joke that his artwork is sub-par and the music is repetitive, but frankly... the integration of all three into a single product / series of games is pretty amazing. --------- I don't know if gaming is the "ultimate" form of art. And no one is going to say that Zun's art or…
I strongly disagree with programming being a “higher” art than music or painting. As for DIY game devs, I really enjoyed Tom Happ’s Axiom Verge series. The artwork and level design, especially. I’ve seen a couple interviews where he kind of brushes off the praise for the musical aspect - and I agree. I think it’s the weakest part of his games. The music fits incredibly well, but it feels a lot like someone noodling o…
I don't think I agree that programming is a "higher" art form (despite wording my reply in the above manner, I'm pretty neutral to the parent post). But I do think it is wonderful when art+music+programming combine into a singular cohesive product.
Re: Game engines as an art form
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've realized that game development is a great coping mechanism to help you feel safe and in control. You are the master of your own universe. This is THE reason I started programming when I was 11 years old! I was always dreaming of this universe that I would create. I even tried to make an RPG game using Game Maker. I stopped when, after a couple of weeks, I had a barely working fighting system and nothing else.…
Haha. Similar for me. I spent months and month writing a 2D 360° scrolling game engine in x86 assembler, and a level builder. I drew all the sprites and tiles, labored over animation, parallax, collision detection, multichannel audio and optimized the bejeezus out of it so it ran as efficiently as possible on my 486. Turns out I don't like designing games, I built just enough level to test everything, got bored and s…
I realized - in the midst of a professional career that had a dry spell - that I do enjoy some parts of game design, but the type of game I should design should not be too heavy on overt rules, stats, and systems, and instead work on the intuitive and holistic parts.
I had to learn what was enjoyable about it by first burning out on what I didn't. This is a form of artistic journey that spans all mediums. Games often have many layers. If you don't really know why you're adding a certain layer, like a level design, or cutscenes, it instantly turns into a morale crusher that can spiral into ever-increasing scope(by way of "it's not good yet, add more"). And it's easy to fall into that with vague justifiers like "every game is better with more stuff" or "I spent time on it so I'm gonna use it". Eliminating contradictory elements removes morale crushers, but can leave the game barebones and underdesigned. The solution to that is to inject themes and principles that suggest the specific possibilities. Then you are simply including the elements that cohere to principle, which quickly "develops" the game out of the tech demo stage. In the blink of an eye it can go from nothing to a great game, if the groundwork was set up well.
Of course, most games are products, and products need product features, which take things away from the artistic goal. But if you can build it small enough, it can be a hobby :)
Re: Game engines as an art form
#493D A&V multiplayer is the final medium/media. Game engines are the final craft. Programming is a higher art than painting or music.
> Programming is a higher art than painting or music. No it's not, and it is imho a delusion to think otherwise. Programming is engineering, it is about finding the best solution based on a series of requirements (performance, readability, time, etc). There's very little creativity involved in programming as it is the case with pretty much any engineering field. I don't understand this narrative of making it seem a c…
> There's very little creativity involved in programming as it is the case with pretty much any engineering field.
It depends on the context. If you program for bigco then there isn't much creativity. But if you draw imagines or make music for bigco there wont be much creativity either, they will want standard stuff done as cleanly and quickly as possible. However when you are programming whatever you feel like to make an enjoyable program then that is art, similarly to how someone who draws freely to make a picture that is enjoyable to look at is art.
When you got an idea for a program in your head then you go and program it as efficiently as possible. But that is exactly the same thing as an artist with an imagine in their head, they will try to draw that image as efficiently and accurately as possible as well. There is no difference here. The only difference is that programming is harder to work with and you can do more things with it. You can draw images with code, but you can also do so much more.
Made an algorithm that made pixels behave like water and is cool to look at? Great! Now make a whole game around that concept! Even greater! You can't say stuff like this isn't art.
Re: Game engines as an art form
#503D A&V multiplayer is the final medium/media. Game engines are the final craft. Programming is a higher art than painting or music.
> Programming is a higher art than painting or music. No it's not, and it is imho a delusion to think otherwise. Programming is engineering, it is about finding the best solution based on a series of requirements (performance, readability, time, etc). There's very little creativity involved in programming as it is the case with pretty much any engineering field. I don't understand this narrative of making it seem a c…
This is an incredibly depressing view of math, programming and engineering. Strandbeest is a great example of physical engineering as art. Neither discipline needs to be relentlessly practical and dull. If you must though think what happens when some of your requirements have more whimsy.