Sunday, September 30, 2012

Creating Art Vs. Constructing Games

STRUCTURE

The first and most prominant difference between "art" and "game" for myself is structure. When creating my game and then collaborating with a partner, the game always required structure. There had to be a beginning, an end, pre determined point systems and teams or players, and purpose. We had to have a set direction and desire to give the player to do and follow, and in the end, we had to have a result. 

For me, when creating "art", these are things I never even think about, let alone focus on. I usually rely on allowing myself to become distracted and stray away from my original plan for the piece. I enjoy beginning with a thought and ending up in a different place. I have realized and stated in the past about how I enjoy to cause confusion for the viewers and being able to create different reactions and thoughts. 

I think that game making and art making can be seen as very similar though. They are both processes in which the artist is trying to create a reaction, however, in certain situations the artist has more control on the outcome, not just the desire for it.

5 comments:

  1. It is true that games seem to have an overall set structure when you are creating one. Art seems to have more freedom of thoughts and flow. There may be an idea or purpose for art, but it may not always turn out the way you envisioned it. Art and games do require a plan or process. The outcome may be different, depending on who wins a game because it can be continuously played. A painting or a sculpture is essentially finished after it has been created.

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  2. Art is really organic in process, it changes as you go no matter what your desired outcome is, or in your case whether or not you have a desired outcome. I think that the game making process worked this way too despite its need for structure and organization. We started with an idea and continuously critiqued, collaborate, edited, and revised our ideas to bring it together. I learned a lot about process in this unit that I would apply to my art making.
    I think it is interesting that you make the distinction between the artists control of the outcome between games and art making. I think that with any artwork you can make a strong statement and guide the viewer to see it from your eyes, however their reactions will all be completely different and independent. With game making, the experience might differ, but the ultimate goal is the same and that is what the artist can control to an extent.

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  3. That's a great point. My process for creating art is very similar to yours and it's a process that can't really be applied to creating a game. It was really mind bending trying to put that game together. It's like the creative process for creating a game works a different part of the brain.

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  4. Good point. Structure was very important in the game. While in art you can most of the time go in any direction that you want. The games took more of a thought process making sure that each player had something to do in order to become a winner or loser in some cases. But structure was most important.

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  5. it is quite interesting how differently i seem to approach creating compared to people that have mentioned their methods in these journals. the process of designing these games was quit in line with my mental process where 90% of the work is determined before a utensil ever hits the page. (the medium, the process, the style, the color, the subject)

    sadly this also equals a lot of disappointment form the finished work being normally different from the imagined work.

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