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aesthetics

February 4th

…fairy-tales and portal fantasies knows, it becomes harder to slip between worlds as you grow up.”

Shadow of the Colossus

A remake has spurred some novel approaches to the question of how game programming, narrative, and aesthetics intersect, and where the original work of art can be found.

  • The question of fidelity and Shadow of the Colossus • Eurogamer.net Gareth Damian Martin argues that high-fidelity graphics have resulted in a remake that lacks fidelity, or faithfulness, to the spatial feel of the original.
  • Shadow of the Colossus review – Polygon Chris Plante argues that…

This Year In Videogame Blogging: 2017

…Stewart Zolani Stewart asks the titular question not as an inherent quality, but one of prioritization. As a culture, video games lack visual literacy as a method of communicating ideas.

  • Bad Images | Medium – Midboss (Em) Emilie Reed also sees an issue with bad images in games, and offers a recalibration: incorporating pattern into our understanding of video game aesthetics, as they are historically more important to the medium, and as important a source of beauty as the image frame. (Editor note: earlier in the year, Em worked with us on Visual Essay Jam, a proactive intervention into…

    • March 11th

    …Samia Halaby (4K UHD) – YouTube (video: auto captions) Bill Winters presents the digital work of world-renowned Palestinian painter, who discusses the aesthetics and experience of creating art with computers.

  • Cadences: Finding the Voice of Any Level’s Design – The Game Design Extracts Episode 2 – YouTube (video: subtitles) Patrick Holleman defines cadence, or the overall shape of a level, and finds examples from Mario games, evaluating how each cadence affects gameplay.
  • The Sims’ Insane Trait Sucks (Content warning: discussions of ableism) Gita Jackson critiques a feature that not only reproduces stigma against mental health issues, but also…

    • June 17th

    Are you so bloody bored of E3? Well, this roundup of the week’s insightful critical writing is pretty much an E-zero. No consumer hype here, just earnest, authentic examinations of games that already exist.

    Fanfare

    First, a lovely little piece about music!

    • Final Fantasy’s Prelude is Simply Genius | Game Score Fanfare – YouTube Mathew Dyason unpicks the history of these famous arpeggios.

    Surroundings

    This piece on unconscious prejudice in games criticism could well be contentious.

    • Brick By Brick / Sekiro and Prioritized Aesthetics Doshmanziari argues that some coverage

    …

    August 12th

    …animated in a way that suggests a joy in being annihilated.

    “The game’s silent, “Doom Marine” protagonist and the demons are like soul mates—anti-love lovers whose entire raison d’être is the extermination of one another.”

    Moving target

    Two designers offer helpful ways of looking at expression and interaction in games.

    • Gamasutra: Krzysztof Solarski’s Blog – ADAPTIVE GAMEPLAY AESTHETICS (PART 1): A Disruptive Game Design Framework Chris Solarski shares the first part of an extensive foundational text on game design that has been in development for many years.
    • Gamasutra: Fabian Fischer’s Blog…

    July 18th

    …it could be considered something else: an instrument designed to combat cultural hegemony.

    And then read the follow-up, part two.

    LB Jeffries writes for Pop Matters about the ‘Transparent Difficulty in Order of Ecclesia‘.

    Also at Pop Matters, G Christopher Williams has been playing the new Prince of Persia game and finds ‘an aesthetics of demolition’ in the game. From there he goes on to discuss ‘Abusing the world‘ and the games like Red Faction Guerilla that involve some level of subtraction from the world as part of their game mechanics.

    Even games without…

    Far Cry 2

    …fact (for example, the Alec Meer piece at #7) makes it clear that either Remo’s analysis was right – or that his framing changed the way critics play. Hmmm.

    #5 – Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Warfare* But Were Afraid to Ask Far Cry 2

    Over the past decade there have probably been 30 pieces that follow a similar structure to this one; walking through the general flow of the game progression and explaining how the various elements of the game and the narrative work together to reinforce the central themes and aesthetics. Leigh Harrison’s piece…

    January 6th

    …Resistance and Video Games (Introduction) Bonnie Ruberg and Amanda Phillips warn against the idea that queerness in games is a trendy new thing, and reiterate that queer game studies, like queer studies in general, must be founded on resistance.

  • Game Studies – Queer Games After Empathy: Feminism and Haptic Game Design Aesthetics from Consent to Cuteness to the Radically Soft Teddy Pozo probes the limitations and pitfalls of empathy games as a genre, and proposes new terminology and frameworks for future design and criticism by way of queer and feminist studies, as well as a consideration of the uses…

    • February 3rd

    …– Polygon Khee Hoon Chan chronicles Nintendo’s antagonistic relationship with its own legacy and with the preservationists who seek to keep its works alive.

  • ‘Kingdom Hearts III’ is a Big, Beautiful Mess – Waypoint Julie Muncy positions a review of Kingdom Hearts III as an opportunity to talk about copyright reform. Hell yeah.

    • “Combining Disney with the aesthetics and gameplay priorities of Final Fantasy at its most eccentric, Kingdom Hearts takes the vanguard of modern entertainment capitalism and turns it into something bizarre. Mickey Mouse, and Disney alongside him, is grist for one of the wildest…

    Assassin’s Creed II

    …markers and guides, subtle aids exaggerating or reflecting in-game themes, educational and spatial story-tellers and presenters of information. We are immersed in Ezio’s world: the designs giving the environments extra historical, atmospheric and narrative dimensions, and an incredibly strong sense of place. It’s an incredibly pleasing way to experience the past, interact with it and become quasi-active participants in history and historical events, in wonderfully vivid and layered environments.

    At Pop Matters, G. Christopher Williams caught a glimpse of the AC2 art direction team standing on the shoulders of giants. Renaissance artists famously revolutionized aesthetics during the quattrocento,…