I will ramble. Please forgive.

One day, on a whim, I contacted a few fellow game makers to see if they would be interested in taking part in a little experiment. Following up on my whims has been my modus operandi since I started making games, so this just seemed appropriate. A few caught on, and what we set out to do was make a game each, and then switch around the credits, so each of us would release a game that was not of our respective creation.

As me and the friends I contacted discussed the finer points, I got questioned as to why something like this could be a good idea, what I was trying to achieve. I truthfully responded that I was not trying to achieve anything, that this was just a game, something fun to try out, a bit of a silly prank. I never explained where the idea came from, though.

I have a hard time reconciling my selfish desires with my outlook on life. I believe that everyone and everything is just a part of a whole, and that any sense of self that we have is an illusion that is normally convenient to let us do the best we can, but, for our species, has gone out of control, and selfishness has become the norm. Copyright law is just one concrete expression of this selfishness, in the realms of culture and economics. This belief clashed with my need to become good at what I want to become good at, and be recognized for it as an individual, to be favored in some fashion. So, I guess I had this in mind when I became suddenly intrigued by the thought of having another person take the credit for a game I’d made.

The people who participated were Jonathan Whiting (a.k.a. MrPiglet), Michael Brough (a.k.a. brog), Noyb, and I. A theme was convened, ‘masquerade’, which seemed appropriate. The games are the following:

• Ascension
• The sense of connectedness
• Face time
• Doppelganger

They were all released on December the 1st. During this last month or so I haven’t been in my best mind, so I didn’t concern myself as much with the outcome (or even the preparations) as I could have, but I believe that it was a positive experience for us all. From reading my fellow conspirators’ thoughts, I understand that they were not entirely comfortable throughout, and this mirrors my initial dilemma; I think that being aware of such unpleasant emotions results in a higher understanding of our self, so I’m not sorry for having sparked this charade. Me, I was surprised to find myself so anxious about what to do with the game I was to display, not because of the game itself, but because I had to consider the actual author’s feelings for their own game, their attachment to it, their willingness to place it in my hands. Even though it wasn’t my game, I made it a point to treat this one as I would any of my releases, but whatever I usually did with one, Jonathan might not have agreed. Frustratingly dealing with this dual standard (in my own mind, as he never argued) was the low point of the experience for me.

But now, game’s up.

As of today (yesterday), I am a professional graphic designer. My final project, which I now refer to as Campodecolor (Spanish for ‘Colorfield’), was the same videogame I have been talking about for some time, the one about visual composition. It’s not finished as a project, but an important milestone has been reached: its first purpose has been accomplished, which was to get me my degree. Of course.

Here’s my project report (in Spanish), which is a bit out of date and a bit incomplete, but I guess it shows the main arguments that support my project. I have touched on these a bit in past posts, and I might do it further in the future, because they are based on my opinion that videogames, as an artform, can be a relevant contribution to society.

For my defense I had to —evidently— show the game, and do a presentation of basically a recap of the same points already covered on the report. On top of that, during the past week I recorded some playtests, and edited a brief video with that material to show to the committee that graded my work. It was pretty funny to watch the testers stumble around and finally grasp the mechanics a bit, though some came to the conclusion that the game was more about the music than the visual aspect, which, I suppose, is a compliment to the sound design in the end.

I have uploaded the version of the game that I presented today (yesterday). The algorithms are still lacking, I’m afraid, but I plan to make them my top priority now. The dynamic audio is created using the minor pentatonic scale, with the sound of a Rhodes piano, as recorded by Guy Cockroft. I’m glad it sounds as well as it does, considering the notes are selected randomly from the scale. Since it seems to be crediting time, I have to thank Stephen Lavelle and muku for their invaluable help and suggestions on all aspects of my game. Also, of course, my teacher throughout this whole process, Eduardo Castillo.

What I sought, as I explained in that other post, was to create a game whose main objective is not to rack up points, but to create a visual composition. This is a game about creativity, indeed; a subset of games that, I have found, is not very largely represented.¹ Kenichi Nishi said something in an interview that I quote here because I consider to be extremely significant:

Recently, games have been ‘passively interactive.’ Users do not really have to think about what to do; they are guided around until they reach the end of the level. These types of games do not rely on the creativity of the users.

This is why I started to consider my idea more important than at first. Although there have been games like Mario Paint, that are like tools that are given a context of fun, I wanted to make something simpler, something abstract and more concentrated. There was also the question about how this would work as a game; I didn’t want it to become a color-matching, chain-making fest, so how to evaluate what was being made for its own sake? It didn’t need to be competitive, but it also needed a purpose, a raison d’être. There was the possibility of it being multiplayer, and people judging each-others compositions, much like the abovementioned Nishi’s own game, Archime-DS (or LOL, as it’s being brought over to this half of the world). I took a bit of that idea, as I will explain later, but I deliberated some more until I came to the conclusion that the best would be not to judge quality, but to evaluate compositive characteristics, or parameters, as I’ve grown used to calling them. The point being that every visual composition can be evaluated in terms of different characteristics, like how symmetric it is, whether it uses warm or cool colors, whether it is rhythmic or not (presence of visual patterns), etc. We can use these parameters to objectively determine if a composition is harmonic and pleasing to the eye, if it is foreboding, if it is unsettling, etc.

Personally, I am more of a supporter of holistic rather than reductionist approaches to analysis, but in this particular case (and in many others) it is much simpler to compartmentalize the data—especially given that I am hardly a mathematician, or even a programmer, so it simply made my work a lot easier. I realize that to this point I’m still talking abstractly, so let me show you the game proper.

That is what it currently looks like. In the center, but leaning toward the top and left, is the canvas: a grid where the player creates his composition. To the right is the carousel; sort of a conveyor belt of colored groups of circles, that the player can grab at any time and drop on the canvas. In a bar at the bottom there are a series of pictograms of differing sizes: they are actually dynamic, and change depending on the current characteristics of the composition, as perceived by the game (right now the algorithms that calculate this are not very finely tuned). Each pictogram changes to either a neutral, high or low graphic depending on the value: For instance, the fire icon indicates that the colors are mostly warm, and it would change to a snowflake if it was the opposite. Its comparatively small size means that it is not leaning that much toward warmth. The pictograms still need some work for them to be easier to understand, since, as I said in that previous post of mine, this game will use no words, so they need to be self-sufficient. Finally, in the bottom right is the time counter, which, when depleted, will prompt the game to show a results screen, which is pictured below.

Other than removing elements that are not needed anymore, one of the things that has changed here is that the pictograms got a line drawn around them. A full circle means a full mark; the third pictogram, indicating asymmetry, has a top value, so that shining effect is drawn to bring attention to it. The meaning behind this is an attempt to cue the player into noticing what his composition is best described as: in this case, as asymmetric. Had it been completely symmetric (i.e. the opposite of the current value), the visual result would have been the same. I based this idea around the famous expressionistic adage, best described by Gaugin’s own words:

How do you see this tree? Is it really green? Use green, then, the most beautiful green on your palette. And that shadow, rather blue? Don’t be afraid to paint it as blue as possible.

Meaning that the more exaggerated a feature is, the purer, the more aesthetically relevant it becomes.

But anyway, what do these scores mean, ultimately? They are not supposed to be a reward in themselves. For any creation application, there should be a way to record what was achieved, and in the case of my game, something in that vein is planned. Specifically, there will be an online gallery where compositions made by everyone who has played the game are uploaded to, and where they are sorted visually, like a spectrum, according to the values of their parameters. What this allows is for instant comparison. If the player does not understand what a specific pictogram stands for, maybe they will come to understand it after seeing both ends of the spectrum of its parameter. They might learn what each parameter does to their own perception of the aesthetic characteristics of a composition, and put that knowledge to use in their future compositions. Though I don’t make any claims that this is a proper educational game, as that carries a heavier load, the player should hopefully learn —through iteration and comparison, and bit by bit— something about visual composition and aesthetics. But if that doesn’t happen, I will be happy enough to know that people are exercising their creativity.

Another aspect of this game, related both to helping spread the word about the game and to its enjoyment, is a social factor. As there is already a (planned) gallery system, the player will be able to also choose to record their creations to their name. By doing this, they will have access to a personal gallery of their works, which they can then, for instance, display in their blog using a ‘widget’, use as an avatar in a forum, and other such uses; these stem from the very natural human need for expression and communication.

That is the current state, and the future, of my game. Other planned features include:

• A name!
• Audio.
• More parameters.
• Indications overlaid on the composition for each parameter, during the results screen. For instance, if the composition was found to be symmetric, hovering over that pictogram will show, on top of the canvas, what the axis (or axes) of symmetry is/are.

Remember that you can play the game in its current state if you wish. I’d be grateful for any comments you may have on it.

I’ve been an avid videogamer for the best part of my life, so I can account for many hours spent in front of a screen, with a controller in my hands. One day, around two years ago, probably while playing this brilliantly elegant game called Polarium,¹ I realized that I was having more fun creating levels, and making sure that they were both solvable and aesthetically attractive, rather than just playing the game proper. I found that the visual patterns created by the simple colored shapes in puzzle games like Tetris, Puyo Puyo and Puzzle Bobble could, and sometimes would, form beautiful patterns. This is, of course, where my training in design comes in; I realized that a game could be made where the objective, the very goal, was not to match shapes or make chains, but to create an interesting visual composition.

I had very little experience programming, though, so I never took it upon myself to make that game. Time passed, and one day there was a special event, hosted by a friend, called the Super Game Bakedown, that simply consisted of creating a game for the duration of a single month, in the spirit of the NaNoWriMo. I knew I couldn’t achieve such a feat, but I joined anyway, and made it my goal to finish a design document for this dream game of mine. I even added a secondary characteristic to the game, which was an idea that had intrigued me for a while: The game would not use words (or numbers) whatsoever. In the end, I didn’t even finish the design document, but I did get a clearer idea of what I wanted to, and could, achieve.

Then it was March, current year; the time when I had to find a topic for my final project. I knew that it wasn’t exactly a conventional idea for my school, especially since I wouldn’t be tackling popular issues of society or our environment, but it was still my chance to devote a year to a whim I was very interested in pursuing, so I did manage to contextualize my videogame project and make it something bigger than just a personal endeavor. I took what I had been pondering over for some time in my continued disillusionment in the what is the state of the industry and the art of videogame-making, and put it to good use. Sure, since I was a kid I played because it was fun, and that is what most people do; but as I grew up, I still loved games, but wanted more from them than primal gratification. It is the bane of an art that has not outgrown its origins as technologic entertainment, whose fundamental form of refinement has been in the chips and displays, and not on the themes, the messages, the teachings.

Society cannot seem to grasp that play is not separate from life. Johan Huizinga, the author of a book entitled Homo Ludens (from ‘ludus’: game), did, though. He realized that play permeates culture in all spheres; the only problem I see is that we don’t acknowledge it. So we live lives where there is work hours and break hours, school days and holidays, duty and fun. There should be more game to everything else in this world—and there should be more everything else to games. Games should have fun only as their byproduct, because by being engaging and interactive they’re an ideal vehicle for learning, communication, understanding, insight, experimenting, training and, well, everything. Much like good food, which is nutritious and tasty, we could be receiving so much more while we enjoy our time with games. Isn’t that the way things should be?

The videogame I am in the process of making does not attempt to bring the ultimate solution to all of our society’s problems, no. What I do want to achieve with it, though, is to push ever so slightly the limits of what a videogame can and should be, by contributing my unique experience and knowledge in the field of graphic design, and hopefully passing a bit of it over to the player. By creating a unique kind of game that does not stick to the current paradigm, I hope that I will inspire people to break more barriers and stretch the possibilities further.

In a later post I will describe with greater detail what my project consists of, and how it has progressed so far.

The first strip is already almost not a comic strip, which is how I wanted to steer this from the beginning. Not that I mind traditional comics, but I wanted the project to explore vastly different ways to make a comic. If we’re talking many authors with so many liberties, the least we can expect is radical diversification. So I hope that my first strip, regardless of its quality, can inspire future contributors to go wild.

The site incorporates one rant per strip for the author to voice his thoughts, as long as they’re vaguely related to the comic. There’s also a blog, which, honestly, I don’t foresee getting used much, but it’s there for the different contributors –who might not even know each other– to discuss anything at all. Anyone can comment on posts, and I can promote registered users so that they can create new posts. It’s almost a message board, really, but those are generally too hermetic to outsiders, so I wanted something that was transparent, with a quicker flow.

The technology I use is Pixelpost for the strips and Chyrp for the blog. I had used Pixelpost before, and it’s as easy to set up as ever–even if it lacks versatility, reason why I had to edit the script’s code at times. Chyrp, on the other hand, I will admit, was a big pain. Its theming language is really poorly documented, and the little documentation there is seems to assume that the reader is familiar with Chyrp’s code. Errors in the themes’ syntax don’t even receive a helpful error message from the parser, which just breaks, so bug-catching is a slow process. In all, the experience was pretty terrible, but once the language (called Twig) gets some decent documentation, it might become very usable, since it’s quite flexible–but hell if I know how to tame that flexibility right now. The engine itself is very economic, with none of the bloat of WordPress, but, then again, with the limitations one would expect, which are partly offset by its modules (add-ons). What that means is that the blog can be exactly what you want it to be, with none of what you don’t need; in theory, because it’s rather difficult to get it to be what you want it to be in its current form.

But the site is up now, so whatever happened in the process doesn’t matter. It still needs to be improved and polished, but it’s perfectly usable right now…, I believe. All it needs is some more strips.

I read some thread on some forum, which was about the webcomics that posters had been involved in. Comparing all the varied styles I thought “I’d like to write a webcomic once too. Too bad that I suck at drawing comics, and also at being persistent.” But the answer to my problem was right before my eyes, and realization suddenly and dramatically hit: “I should make a round-robin webcomic!”

Round-robins are a format in which a group of authors take turns in writing the story. In this case, one comic per author. With this whimsical idea I approached a friend, who okayed me, and then some other people kind of gave me the thumbs-up unenthusiastically. But that’s okay! Because after the first few kick it off, everyone will want in. Especially considering what little effort it takes to just make a comic, and make it part of a larger project.

I will eventually be creating a dedicated website for the comic, and, I guess, draw the very first one myself. In the meantime, in case this idea interests you, here are a few anticipated rules of play, or rather a statement of principles:

1. Comics should be original, use no copyrighted content and be made specifically for this project.
2. There will be no restrictions in their aesthetics, plot, characters used, etc. Except for those in the following two points.
3. At least one element of the preceding strip should be used or developed in yours, to keep a modicum of continuity. Examples: a character, colors used, a part of the plot.
4. No text may be used at all, no matter what language it’s in (unless it’s a fictional one.)
5. Strips should consist of a single image file of png, jpg or gif format, in any proportions (there might be a maximum width decided at a later time,) but made to be read on a screen. Maybe we should keep an archive of 300 dpi originals just in case, too?
6. Those interested in contributing need to be of my acquaintance, or of an author of one of the strips (this is not a completely open project.) No special talent is required.
7. Authors may not draw a strip again if they have already drawn one before, unless there are no fresh candidates.
8. The use of a particular logo of the project somewhere in the strip might be a requirement in the future. Maybe a name/pseudonym as well.

Take your strip as seriously or as lightly as you like; that’s the whole point! The rules above are only to make sure that the spirit is maintained, and for basic coherence. Things not mentioned are that I’d like it to be weekly, if we can pull that off, and that we’ll have to decide what to do in terms of authorial rights; some creative commons license should be okay, I suppose. Contact me if you’re totally in, and also to suggest a name for the comic.