Aartform Games Blog

Are games Art? I think they might be more like Cooking.

Designing a work of art typically falls into a straight forward workflow – Sketch some ideas, Find some reference images, Draw some detailed sketches, and then paint/sculpt the finished work with as much time spent on detailing and polishing as is available. The workflow is pretty much the same each time, and while a lot depends on the skill and perseverance of the artist a good artist can follow the exact same pattern and create a series of good works.

Designing a game has a very different workflow. If you try and follow the Art flow you would begin with a description of the gameplay and some example screenshots as your ‘Sketch’ – or in game speak a pitch document. Then a good artist would turn to life to find reference material – what would that mean for a game? How much value do history, economics and psychology really have on in a typical game that has to balance fun, ease of use and player expectations of legacy gameplay. More often than not game designers just look at other games for gameplay ideas, and leave the more colourful research to dressing up that gameplay in a genre style.

Next in the art flow would come a detailed drawing of the finished product. This would be a first-playable demo for the game. Unfortunately while the drawing is quick to execute and easily changed, a first-playable often takes a massive amount of time and once made there is little scope for changing direction. Given a choice between cancellation and pressing ahead with a faulty design it is very common just to plow ahead, add the extra art assets and levels and try to ship the game. The polishing stage can help add an air of quality to the game at this point but fundamental gameplay issues are locked in by now.

For a game it is essential that there is enough flexibility at the first-playable stage – especially in a new genre/style. It is at this stage that there is enough working in the engine to start playing and fiddling with the mechanics, but not too much overhead that everything slows to a halt.

Back to the analogy – Art can be born of a good idea, and then fairly predictably be taken to a quality final item by an artisan – on the other hand Games might begin with a rough idea, but need to be made before they can be designed. And once they are up and running the design process is not an imitation of life, but a concoction of game mechanics – a mixture of separate elements brought together by a Cook, and carefully balanced by tasting the dish in progress. You can’t judge a game by it’s recipe as you could judge a masterpiece by the original sketch – a massive amount of the utility of a game rests in its preparation and the balancing of its ingrediant gameplay mechanics.

So while I wear my game designer hat I am happier to create lots of experimental dishes (mini-playable-games like the Kingdom Trader pictured) – so I can test them out in the tasting – than I am debating the value of individual gameplay mechanics and numbers on paper.