Honours Project Podcast: We Love Technical Issues

Yup, that's right, we all have them, technical issues, almost worse than having relational or marital issues. Today I speak about my technical woes in Unity and how I managed to or did not manage to overcome them. You can listen to it bellow:

Podcast: We Love Technical Issues

Aesthetics are 'NOT' just Visuals/Graphics

Properly Defining Aesthetics within Gameplay (My Mistake)

After my proposal was marked, Robin suggested that Aesthetics should incorporate the whole rather than be explained simply as visuals. I had made this critical mistake within my research, perhaps not a mistake, but an overlooking of something important, and this caused my whole project to change along with the title.

FROM:

Systemic and Aesthetic Significance

TO:

Game Aesthetics: Visual and Systemic Significance

Further Analysis

So what does this change entail? 

Well, it basically means that using the word aesthetics as a parallel to the systemic, was boxing the aesthetics as the same level as the systemic, but in terms of game and within the game study sphere, this is not correct. Game aesthetics are the very thing that incorporates all of the aspects such as systemics/mechanics, visuals/graphics and sounds.

I originally thought that based off the MDA framework by Hunicke et el, that because mechanics follow dynamics followed by aesthetics, that creating a framework which focused on the MA would be a fast track way to get the meat of the results. Now I realize that there is no guaranteed way to produce such fast track results without a lot of testing and quantitative results. This proposed for me to focus solely on the aspects which I started to seek after, which is a games graphics and gameplay. Rather than referring to graphics as aesthetics and boxing the term, I now decided to put both terms into the whole of game aesthetics.

A series called Extra Credits which was made by the people who run Penny Arcade explain the term Aesthetics in regards to play in a simple yet effective way:

Aesthetics are the end by product of the mechanics and dynamics being played out within a game. As it was stated in the video, the MDA framework has been a great way to visualize and study the design of games and the interaction with the user.

A further video which helped me to understand the concept of game aesthetics even further, was another Extra Credits video on the topic of Graphics vs. Aesthetics:


They argue within the video that aesthetics are holistic and that if you value graphics over aesthetics, you can be left with an empty experience. I certainly was not intending to focus on graphics alone, I understood that systemics are equally important, although having this obfuscation when relating to aesthetics was limiting the potential of my research area.

Application of knowledge

After being corrected by Robin, I started to research the topic in more depth myself and found academic reports that also shared the same viewpoint in relation to games.

An academic article called 'Making sense of Game Aesthetics' aptly discusses the topic of game aesthetics and how they are often limited and referred to as the games graphic style or named with negative associations  such as 'Eye Candy'.

It can be read here: http://www.digra.org/dl/db/09291.00352.pdf

The articles opens with:

"In recent years, game studies scholars have brought an expanded conception of
aesthetics to bear in the study of digital games. Far from being limited to speaking
about the visual presentation of games and graphic styles (with the negative
associations of “eye candy”), game aesthetics has become a perspective that allows us
to examine the overarching principles and qualities of the gameplay experience. Our
aim is to contribute to a fuller picture of what games can hope to become.

Although some of us root our work in a consideration of aesthetics as practiced
historically, our perspective draws upon a range of critical and creative practices
drawn from cultural theory, art history and fine art practice, visual semiotics,
psychology and interaction design, We hope to supplement aesthetics’ traditional
strengths in discussing the senses, emotion, pleasure and the aesthetic experience,
with arguments that allow us to consider embodied play, tangible interfaces, and
creative player activity.

Game studies is an emerging discipline that draws upon many scholarly practices, but
one thing we share is taking pleasure in play. This panel will accordingly seek to
demonstrate the breadth, power and relevance of current approaches to game
aesthetics by inviting scholars whose work engages aesthetics to examine a single
game of their choice in depth. The games we have chosen for analysis are dot.hack,
Flower, Hitman and Okami."

Studies like this seem to imply that focusing on graphics alone or on external factors alone within a game lose the quality of what creates depth and emotion within the experience. This is precisely why I ventured into the territory in the beginning, to help clarify what aspects of games bring that certain amount of depth.

Another academic articled named "What we talk about when we talk about Game Aesthetics" discusses the same concept of aesthetics being a separate entity and also states that by defining aesthetics simply as a graphical style, it put's it into a similar catorgory as a singular art form and takes away the games own definition as a medium.

It can be read here: http://www.digra.org/dl/db/09287.17350.pdf

The article explains:

"However, within a game industry context, this
particular approach to game aesthetics—relating games to
other art forms—tends to mire aesthetics discourse in
graphics style analysis [18], or returns us repeatedly to the
ultimately unproductive question “are games art?” As has
been demonstrated numerous times in design fora (such as
Gamasutra) recently [5, 2, 36], this question tends to
founder upon individual interpretations of the current, very
open definition of what constitutes an artwork (see Kelly,
above), rather than upon failure to appreciate the artistic
qualities specific to digital games."

This was the first time that I reflected on the topic of asking whether 'games are art?' or not could be 'unproductive', as I was one who liked to ask that question myself. Although from critically thinking about that question and how often it is asked, I realise that it is quite an unproductive affair due to there being no strictly defined term for art itself, so how can video games join that same unclear definition? Also, when would we know that games have become art? when they are in exhibitions? (they already are) when they are sold for a high price on auction as art?... It's almost certain that it can prove to be unproductive if there is no solid outcome in progressing with this debate.

Many of these discoveries have enlightened and extended my knowledge and will be documented to help share the profundity of certain found research.

Honours Project Podcast: My Critical Framework

Another podcast, this time on the topic of my critical framework and how I came about developing it. Having one which is properly back by research and carries significant academic purpose is crucial. More about this bellow:

Podcast: My Critical Framework

Supervisor Meeting 5

I recently had another meeting with my supervisor, this one felt as though things within my project are starting to come to and end, which for the most part is true as we reach the month of April. My game is now fully running and the artwork has been replaced and polished yet again. I have also figured out some technical issues within my game, so things are certainly looking positive at this stage.

Dayna was fairly pleased with the progress of my game and he also had a brief look at my critical framework displayed in my presentation and said that it made sense and the ratings given for the games also seemed appropriate, so things are certainly starting to take shape.

Here is what we discussed:

Meeting Agenda:

·        Show the pitch presentation number 4 which is the last presentation.

·        Discuss next actionable steps for the game.

·        The new framework that you created to get some feedback.

·        Show how you rated Tiny Wings and Thomas was Alone asking for feedback on the ratings of the games.

·        Show the updated game and seek ideas for further polished development.

Progress Report:

·        The critical framework has been presented and is of high quality.

·        The game is progressing smoothly after a slow start.

·        The case studies of Tiny Wings and Thomas was Alone are shaping up nicely.

·        The dissertation has been reworked due to some necessary changes due to the direction also being changed.

Agreed action points:

·        Have a draft of the dissertation done by the first or second week of April at the latest.

·        Start preparing for your showcase, thinking about printing business cards from Moo.com.

·        Try to sketch out and document your ideas and your progress.

·        Expand on your case studies of Tiny Wing and Thomas was Alone.

Pitch Presentation No.4

Summary

My last presentation of this year was a useful experience in which I could see my prject finally taking off as I finally have a game up and running. It certainly isn't perfect, although as an artist with no programming experience I feel quite pleased with myself and the end result.

The presentation went well and Lynn said that I "presented very well as always" which is always encouraging to hear as a student. I feel that after each time I give a presentation, I improve every time. Just before a presentation I am extremely nervous and dread going up there, but once you just stand up and start speaking and are confident in what you are talking about, then there is no need to fear and you just talk with passion about what you have been up to and share your thoughts.

I talked about Dayna's previous framework which had inspired me to speed up the process of the creation of my own framework. Through a lot of academic research and with the assistance of the MDA framework which I discussed earlier, i was able to create my own framework.

It is named the Mechanics and Aesthetics framework, which displays the traits of what create the subjective aspects of a game in an objective way. 

Here is the framework applied to Tiny Wings, evidently, the challenge and feel are aspects which it excels at. This was rated after a few short plays and an in depth case study will take place later.

The main meat of the presentation was the updated creation of my game: Destony which is now running. I played a video of the game running during the presentation and people seemed to like it. You cannot yet collect the white block, although this feature will be added in the future.

Feedback

General feedback was very positive, Lynn suggested that I create blinking eyes for the blocks to make them more interesting. Ryan wasn't so sure about the direction of my project anymore as it has changed a lot since it's inception. Although despite that, the feedback was very positive and they said to just keeping going and polishing the game and the theory coming up to the final hand ins and exhibition.

Appraisal:

• Great that you have the game working.
• The art has significantly improved and is easier on the eyes. 
• You present very well as always.
• Your theory is really strong behind your game, it would be nice to see how you can package that in the end product of your game and showcase.

Constructive Criticism:

• Make sure you know how you will package the whole concept and theory at the end of the semester.
• Create blinking eyes for the blocks to make them more interesting.
• It would be interesting if you could use that framework on a game which actually scores high on freedom so that the results can be more varied.