I released Art Game into the wild today. Where “the wild” is “Twitter” and my very exclusive mailing list. It’s a game I spent a lot of time on over the last couple of months, and really I’ve been thinking about it in some form for maybe almost a year. So it was an important one to me, is what I’m saying. Did a lot of testing with great testers (where “testing” includes some pretty excellent philosophical discussions about games and art). Everything was looking great! And then the people in the gallery decided to kind of have a mass seizure and march off screen…
This probably isn’t the first game I’ve released with some serious bugs – I feel it’s happened before. But for some reason this one really hurt, especially after all the effort by testers, and really wanting this to be a smooth experience, because I think the game relies rather a lot on the whole thing feeling relatively seamless. Nobody wants seizures in their show-of-a-life-time. Because I kind of believe in this blog involving some real disclosure about the activity of making games, I can tell you I felt panicky, that I had the burning cheeks of embarrassment, and that I really beat myself up about for quite a while.
As I debugged, I briefly toyed with the idea that if it was a rare glitch I would pass it off as spontaneous performance art. But it wasn’t rare, it was… always.
But I fixed it (by doing nothing at all as far as I could tell, and with a great deal of help from Eltons Küns), and I fixed another bug (I think), and Art Game floated along, not too much the worse for wear. And I’m pleased with it I think. So far people seem to like it, which is deeply gratifying. I think it does some of the things I imagined it doing when it was just a little baby idea on my list of game ideas.
I think it’s possible to feel proud about the work you make. I think it’s possible to feel angry with the curator for not selecting a particularly excellent example of your oeuvre. I think it’s possible to feel indignant when someone in the gallery takes a cheap-shot at one of your painting. I think it’s possible to feel elated when you’re on the cover of Artforum. And I hope it’s possible for the game to serve as a platform for people to muse about the whole weird games and art business, too. And the art and games business, for that matter. Most of all, I think it’s possible to express yourself as an artist and to invest in that and not have the game let you down too much.
Perhaps I’ll write something more coherent about the game another evening. For not, I’m glad it’s out there and that people can take a look and maybe paint a painting or two.
February 4th, 2013 at 11:29 pm
I genuinely loved it.
For some reason, maybe from your previous games or your general style, I played it expecting zero criticism from the NPCs. Like, “do this, and we’ll congratulate you for any result.” I don’t know, later it felt pretty bad when some character disliked something I did. The curator is the worst, since you kinda feel she’s really trying to compliment you because of your status, and when she can’t find any good stuff in the work you’ve done, it can destroy your self-esteem, even if I knew it was just a randomized reaction.
The only bug I found was sometimes, instead of taking me to the gallery, the screen faded to white and the game froze then and there. Not really terrible, since refreshing the site and selecting CONTINUE from the menu did the trick.
You should’ve tried to integrate the glitch you talk about to the game. I’ll never consider myself a complete artist until the day I can finally see my audience face my work and then have a mass seizure and leave.
February 4th, 2013 at 11:49 pm
How much substance is there in the exhibit selection/feedback mechanism? I got PISSED when I made a bunch of stuff I was really proud of in Tetris and she didn’t think there was anything worth exhibiting! (then I laughed)
February 5th, 2013 at 3:32 am
Let me start off by just copy-pasting the comment I made at the Indiegames blog about your game:
———————
Great concept!
What struck me most is that after creating an “artwork”, I really tried hard to come up with a title that fitted the mishmash of pixels.
I knew in advance that it probably wouldn’t matter one bit gameplay wise, but somehow it felt quite important to me, making this quite a personal experience.
———————-
Alright, now for some technical feedback:
I encountered the exact same bug mentioned by David T. Marchand.
It happened to me about two or three times but luckily I was able to proceed by following his advice of refreshing the page.
Also, one time while playing the two player game, one of the characters got stuck to a patron, making it impossible to move. Refreshing the page did the trick again, but after I returned to the game the patrons would actually be able to walk right through the wall on the rightmost side of the gallery.
I guess my art was so bad they just had to find the fastest way to exit the building, solid walls be damned!
Aside from these glitches, I thoroughly enjoyed this game and I’m looking forward to more of your wonderful creations!
February 5th, 2013 at 10:08 am
- Glitches -
So annoying! This “fade to white” bug is really mystifying me as I’m struggling to recreate it so as to be able to debug it. I’ll keep trying over today, anyway, maybe I’ll find it. Did anything seem “different” about the playthroughs where it hung? Artist used, work selected, etc.? Anyway, sorry :/
As to the people getting stuck… argh. Hmmm. I’ll play around with it and see if I can fix. And as to people running through walls… whoa… well, I’ll look for it!
- Otherwise -
Thanks for the great feedback on this. I’m really glad it seems able to trigger that weird tension of trying to make something and worrying about whether it will be good enough and so on, investing in actually expressing yourself with simple games. A good thing!
February 5th, 2013 at 10:08 am
@John Hah, yeah, sorry about that! (Between you and me, she’s a bit… random…)
February 5th, 2013 at 5:57 pm
Nice little game, I like it how people on the Internet start to interpret it. I also want to make real Tetris sculptures now.
February 5th, 2013 at 6:20 pm
That would be getting *very* meta!
February 5th, 2013 at 9:45 pm
I loved it. It really brought home the randomness of art and judgement. Also the visitors’ reflections were sometimes hilarious.
February 5th, 2013 at 9:50 pm
Thanks
February 6th, 2013 at 10:05 am
After playing three games and failing to convince the curator … I decided to do exactly what she recommended. Alas! I got three hit artworks and a good review on p.21 of artforum. I think she’s not random – She really sees into the core of your art!
February 6th, 2013 at 10:21 am
Haha. Great to see a play-through! Always so interesting to see what people do…
February 7th, 2013 at 6:27 am
Pippin, you have out-done yourself. The game is really wonderful – interesting, funny and beautiful in the perfect proportions. Played it a few times; the most memorable run-through was as Alexandra Tetranov. I made two columns, and one ended up appearing to bend over the other. In a stroke of 4am-genius, I called it ‘Mary with Child’. I was terrified that the fickle curator wouldn’t select it, but she did – AND a detail from this work made it onto the Artforum cover.
I can sleep easy tonight.
February 7th, 2013 at 9:28 am
Whoa – Mary with Child sounds great! It’s true that it feels so great when the curator actually picks the work you “believe in”. Thanks so much for the kind words!
February 7th, 2013 at 11:12 am
Bug report! I was walking through the gallery when I collided with a mobile patron (who then stopped walking) and we became stuck together. My artist continues struggling to be free while a constant stream of apologies is uttered.
February 7th, 2013 at 3:23 pm
Heh – while it’s tempting to say this is some kind of realistic depiction of gallery etiquette. Yeah, a problem. Is it with the twins, or did it happen with a solo artist? I’ll have a poke around in the code to see if I can find it, anyway…
February 7th, 2013 at 3:44 pm
You’re most welcome. Also – though you did link the blog on the main page, but I thought I’d take the liberty of linking it here so as to increase the number of people who see it – here is a German player’s painting, ‘Frogger Am Autofreien Sonntag’, which translates as ‘Frogger on a Car-Free Sunday http://d.pr/i/XS1T. I like how the joke seems more impressive and ‘high’ because it’s in a foreign language.
February 7th, 2013 at 3:54 pm
Hey, I had a great time playing this.
The way you used Tetris/Snake/Asteroids reminded me of readymades in art. They were like readymade videogames, but instead of going for a high score we had to do something original with the game mechanics.
I wrote some extended thoughts here wp.me/p2XHJB-3f.
Bravo!
February 7th, 2013 at 6:03 pm
@Paul – I love that image, you’re right that it feels like it must be significant in the context and language. Art’s nice (and hilarious) that way…
@Alexander – As I said on your blog, thanks for that writing, was very interesting to read!
February 8th, 2013 at 6:01 pm
Dear Pippin,
Thank you for this game, I love it. I wonder if there is any option to save my “painting” because I really like the first one I made.
February 9th, 2013 at 10:50 am
Hi there – thanks for liking the game! Sadly there’s no way to save other than to take a screenshot. If I ever make a “new and improved” version that’s certainly something I’d add of course!
February 9th, 2013 at 3:35 pm
I actually really like that you can’t build up your own collection of works in the in-game world. Obviously these artists have old works in storage somewhere, or out-of-shot in their studios, but the snapshot of their lives you interact with is focused on this one show and therefore bound to curatorial whim.
February 10th, 2013 at 10:09 am
@Paul – Right, interesting. I love all of the stuff we can read into games about their underlying “reality” – as you say, there must be art in storage or off camera or something. There’s something so great about that element of play. It’s true in other media too of course, but combined with interactivity I think it’s even more special…
February 20th, 2013 at 12:25 am
Hi Pippin,
I liked the experience very much. I was surprised three times. When I got to the point to creating sculpture, when I was creating the sculpture, and when mine was displayed.
February 20th, 2013 at 9:11 am
@Yun – A game with three surprises is a good game indeed!
February 23rd, 2013 at 1:29 am
I really enjoyed that. That feeling of making something then being judged really is an interesting one. This game has an opinion on that, I like it!
February 23rd, 2013 at 11:51 am
Hey thanks Rod!
April 4th, 2013 at 11:46 am
This is brilliant. I was giggling the entire time I played it. It was so funny when I wouldn’t even try to make a good art piece, but the curator would come at say that it was “deep and lyrical”. I also loved the silly things people in the museum would say about the art work!
April 4th, 2013 at 11:57 am
Lovely! I think giggling is probably a great metric for judging games – so I’m very glad!