Adventure Gamers - Forums

I create this topic here, because it arose in Adventure forum and frankly i find it more interesting than the topic it rose in.

St_Eddie - 15 August 2022 06:12 PM

Now somebody could say “I like the way that there’s no collision detection and I like the way that when you put your truck in reverse, it will keep getting faster until it’s going at 1000 miles per hour and I like the way that the game constantly crashes back to the desktop” and that would be a valid subjective response (because there is no such thing as an invalid subjective response).

Am i correct that you consider a game that does well what a designer intended it to do a objectively good game? Because a difference between a race game with a collision detection and a first person slide adventure without the collision detection is this -the designer didn’t intend later game to do things, that need the collision detection.

Lets deal with a question whether animation in ReMi trailers is bad. In LucasArts games characters gesticulated a lot and when they spoke their heads moved so much as if they were constantly nodding. With little pixel people it seemed cute but with distorted characters it comes off differently. It may turn out to be psychological fact that our brains have hard times with melding those distorted images appearing in succession into fluid animation. If it is so it is objective fact that lot of people wouldn’t find this kind of animation good.

There are other non objective things besides taste. Values may play part in judging art and some people might think that there is such thing as overvaluing graphics, music etc. in games. Of course, people valuing those things have right to have different sets of values.

Doom - 18 August 2022 12:53 PM

I don’t think “fluid” is an appropriate word in case of Return’s animation.

I meant that it doesn’t seem fluid because our mind is not able to work those images into fluid animation. (After all, animation exist only for psyche, objectively there are still images and it is mind that melts them together.) I can’t exclude possibility that there is alien race for whom that animation seems fluid or other similar possibilities.

These days when society is increasingly complex, not only different cultures but different subcultures have different standards. May be that ReMI graphics were intended to be humorous and hip by indie games standards but they met backlash by MI fans whose standards come from time when adventure games were AAA games.

Artists have their own subjective tastes. It rises an interesting question about what critics really do when they find flaws in art -do they just contemplate what would have they done differently if they had created a piece or art or they secretly imply that artist should have not followed her own taste and should have made a piece of art that the critic or public would have liked.

I was thinking about conventional art where artist still has stylistic choices. What is critics or hobby critics (like people in game forums) stance towards of authors taste in stylistic questions or do they even realize that authors have tastes too.

Doom - 20 August 2022 09:37 AM

It depends on the nature of his art. If it’s simply self-expression, made by an artist for his own enjoyment, than it’s absolutely up to him whatever his style is, just don’t expect people to praise or even notice it.

I see expressive side of art as kind of tango with an audience -an artist has to be conventional enough to be understandable and innovative enough to get her message through.

But if the artist wants to gain money, than be ready to do art the way your client or your audience expect it to be done.

Depressive side of selling art is the question of size of possible customers. That is why it is hard to sell enough adventure games to justify AAA budget.

Art critics though is a completely different thing. In my opinion this is the most useless and worthless profession(s) that should’ve been erased many years ago.

In the past there was belief in the progress of art. Back then critics were probably seen as someone who understands that progress and enlightens both authors and audience about it.

Torrens - 03 November 2023 11:00 AM

Yeah monkey island did a lot in terms of making games an art, agree

Can we just necro year-old threads like this lol?

Doom - 20 August 2022 09:37 AM

Art critics though is a completely different thing. In my opinion this is the most useless and worthless profession(s) that should’ve been erased many years ago.

How so? They’re necessary and make sense as peoples’ tastes flock to those critics which resonate with their own, yet have no way of expressing it, or which challenges others’ preconceptions. The issue comes with creating a cult of personality around (any) critics like the late Roger Ebert, seeing as their deep-seated bias can lead to unfair takes, like his reason to give 1 star to Blue Velvet.

Both the late Sister Wendy Beckett and the late Arthur Danto were art critics on completely opposite sides of the spectrum and yet I value their POVs equaly; they’ve helped me broaden my art (appreciation) horizons manyfold. BUT Art critics’ place in the age of AI Art will make them increasingly poignant, or kill them.