Class Activities

I showed two things: the Disneyland Paris version of Space Mountain, and the Nars x Man Ray makeup collaboration.

Instead of a Tomorrowland in Disneyland Paris, they had a Discoveryland, which was themed after a steampunk future and based on the works of HG Wells and Jules Verne. Space Mountain specifically was themed around Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon. In the queue, guests go through the meeting place of the Baltimore Gun Club and can see their plans for the gun that will launch them into space. The story on the ride is that the guests are aboard the vehicle to be launched. I chose this because it was a very obvious example of direct appropriation, and it ties into my interests in theme park history. Disney is known for its frequent appropriation of other intellectual properties, especially without proper compensation.

The Nars x Man Ray collection was a makeup line from the brand Nars, with artwork and packaging using Man Ray’s works. I chose it because of its use of a Dada artist, tying into our discussions in class. However, the makeup itself doesn’t do much with the Dada inspiration and instead just uses it as an overlay and a tool for selling products, which contrasts with the actual ideas of many Dada artists.

Full Game / Full Video Playthrough

One of my favorite indie games for a while has been The Uncle Who Works For Nintendo, a horror Twine game by Michael Lutz. In it, you play as a child in the nineties who is going over to a friend’s house for a sleepover; their uncle, who works for Nintendo (hence the title), will be visiting at midnight. Throughout the night, the main character has different memories of playing Nintendo games and their friend acts suspiciously. When the uncle arrives, the player can choose to hide in various places or go and open the door with their friend; no matter what, the uncle takes over the screen with lines of code and “eats” them. The true ending is unlocked after experiencing some of the major endings.

The game explores themes of childhood, nostalgia, and fitting in, as well as how games shape our lives, as described in essays unlocked after completing the true ending. I also love the game because of how it creates a very specific tone using text, simple visuals, and powerful audio. Later in the game, it directly plays with the affordances we typically expect from video games, and ties video game functions (such as saving) and other aspects such as bugs directly into the narrative for the player to take advantage of. The use of game affordances as a narrative tool has always intrigued me, and games that do this have recently been breaking more and more into the mainstream.

That Dragon, Cancer is an autobiographical game created by Ryan and Amy Green about their son Joel’s fight with cancer. The majority of the game is a walking simulator, with the player taking the role of both parents as they struggle to cope with their son’s illness. The game focuses on ideas of love, loss, religion, and purpose, abstracted as chapters in their life with Joel.

That Dragon, Cancer does an amazing job showcasing what games are capable of, and I believe is an excellent example of an art game as it embodies values and affordances of both contemporary art and video games. The game defies the conceptual affordances laid out by the gaming community immediately. This isn’t a heroic game, or escapism, it’s a game about a real family’s struggles and hardships that are unavoidably brutal. Ryan wants players to face the harsh reality of death and to know that no matter what they may be going through that they are not alone.

The game also subverts formal affordances with its strict limits on the player’s agency. Often you can only walk and interact with objects, with little to no choice throughout, furthering the idea that this journey is inevitable. The characters are also abstracted, with the simple geometric faces not going for hyper realism, but a more or less blank canvas in which the dialogue from the real, struggling family can convey their emotion.

Finally the experiential affordances are entirely different from what one thinks of as the typical video game. There isn’t an inherent challenge for the player to conquer, or enemies to shoot. The player is living the lives of a family who is trying to survive, and is powerless to change anything. That Dragon, Cancer is about the player to facing and eventually accepting the harshest realities life has to offer, not escaping them.

As a whole, That Dragon, Cancer is a wonderfully unique game, both in it’s subject matter and approach to game design. It is unflinchingly real, not avoiding any of the paranoia, fear, or cowardice that comes when faced with an enormous struggle. The game design itself is incredibly minimalistic, with the undeniable focus being the story itself. It’s a game the provokes long and thoughtful reflection, and that captures a unique essence of fear and love that so many games fail to replicate.

I chose the game Samorost 3, a point and click puzzle adventure where the player interacts with a detailed and immersive world through the curious character Gnome. Gnome is equipped with a musical tool that allowed him to activate spirit like entities that inhabit objects in the environment. This game succeeds in many ways at knowing what type of game it wants to be, which is an immersive journey, and focusing on that in every way. The player engages with the game through discovery and solving puzzles in order to progress. The difficulty of the puzzles is balanced and relatively easy which has a positive impact by letting the player be equally as engaged in the challenge of a puzzle and the experience of solving a puzzle while existing in a new world. The art process utilizes a wide variety of digital painting and image manipulation (of things like horse hair and rocks) to create beautiful realistic outlandish visuals. The mastery and complexity in visuals is also matched with an beautiful soundtrack that mixes tribal tonnes, rich nature sounds, and an almost metallic biological noises at some parts. Headphones are a must.

I chose this game because of my personal affinity and it’s a strong example of how art intersects with games. In game art, as talked about in the readings, “challenge is often found in the unconventional themes and there mechanics to explore them” (Works of Game : On the Aesthetics of Games and Art). In In my opinion this game exists strongly in the space of art because of its ability to present challenge in the context of its unconventional visuals and mechanics.