Why Art Games are Important | How Avant-Garde Games have Changed Game Design

This video traces the History of Art Games in our medium, and how they have been instrumental in changing game design. Often referred to as avant-garde games, art games like the marriage, passage, the graveyard and the path have often been dismissed when they first released, but now with the benefit of history, we get a sense of how influential they have been in transforming our assumptions about designing games.

To build this case, we examine the specifics of how these games have influenced more mainstream titles, as well as use the work of brian schrank, who”s work on avant-garde games has been instrumental in defining and identifying the avant-garde in games. What we find, is that not only do art games show a continuity between art history and games, they have fundamentally shifted how we think about our medium, challenging the assumption we hold as inviolable convention, and have inspired all of our creative sensibilities, perhaps without us even noticing

Sources

-Uncharted’s unlikely inspirations – Gamesutra

-Tale of Tales, Lets make a Video Game! -Indie cade

– Jonathan Blow Design Reboot

-Play Beyond Flow : A Theory of Avant Garde games Brain Schrank

-Avant Garde Video Games -Brian Schrank