15 earlier 00s video game auteurs who searched out the avant-garde

‘Do Avant-Garde video games? exist? If not yet, what will they look like? Will we know what they are when they happen? For those not too familiar, wikipedia sums it up nicely: “The avant-garde (from French, “advance guard” or “vanguard”, literally “fore-guard”) are people or works that are experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society. It may be characterized by nontraditional, aesthetic innovation and initial unacceptability, and it may offer a critique of the relationship between producer and consumer.”

‘A lot of avant-garde stuff has redefined the question “What is ____?” Such as when the Second Viennese School of Music came up with 12-tone rows and matrices and etc. basically saying “Let’s give every pitch equal importance, we must break the bonds of tonalism and harmony!” so they basically came up with music that sounds like this:

‘And John Cage answered “Music is organized sound” and came up with this. Then Ornette Coleman did something similar in the jazz realm where he asked “What is jazz music?” and his answer was this:

‘And you can point to examples of really thorny, difficult literature as well as film, art, etc. It seems they just don’t care at all whether people will like it or receive it well; all they want to do is push the boundaries of the art form as far as they can be pushed.

‘I wonder if this has happened in video games yet? I imagine there must be some really bizarre, head-scratching games out there that make you question some things but they’re probably buried deep and no one knows where they are. I think that’s an important distinction: These games have to at least be somewhat in the public conscious. Pony Island probably comes closest from what I’ve seen of that game…But it’s still not demanding in the way the above works are demanding.

‘So what would this avant-garde game be? And how mainstream would it be? Everyone who studies music knows Schoenberg and John Cage (similarly Jazz with Ornette Coleman) so I’d say it’s gotta be some hidden talent developer with cult like status (say…Swery or Suda51 or something–that kind of status).

‘Would this game even be a “game”? I mean even now we’re having trouble defining “games”. Lots of people think walking simulators aren’t games, for instance. Would we define game as “interactive medium”?’ — GiantBomb

 

Biggt
Davey Wreden
Jonatan Söderström
Auriea Harvey & Michaël Samyn
Richard Hofmeier
Merritt Kopas
Porpentine
Tetsuya Mizuguchi
Keita Takahashi
Jonathan Mak
Anna Anthropy
Phil Fish
Masaya Matsuura
Alexander “Demruth” Bruce

 

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‘This is a series of five Game Maker games, all released in 2006, by Matt Aldrige, who also goes by the names TheAnemic or biggt. All games are short, abstract surreal tales, almost randomly thrown together, but offer very surprising gameplay and thoughts for an open-minded player. In an GM Inside interview Aldrige said to have created the games during a period where he was working on a major games project, and was afraid he would not be able to finish it. The La La Land series became a byproduct of that. A sixth game was hinted at, but eventually not released.’

La La Land 2 (2006)

gameplay

La La Land 1 (2006)

gameplay

________________

‘Davey Wreden isn’t done making you sad. He co-designed The Stanley Parable and directed The Beginner’s Guide, and now he’s heading up a new team with the aim of producing games “that are beautiful, meditative, thoughtful, and sad”. So like the games he’s already worked on, but with fewer jokes.’

The Stanley Parable (2013)

gameplay

 

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‘Jonatan “cactus” Söderström is a Swedish game developer with over 50 games made with Game Maker. He is known for completing games very quickly, and for promoting the idea that games don’t have to be fun. His games can be identified by a characteristic “cactus” style, which all of his creations seem to share.’

Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number (2015)

Trailer

Clean Asia! (2007)

gameplay

 

________________

‘Auriea Harvey & Michaël Samyn are designers and directors of all Tale of Tales projects. They are also the co-foundesr and co-owners of Tale of Tales BVBA. From the Tale of Tales site: “The purpose of Tale of Tales is to create elegant and emotionally rich interactive entertainment. We explicitly want to cater to people who are not enchanted by most contemporary computer games, or who wouldn’t mind more variety in their gameplay experiences. For this purpose, all of our products feature innovative forms of interaction, engaging poetic narratives and simple controls.”‘

Sunset (2015)

Trailer

Bientôt l’été (2012)

 

________________

‘Richard Hofmeier’s Cart Life was originally released in May 2011, and for a good while it drifted along without all that much attention. This was a huge shame, because the retail simulation title is as brilliant as it is deep. You play as an entrepreneur who is looking to start a business, while also making sure other areas of his or her life are kept in order. After sprucing certain areas of the title up and gaining a little more player traction, Hofmeier decided to fire it IGF-ward in 2012 — with incredible results. Not only has the game been nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, but it’s also up for the Narrative and Nuovo awards.’

Cart Life (2013)

Trailer

 

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‘I first became aware of the multimedia artist & game designer Merritt Kopas through her shrewd skewering of games on the website Nightmare Mode, for which I was also writing at the time. The website has since passed away into cyberspace heaven, the archives of which are here, but Merritt has grown as a designer and game theorist in an inspiring way since we went down our separate paths, making games such as Lim, Consensual Torture Simulator, and Positive Space.’

Lim (2012)

gameplay & review

 

________________

‘It’s almost impossible to separate the “Twine revolution”—the proliferation of small-scale interactive fiction created by nontraditional game designers—from Porpentine. The Oakland, California-based creator’s alien, poetic work has been a fixture of the Twine scene for years while also serving as a microcosm of all the best parts of it. Porpentine’s work is compelling because its attention to language and detail builds small spaces that feel simultaneously uncanny and warm. Even at their most wildly creative, Porpentine’s games have a core of lived experience to them. Stories of troubled, alienated people, communicated in vibrant and inscrutable aesthetics. It’s a powerful combination.’

Bellular Hexatosis (2015)

Trailer

Eczema Angel Orifice (2015)

 

_________________

‘Not long ago, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, the legendary game designer behind musical classics Rez and Lumines, was on vacation with his family in Hawaii. When he looked out the window of his Airbnb, his view was dominated by a lush, green golf course. As he stared outside, he couldn’t help but see very specific shapes in the grass. “I found a tetromino in the golf course,” he says. What Mizuguchi experienced is something known as “the Tetris effect,” a condition where people spend so much time doing a particular activity that it begins to invade their thoughts. It’s named after the classic puzzle game, where falling blocks have been to known to enter players’ dreams if they play too much. Tetris Effect also happens to be the name of Mizuguchi’s next game.’

Tetris Effect (2018)

gameplay

Lumines (2005)

gameplay

 

________________

‘To understand why Keita Takahashi makes the kinds of games he does, you have to go back to the time he made a goat. While studying fine art and sculpture at Musashino Art University, Takahashi wanted to create things that served a purpose beyond just being looked at. One day, when at a loss for ideas, he decided to sculpt a goat-shaped vase. Flowers and soil went in the goat’s back and excess water drained from its udders. “Then I did a presentation of my goat to the other students and the professor, and they laughed, because it was so stupid,” Takahashi said at an interview during BitSummit, the annual independent games festival held this year in Kyoto, from June 1-2. “That’s the moment I knew what I should do: Make something that makes people smile.”’

Hohokum (2014)

Trailer

Noby Noby Boy (2009)

gameplay

 

_________________

‘Any discussion of interactive music scores for games would be incomplete without Jonathan Mak. His self-produced title Everyday Shooter used classic top-down space combat as a musical experience: not only do sound effects in the game act as musical elements, but even the flow of the game itself fits into a generated song structure. Mak even imagined the title as an album. Playing through it, once you get into the groove of the action, the roles of gamer and listener merge into a single flow. (See video, at end.) Another nice feature – breaking from cliche, it’s a music game that employs guitar lacks in place of, say, a pounding trance soundtrack.’

Sound Shapes (2012)

gameplay

Everyday Shooter (2008)

Trailer

 

_________________

‘Anna Anthropy is a game developer, critic and author of Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Drop-outs, Queers, Housewives, and People Like You Are Taking Back an Art Form, described as “equal parts auto-biography, video game history and, call to arms and manifesto for the do-it-yourself video game scene”.’

ohmygod are you alright? (2015)

Trailer

dys4ia (2012)

gameplay

 

________________

‘A stand-out feature of Jonathan Blow’s recent game design past, that he has not devoted a lot of time to focussing on in his talks, is how both Braid’s and The Witness’ core game content were in place years before the games came out, such that it was possible to play through the entire game at a very early stage in development. In both cases puzzles have still been added, tweaked and cut from the games right up to release but it has allowed Blow to spend years of development time just on the finer honing and polishing of the games rather than mainly focussing on the creation of content in the first place and having a shorter beta phase, which is what many game development teams are more used to.’

The Witness (2016)

gameplay

Braid (2008)

gameplay

 

_________________

‘Phil Fish, the creator of celebrated indie video game Fez, is notorious for voicing angry, controversial opinions about the state of video games and their development. Today, however, he seems to have ragequit on the entire video gaming community, and has taken the sequel to Fez down with him. On his Twitter account and on developer Polytron’s website, Fish has announced that Fez II has been canceled. Polygon and Joystiq both independently confirmed with Fish that it’s not a joke: the game is no more. Developer Polytron also confirmed the cancellation in a tweet to its followers, writing “we apologize for the disappointment.”‘

Fez (2012)

gameplay

 

________________

‘Masaya Matsuura, born June 16, 1961 is a video game designer and musician based in Tokyo, Japan. Matsuura been credited with popularizing the modern rhythm-based music video game at his studio NanaOn-Sha. Matsuura is not happy with the state of game audio today, complaining that music in many games is simply background filler, and while the quality has improved its role “is still like it is in movies.” He mentioned that he had previously been quite negative about the cinematic aspirations of some modern games, but that now he feels that like everything, it can have a place.’

Vib Ribbon (1999)

Rib-Ripple (2004)

gameplay

 

_________________

‘Alexander “Demruth” Bruce is the developer behind the critically acclaimed game Anti-Chamber. Currently it is not know whether he plans return to game development. He has stated only that he is taking a break to concentrate on health and fitness.’

Antichamber (2013)

gameplay

 

 

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