How has art
influenced game design?
Art has
influenced many things in life, but has it influenced Game Design? In this
essay I will be exploring whether game designers are inspired by certain art
movements to create their games. I have played many games with distinct art
styles but do people believe they fit into the movement of the specific art
style. To do this is shall be focusing on the recent Rayman games created by
Ubisoft. The main purpose of this essay is to find out whether the Rayman games
art style were inspired by certain art styles such as surrealism or minimalism.
-
What is art?
Whilst creating
this essay I discovered that art is something that has been created in some way
and has given either the creator or the viewer a certain emotion whether its
happy or sad. Most people refer to paintings, drawings and music when talking
about art; this is probably because it is in most cases the easiest way to
represent emotions.
“Something that
is created with imagination and skill and that is beautiful or that expresses
important ideas or feelings” [1].
-
What is a game?
In my opinion a
game is something that you can interact with whether its virtual or not. A game
will always have a set goal or target to achieve. Like in certain video games
the goal is to reach the end of a level and rescue a princess or damsel in
distress. Other main examples are to score as many points as you can by
shooting different objects or enemies before you run out of time or lives. “A
physical or mental activity or contests that has rules and that people do for
pleasure” [2].
Rayman is a 2D
side scrolling platform game created by Ubisoft. The game focuses on a very
surreal character named "Rayman", he is a surreal character because
he is a floating body with a head, hands and feet floating in the positions
they would on a regular human being. The main plot for the games is for Rayman
to travel through a very unique and colourful world and to rescue electoons
from several different villains. Rayman
was originally designed for Atari Jaguar and for the play station 1 around the
same time in 1995. Since then four more main games have been released; Rayman 2
The Great Escape, Rayman 3 Hoodlum's Havoc, Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends.
Although Rayman 2 and 3 went in a more 3-D direction they are still classed as
arty and surrealist as the other 2-D side scrolling plat formers. As well as
all the main games Rayman has featured in many spin off games or minor games,
the most popular of these are the Raving Rabids series, which focus more on
party games but still have the very distinct art style that has helped Rayman
become so popular.
The level
design and terrain is very artistic and flows easily. Although the background
technically isn’t part of the platform Rayman is moving on, it moves slowly
adding an effect that your character is moving a great distance. This helps add
depth to levels making a much larger world to travel across. The colours used
for the terrain are what you would expect when see grass or forests. The
backgrounds often use a monochromic technique. For instance the forest area is
made up from a lot of different shades of greens and browns. This helps the
game become even more pleasing on the eyes.
The terrain
used in the levels can be linked to terrains on earth, such as over exaggerated
jungle areas, levels of just ice blocks towering in the sky and an area where
musical instruments make up land. This is done with drums and clarinets make up
the ground you run or jump on. This again links to surrealist art.
Whilst playing
the Rayman games for many years I have always known the games are heavily
influenced by art and in my opinion, Surrealism has a large part in the art
style of the games. Whether it’s the terrain Rayman is running across or the
antagonists and protagonists. It is very clear that Michael Ancel, the man who
first created and designed Rayman along side the other main characters such as
Globox and Betilla was sticking to the main feature of Surrealism in letting
his imagination run wild.
- What is surrealism?
Surrealism is a
cultural movement that started in the 1920’s that focuses on art and literacy.
The main artistic focus was to paint unnerving, illogical and strange images
with a photographic perception. This resulted in creating strange creatures and
landscapes. “The principles, ideals, or practice of producing fantastic or
incongruous imagery or effects in art, literature, film, or theatre by means of
unnatural or irrational juxtapositions and combinations”. [3]
“Rayman Origins
was a surreal experience for me for a number of reasons – but one in
particular, the drop-dead amazing visuals.” [4]
This is a quote
I have collected from a review of one of the games in the series. One of the
first lines instantly says that the game is surreal because of the artistic style.
I completely agree with this quote because one of the main reasons I became a
big fan of the Rayman video game series was because of the brilliant surreal
art style that grabs your attention from the start with out distracting you
from the levels you are playing.
So has art
influenced game design? In my opinion it has, because art is classed as
something you create to give yourself or the viewer emotion and video games are
created to challenge you sometimes emotionally or physically. This means if there
was no such thing as art video games would not exist which obviously proves
that art has massively influenced all kinds of game design.
[2]
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/art
[3]
http;//Merriam-webster.com/dictionary/surrealism
Luke Watters
Lwgamesdeign.blogspot.co.uk
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