Art Game-Psychonauts

Psychonauts is a very excellent game.

"Psychonauts is based on the exploits of Raz, a young boy gifted with psychic abilities who runs away from the circus to try to sneak into a summer camp for those with similar powers in order to become a "Psychonaut". He finds that there is a sinister plot occurring at the camp that only he can stop. The game is centered on the widely strange and imaginative minds of various characters that Raz enters as a Psychonaut-in-training/"Psycadet" in order to help them overcome their fears or memories of their past, so as to gain their help and progress in the game. Raz gains use of several psychic abilities during the game that are used for both attacking foes and solving puzzles."--wiki

One artists I know from this game is Jacek Yerka

Art Game--Every Shiny Game Except The Ones Based On Movies

"Every Shiny game seemed to exist in the same darkly comic, ooze-dripping, subversive and sticky quadrant of the underworld, and even the ones that were torture to play (Messiah) kept you engaged with solid dialogue and voice acting, inventive new ways to kill stuff and backpacks full of snot." ------< 10 Video Games That Should Be Considered Modern Art>

There are many games that I can't fully analysis them for the graphic aspect.

It's great that someone mentioned the modern artists compare to : 

1. Doug TenNapel

I like his simple and colorful comic style

And the blog http://tennapel.wordpress.com/

2. Zdzislaw Beksinski

In the late 1960s, Beksiński entered what he himself called his "fantastic period", which lasted up to the mid-1980s.  is his best-known period, during which he created very disturbing images, showing a surrealistic, post-apocalyptic environment with very detailed scenes of death, decay, landscapes filled with skeletons, deformed figures and deserts. These paintings were quite detailed, painted with his trademark precision. At the time, Beksiński claimed, "I wish to paint in such a manner as if I were photographing dreams".

３.Michel Gagne

"Gagné has also finished his first video game, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, a 2D side-scrolling shooter game which was released August 3, 2011 on Xbox Live Arcade as part of the XBLA Summer of Arcade promotion"--WIKI

I like the way he design the monster

Art Game--Grim Fandango

About the Game " Grim Fandango" 

Below is from Wiki"Grim Fandango is a dark comedy neo-noir Windows adventure game released by LucasArts in 1998, primarily written by Tim Schafer. It is the first adventure game by LucasArts to use 3D computer graphics overlaid onpre-rendered, static backgrounds. As with other LucasArts adventure games, the player must converse with other characters and examine, collect, and use objects correctly to solve puzzles in order to progress"

About the context " Film noir", it reminds me of another game “LA Noire”.  And I found it became a special type.

From Wiki "Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classical film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s."

Can we call it the adventure of death? The role has a very simple cartoon style face which makes this game much more fun.  I think it's the highlight of the art part.

The cartoon face makes the game much more fun and the land of dead also seems dark humor. And the film noir style become a good context to show the adventure and puzzle.

Art Game--The Oddworld

About the Oddworld, of course, Odd is the main concept.

I think I need read a lot about how to design the Oddworld and then I can have my own opinion on this.

H.R Giger 

From Wiki, I know how he make his works. 

" Giger got his start with small ink drawings before progressing to oil paintings. For most of his career, Giger has worked predominantly in airbrush, creating monochromatic canvasses depicting surreal, nightmarishdreamscapes. However, he has now largely abandoned large airbrush works in favor of works with pastels, markers or ink.^[3]"

Art Game--Portal

About the Game---Portal. 


"What makes Portal a work of art isn't actually the world its set in; its the full and rigorous use of the gaming medium to deploy story, build tension and conjure atmosphere. " from the article 《10 Video Games That Should Be Considered Modern Art》.

About the modern artists to compare:

"This ones all about how they did it, not just what they did. To me that makes Kubrick the obvious choice, but at times Hitchcock seems equally appropriate."


I think from the visual art side, it's not easy for me to say anything about it. But I think it truly present something: cold, high-tech, puzzle. The lab element works as a maze, There is one way to play----to research the place and find way out.

Art Game --Heart of Darkness

"The game places players in the role of a child named Andy as he attempts to rescue his dog that has been kidnapped by creatures known as The Dark Souls.^[1] The game has about half an hour of storytelling cinematic sequences, thousands of 2D animated frames, and uses pre-rendered background scenery.^[1] The game is known for its infamous death scenes."---from Wiki 

I think the Game has more Disney style, especially when I see the Dog and the shadow monsters and all the backgrounds.

i think the concept is about the " Terror ". And in this game, the main color tends to use the darkness and evil style. And how to show the terror? A boy fear about the darkness will be a nice setting. Because children always fear about the dark and don't like to turn of the night.

So it create a scene that the boy has to face the darkness and it has a strong feeling of nightmare style. 

Talk about the Cartoon, the first artist comes to mind is Walt Disney. Nobody build a children's dream land like him. We all familiar with his cartoon animation. 

Hayao Miyazaki is also one of my favorite artists who create lots of excellent animation.

About Hayao Miyazaki, I think most of his works were reflecting the Japan in his childhood. The whole country was in the mood of reconstruction after the war. He must lived at the countryside and all his work shows lots of nature scene.

Nearly all his animation are about the concept of "Grow up". This concept matched the background in that period. 

Teenagers learn something in the ideal world and get back to the real world, after going through something, they grow up rapidly.

   

  

Art Game--Shadow of the Colossus

Shadow of the Colossus did some perfect work on the visual part.

I think buil a mysterious land is far more difficult than we think. not to mention it looks so real.

I make a very simple mind map to show the visual part of the game

 From the context, we can see that it's a game about Hero's journey in a mysterious land who is fighting for his girl.

 Love is the power to make people be brave. How to show the brave? And i think to fight with the huge monster is always the best idea.


We all afraid of the thing that out of our control or imagination. Especially in real world, we dare to fight the "giant" things. 

I forget the important thing in the context, that's the "Giants". Giants is the key role to make the game special. 

A hero's journey must be lonely and far away from daily life, so a vast and unpopulated peninsula gives a better imagination.

I think they use the way of regionalism is trying to make the scene more real and make people take it serious. Although it's a game, it also leads us thinking lots of questions about our real life.

From this game, I know a artist----Andrew Wyeth

From the wiki: "Andrew Newell Wyeth (/ˈwaɪ.ɛθ/ wy-eth;^[1] July 12, 1917 – January 16, 2009) was a visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style."

Here I would like to show 2 pics of both realist and regionalist:

Regionalism

Realism

I

And let's see Andy's work:

Art Game-Fallout Series

The Fallout Series game is based on a scenario of an alternative American history. 

 Now I think the concept maybe not "Bizarre", it would be more proper to use the word " Horror". 

And the Aesthetic is based on Retro-Futurism, which is "Bizarre", normally, "retro" and "Future" are opposite  to each other. In that case, to combine these 2 elements together will be absolutely bizarre.

The above face mask is similar to the one in the World War 2. It uses the background of Cold War and derives something new on a new scenario.

First they need to build a story background, and in order to show the horror, there is nothing more terrifying than the world  after nuclear war.

And the weapon design is based on the Retro-Futurism. This part is very crucial part, because the designer will consider a lot based on the original technology at that time , and to create the proper equipments for an alternative world without considering the development of the technology in the real world.

It even use the 50s AD style to make things more retro feeling.

Let's talk about the artist has the same style --Ron English

Art Game- The Last Resort

The Game 《The Last Resort》is  based on Mark Ryden's art work.  

Below is the pic of The Last Resort:

And Let's see Mark Ryden's painting:

If you like Mark Ryden, you can visit his website: Mark Ryden

Mark like to use the "retro" element, we can see it in the back ground as well as the dress up and props. 

He like to use the portrait way of showing the characters, and most of them has no expression on the face. 

 And also like to combine some conflict characters together in a very wired scene.

After study above, I made my own copy:

Art Game- Katamari Damacy

About Katamari Damacy, I've never played this game before, but it seems a very welcome and hot game all over the world.

I've made a mind map and show what I'm thinking about this kind of art game.

First, I should say that, this game give me a "Bizarre" feeling, however, I think the feeling is mostly from the way of playing it. " like a dung beetle" to roll shit into a ball. It can almost run every real thing into a big ball. And that is the most bizarre things, as nobody can do that in real world.

From the art aspect, I think the bizarre is show on the role part, especially the apparel. I think the inspiration is from the people wearing the inflatable clothing on the street to sell something.

The roles in the game all have a very humor character and express it in ridiculous way.

we can see the whole game is under a bright colors and all roles have a very simple and striking shapes.

One article 10 Video Games As Modern Art gives me a clue of some ideas above. 

In the Modern artist to compare it to , the article gives me 2 Modern artists name.

1. Takashi Murakami

I think the color use is very impressing, as in such a complex painting, it do also has a main color, which makes the painting looks harmoniously. The above one is mainly in blue and the below one is mainly in orange.

It does has the conflict of the color as well as the shape. The single shape is simple, and when it get together, they also present a simple shape-Spherical.

In a painting with massive bright colors, it would be good to put some black and white. 

So from above 2 paintings ,we can see that, it just very simple shape: the sun flowers and skulls.

In the frist "Blue" piece the face color of the sun flower is changed between black and white as well as the skulls. The petals are in various bule colors which make the basic color is blue. It does with many colors, but those tiny bright color will not effect the whole painting but makes it more bright in some way.

In the second " Orange " piece, the face of the sunflowers are mostly yellow and occasionally with black color.  The petals are in various different color which makes the whole color mainly in warm color"orange"

And when it add the big flower spherical, the conflict is between the shapes, the irregular shapes with the regular shape. In that case, all the background seems like a big fantasy stage waiting for the super star. (ps: The main color of the super start is close to the background main color)

 Takashi Murakami is surely influenced by the Master-Henri Matisse

Another artist is a Michel De Broin, he is very good at gathering some ordinary things together and endows them a new meaning.

I personally like the above piece of work, because it's really beautiful in the nature just like a magic thing there. It show many aspects of the point of view and gives a new way to think about out true world.

Of course, the below work will be surly the inspiration of making the Katamari Game.

The above piece gives us an idea that if chairs can roll together like a ball, why can't we roll every thing? 

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Below is my practice: