Braid Creator on Games as "Sh**ty Action Movies"

[Andronicus]

I like Blow's approach to making games; he's driven by love for the medium, and not motivated by the bottom line. I honestly don't think he's actively trying to make a game that capitalises on the idea of "games as art". I think he's trying to make a puzzle for people to work out. Not just a puzzle in the sense of "turn the blocks to form a picture", but more a puzzle for the mind to tinker with, analyse and try to extract meaning from. People think too much about game mechanics and not enough about what the game-maker is trying to say. Obviously, game mechanics are important - it's a game, duh - but people are too focused on what's going to give them the quickest, simplest form of enjoyment, and not enough on food for thought.

The thing about Braid and people not understanding it is that they were trying to work out what Blow was thinking at the time, and that's not the point; the point is that you have to find your own meaning, let your brain do the deciding for you. He's not trying to make people feel dumb, he's just trying to get people to think more about why they do what they do in games; are you jumping on top of that Goomba because it's evil and out to kill you, or are you just doing it because it gets you a high score and a new level?

That's what I think anyway.

Anyway, what's this Miegakure they were talking about? Solve puzzles in four different spatial dimensions?! Where do I send my money to?

 

[Giftmacher]

He's right about one thing: ?Gamers seem to praise games for being addicting, but doesn?t that feel a bit like Stockholm syndrome??

I'm increasingly tired of (MMOs in particular) utilising Skinner box mechanics in an attempt to keep me hooked in the absence of a decent game. It'd be a bit insidious, if it was for the fact it's more likely laziness.

 

[Mr.Pandah]

This guy just doesn't stop with his snide remarks. Typical. It's hard to get on boat with someone who can't see other gems that aren't just "shitty action movies" on the video game market today other than him proclaiming his game to be some masterpiece that's the only thing that is apparently worth a damn on the market. This kind of arrogance annoys me and while he may be right that some games need to move past certain aspects that are holding the gaming scene down, we can't simply just stop making games that people actually enjoy. Who cares if they're not art to you? If they're fun, they're doing their job in my opinion. And if they get to a high enough level to be considered art as well? Even better.

 

[Darkcerb]

Hey it's The Path again.

Never played braid...not sure why have an odd aversion to 2d platformers.

 

[Sexy Devil]

Somebody really needs to shut this guy up. Making one average game which is somewhat artsy doesn't entitle you to slander the rest of the industry. Unless it does, then I need to make one so I can keep screaming at Valve in interviews to make Half-life 3.

 

[Monsterfurby]

He is definitely right, although he might want to consider learning from the point he himself makes. People (that includes indie developers) need to stop assuming that "Art equals Aesthetic". You CAN have a modern first-person shooter in brown/gray/red and let it still be art - if the gameplay is something new, something exciting, and something that makes you appreciate gaming even more.

Likewise, not every watercolor-artsy-comic-indie-retro-experience is "art-in-games". Some of them are. Some more obviously than others (Passage, for example, qualifies, as does Facade) but you don't have to be pretentious to be "art-in-games".

So yeah, what sound is to music and radio, what colour and shape are to painting, what light, camera work, acting and writing are to film - to games, that's interactivity and gameplay. Neither of these are mutually exclusive, though.

Edit: Also, there's "gameplay" and there's "context". Sometimes, providing new context to old gameplay can be just as effective as trying to re-invent the wheel on the gameplay front. Some of the greatest games of the past few generations (Half Life, for example), changed context instead of gameplay to great effect.

 

[Starik20X6]

I get Jo-Blo's message (if people don't already call him Jo-Blo they totally should) but the way he comes across when conveying that message makes me want to kick his pretentious teeth down his throat give him a stern talking to. Then I see this and laugh:

 

[draythefingerless]

ITS FUNNY BECAUSE HIS GAME IS NOTHING MORE THAN A MEASLY MARIO KNOCK OFF. oh whats that? it has a "message"? no sorry, i thought we were talking about games, and as far as the GAME goes, its just a mario knockoff. putting a bioshock-esque question in there doesnt make it less of a knockoff.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

I don't always like what Blow has to say (I quite often find much of what he says to be rather pretentious), but what he's saying here is very true. Self-evident, but true.

 

[Jonny49]

Here's an idea...


...why not have both?

 

[The White Hunter]

t's not so much the games themselves that I have a problem with; If they're good, they're good.

It's just the constant yammering by indy developers and everyone else that games should be so much more then what they are now, and that to be taken seriously as a art form, yadda yadda yadda...

For a billion dollar industry, the games world has such a low self esteem.

Oh I agree, gaming is in a good shape as it is, it's the biggest entertainment market in the world these days for a reason.

I just hate when games are praised and praised for being artistic and having great visual design and blah blah blah. But then it's actually a rather simple and rather boring puzzle platformer and not actually something particularly unique and special. Like Limbo. Limbo is exactly that to me.

A good example of being unique without sacrificing gameplay and enjoyment for "art" or just not using "art" as a main selling point was I Am Alive, I found that to have really nice visual direction and be nice and unique and fresh, whilst also having really solid survival gameplay.

 

[Kahunaburger]

My initial reaction:

Games these days are like shitty action movies.

Dude you made a game about jumping on shit.

But he does have somewhat of a point about games essentially trying to be shitty movies. Games like certain RPGs that sacrifice depth and storyline complexity for more "cinematic" visuals during dialogue segments or like certain shooters that feature extended QTEs instead of shooting things (or that rely on scripted events intead of enemy complexity or AI) do seem to fall into that category.

 

[Imbechile]

Sigh.....
When will people stop pushing games towards art and start making games that are actually fun to play?
Stop trying to be artsy and concentrate on the damn gameplay.

 

[Sexy Devil]

*deleted*