What An Update

Wow! I haven't updated my journal in over a year. And the journal entry before my last one was another year-wide-span-of-update-in-between-journal-entries. ...I guess that makes my journalism a yearly subscription! Once you finish this, I'll see ya next year!

...nah, I'll try to be better about it. ...*cough*

Anyway, here are the highlights of what's up with my life:

• I can develop video games now. I went to school to learn programming for games, and I'm about to graduate in June. You can check out my group's senior project game in the description of my latest deviation (the deviation shows all the in-game art that I did for the game): Lewis in Not-So-Wonderful Land Game Art [Plus Link to Game Demo]
  
  • I live in an apartment now with five other people. I plan continue living here until it's financially awesome to move out into another abode (i.e. I get a job that can support the ridiculous bay area rent rates).
    
    • So, I've pretty much decided what I'm gonna be doing for the rest of my life: make games. At least, from this moment, I've decided that. My career goal is to be a game designer. However, I chose this position because I'm advocating the fact that games themselves can be a medium for art. ...now, let me get into a quick aside here...
      

Games are a medium for art. Now, this does NOT mean purely what you see in the game. That would be the game's visual art. While visual art has already been established as its own medium for artsy awesome stuff, a video game consists of many components which visual art only makes up one of.

A video game also tend to have programming in it. While you may or may not argue programming to be an art, that's besides my main point, but it is there as one component (and yes, there are several different kinds of programming depending on the game). Games also have audio. This can span music, sound effects, and voice acting depending on the game. If there's a story, games can have writing. And so on and so forth. SO, this is all in addition to the game's graphics.

I see all of these components to be the "paints" for an artist. If you were to imagine a painter's art pallet to have the paints of: graphics, music, programming, writing, etc., which he or she uses to create something awesome on their canvas, then you might be getting an idea of what I'm talking about.

...All those mediums for art are just sub-components of one bigger medium for art. This is already happening elsewhere. You see it with movies and even music videos that might have been much more than just "entertaining". Movies and music videos contain what you see and music and writing (maybe music videos can get away without writing) and directing and whatever whatnot there is (excuse my ignorance).

Also, so these smaller mediums are being used for games as "materials". There's something else missing. A painter can't just take some red, slap it on his or her canvas, then do the same with the blue, green, and pink. These paints are the tools to creating something that the artist is trying to express or portray or whatnot. So, that's where I think the game designer position reflects this ability. The game designer defines pretty much what the game is.

(I would like to stress that design can happen across the board with everyone being so involved in the development of a game. Games take teams, and games also encourage for constant re-design as development continues throughout the game's production, which leads to some collaborative design, and in each of the game's component's areas, too.)

But, the designer of the game, as a whole, when pitching forth his or her game design document that spawned off of this really great idea, and is ready to implement into a game, has the chance to make a game go beyond its function. He or she can make it ART.

(Oh, yeah, and that's something else I believe in. Art happens when you go beyond the function in its medium. ...games are made for entertainment/learning, so when a game goes beyond that, it's getting all artistic and stuff. Same thing anything you see that was made by man. There are artistic chairs. Then there are those fold-out chairs to only serve the purpose of giving you a seat.)

SOOOOO, the reason why I think all this is important to talk about is... I'm getting there. ...because games are still in their infancy. They're still trying to settle in as a medium. Movies have had to go through this before, but movies are pretty okay now. Games still need pioneers. And I'm at this moment in time to be lucky enough to be one of these pioneers.

I'm gonna be an artist where games are my medium. And show the world just how viable games are as an art medium. That's my ultimate goal.

...*ahem* I kinda went on a rant or something. Something I firmly believed in and all that junk. Now, where was I?

Oh, it doesn't matter. I should let this digest. =3 Besides, you got my group's homebrew Nintendo DS game to play (Note, I wouldn't really consider my senior project as something as an attempt on my group's part to be an art piece. I wasn't implementing my master plan in this game. Don't worry, those games will come!)

Cheers,

Bradley

P.S. Oh, and check out 's new shop! For those of you who don't already know from watching her, she's got amazing art, and her shop has stuff for you to buy that's got these impressive images on them. Go, go! Support your fellow artist!

Flaming Ichijiku

Thanks very much!