tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2208890564265615027.post907681974019045196..comments2024-03-08T19:47:41.485+11:00Comments on Ascii Dreams: ggoDbyeAndrew Doullhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11099404183952971291noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2208890564265615027.post-457235328455303572013-05-01T22:37:11.508+10:002013-05-01T22:37:11.508+10:00The 'game designer as instrument maker' an...The 'game designer as instrument maker' analogy doesn't really hold up for me, since unless they are inventing a whole new kind of instrument the skill of the instrument maker lies more in craft than design.<br /><br />I said in my IRDC talk last year that I thought that the game design and architectural design industries had a lot in common and while at the time I meant that literally (in a technical, content-production sense) I think that 'game designer as architect' works quite well metaphorically as well.<br /><br />Unlike song writers, novelists, film directors etc. the job of the game designer/architect is not to create a single 'experience' but instead to create an *environment* in which the player/occupant can create their own experiences, often in different ways. Some people will take the stairs, some people prefer the lift and some people will spiderman their way up the outside of the building and base-jump off the roof.<br /><br />But, this doesn't mean that the game/building itself cannot have artistic merit or attempt to express something other than its own function - it just means that the tools which are best suited to doing that are going to be different to the ones that more static or linear artforms use. I don't really have any problems with games that try to 'be art' by railroading the player into having a particular set experience, but to me they seem a bit like building a perfectly boring concrete office block and then painting a beautiful mural on one wall. The end result may well be 'art' but the building/game itself is rather incidental to that.Paul Jeffrieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01076173363729472117noreply@blogger.com