Team Shanghai Alice / Zun (aka: that one crazy developer) does all his own artwork, music, and programming for the Touhou series.
A lot of people joke that his artwork is sub-par and the music is repetitive, but frankly... the integration of all three into a single product / series of games is pretty amazing.
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I don't know if gaming is the "ultimate" form of art. And no one is going to say that Zun's art or music is the best in the world.
But the fact that Zun can do all three and have them play off each other in his games is pretty masterful. There's a big difference in feel between people who only have mastered say Programming, but rely upon a team-member to do the art and/or music.
Having the sound-effects integrate into your musical scores (thanks to understanding music theory / beats), as well as generating artwork from programmatic features (the pretty "bullet patterns" of Zun's games) is pretty unique. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8JmfCYmtHo
Zun can make bullet patterns that look beautiful, while simultaneously is fun to dodge / play with, and with sound effects that integrate well into the music.
> A lot of people joke that his artwork is sub-par and the music is repetitive, but frankly... the integration of all three into a single product / series of games is pretty amazing.
I'm reminded of a Tim Minchin quote where he said he isn't funny enough to be a comedian or gifted enough to be a musician, but he can be the funniest musician and the most musical comedian out there.
There's something to be said for having an interesting combination of skills even if you don't maximize any one of them.
I recently finished writing a giant book. I wrote it all, hand drew the illustrations, and typeset the whole thing. I'm not a particularly talented artist or designer, but I have the unique property of deeply understanding the source material. So even if the illustrations and layout aren't the best, they are informed by the source material in ways an outsourced designer wouldn't be able to do. When I draw a little diagram, I know which boxes to make biggest because the concepts they represent are the most complex. When I choose to split a snippet of source code across pages, I know where to split the code to be least disruptive.
There are plenty of excellent artists out there. If your video games inspire them, you can have a large fan-base who can contribute fanworks... from (amateur) manga/comics and other online works, to fan art, and maybe even some professionals remixing your works (most noticeably in the music world for Zun, where professionals / dedicated musicians take his speedy tunes and add a more subtle flair to it)
The "Bad Apple" fanwork is a great example of how the fan community interacted with Zun (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkgK8eUdpAo). The shadow art was its own thing (though clearly based on Zun's characters / Touhou characters), but the song itself was a remix based from an earlier game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNKyPkQ-_ug)... and professional level remixes to Bad Apple have entered the world.
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So Zun was "good enough" at art, music, and programming... but also did a great job at inspiring and leading the Touhou community / fanbase.
In many ways, the "game designer as commmunity leader" model is apparent. Braid, Touhou, Minecraft, and even Factorio all had community leaders and fan-growth that was superbly done.
The music / art of the Touhou community though really elevates that particular community into true artistry. Both of the classic kind (just straight up good drawings / music being made), as well as of the programming / interactive kind.
And the Touhou fanbase is really big both in Japan and outside. For music alone there are probably hundreds of artists and groups and there are lots of fan comics, videos, games, memes... the rabbit hole (no pun intended) goes really deep.
The definition of art is somewhat hard to find, but to me an artist excels in his/her field. The trick here is to see value, a painting or song has only consumption value, it produces nothing except feelings that in turn can materialize.
Programming is the weave of everything digital, like the matrix glyphs it can describe all, be all, modify all. It rules all crafts by an infinite amount. As a single programmer in a 3D multiplayer system, you become god.
The truly amazing game makers like Pixel f.ex (Cave Story) are not incredible because they can make graphics, music and code. But because they actually manage to release code that works while being good at graphics and music. The rare skill is programming, not drawing or music.
99% of programmers don't take resposibility for their creations long term, including John Carmack and Tim Sweeney!
So it's a trifecta: Be creative (discover things nobody did before), manage to release live products that work, take responsibility = work on your own.
The most underrated skill in human history is this kind of programming, eventually it will become the only skill worth having until all energy has depleted. Then we're back to sticks, stones and cave drawings! :D
Full stack ownership of a game is what can make it truly good art imo.
AAA games have art in them (the assets made by individuals), but the entire pieces are less art than product after being ground to completion by an org chart.
> Full stack ownership of a game is what can make it truly good art imo.
Good is not quite the nuance I'm trying to say here. Final Fantasy VII remakes are "good art" and good enough programming, probably top-quality music as well despite being made by a giant organization.
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Integration is probably the thing I'm trying to discuss, which is "good" in its own way. The Touhou games are probably the best example of that, but maybe that's a bit niche.
Supergiant Game's "Bastion" was probably the best "integration" I've seen in more recent years of art / music / sound / programming. The way the narrator responded to my button-pushes and actions was downright creepy at times (creepy in a good way though)
AAA games like Red Dead Redemption, try to accomplish the same thing but its just not quite as tight or as well done. I give them props for the effort (and getting further than most other AAA titles), but its just really difficult to compete with the level of integration that smaller teams can provide.
I strongly disagree with programming being a “higher” art than music or painting.
As for DIY game devs, I really enjoyed Tom Happ’s Axiom Verge series. The artwork and level design, especially. I’ve seen a couple interviews where he kind of brushes off the praise for the musical aspect - and I agree. I think it’s the weakest part of his games. The music fits incredibly well, but it feels a lot like someone noodling on a keyboard until they reach the appropriate level of spookiness.
But ultimately, all the components work well together, and the games feel like one person’s mad vision.
I don't think I agree that programming is a "higher" art form (despite wording my reply in the above manner, I'm pretty neutral to the parent post). But I do think it is wonderful when art+music+programming combine into a singular cohesive product.
> Programming is a higher art than painting or music.
No it's not, and it is imho a delusion to think otherwise.
Programming is engineering, it is about finding the best solution based on a series of requirements (performance, readability, time, etc).
There's very little creativity involved in programming as it is the case with pretty much any engineering field.
I don't understand this narrative of making it seem a creative activity which is not. That's not to say that it is #completely# void of creativity or "beauty", but I just dont believe this narrative of it being "art". And comparing it to painting or music is straight up circlejerk material.
In the end for every single argument you can give for programming being art, l can just answer you that it
applies even move to math. Is math art?
In the long term all audio/visual art is going to devalue in the face of programming because making things go has more value, and programming uses graphics and sounds to make them move, without programming textures, polygons and sound waves are just meaningless... Artists have always used technology: canvas, paintbrush, instrument, etc. But eventually the technology itself becomes the meaning.
You can see this in game programmers that only use technology to draw/play (shaders, proc. gen. etc.). The medium becomes the media!
I understand it is hard to see now, since humans take a long time adapting to things but this 50 year old craft (the youngest craft we have and possibly the last ever to be discovered by humans) will eventually be the master craft once programmers realize they don't need companies to earn value that allow them to pay for real physical things.
It will take time, but in the large perspective of civilizations it will happen in a heartbeat, historians will write that it allready happened!
> There's very little creativity involved in programming as it is the case with pretty much any engineering field.
It depends on the context. If you program for bigco then there isn't much creativity. But if you draw imagines or make music for bigco there wont be much creativity either, they will want standard stuff done as cleanly and quickly as possible. However when you are programming whatever you feel like to make an enjoyable program then that is art, similarly to how someone who draws freely to make a picture that is enjoyable to look at is art.
When you got an idea for a program in your head then you go and program it as efficiently as possible. But that is exactly the same thing as an artist with an imagine in their head, they will try to draw that image as efficiently and accurately as possible as well. There is no difference here. The only difference is that programming is harder to work with and you can do more things with it. You can draw images with code, but you can also do so much more.
Made an algorithm that made pixels behave like water and is cool to look at? Great! Now make a whole game around that concept! Even greater! You can't say stuff like this isn't art.
Yes, math is art! Math is worldbuilding, one theory at time. There's an astounding amount of creativity that goes in our definitions and proofs.
One could instead consider that math already exists, and we are just discovering it; but this is as useful as saying that all images already exist (in the set of all pixel matrices) and digital painters are just discovering images that were already there all the time.
The end result isn't all that matters; it also matters how we get there.
This is an incredibly depressing view of math, programming and engineering. Strandbeest is a great example of physical engineering as art. Neither discipline needs to be relentlessly practical and dull. If you must though think what happens when some of your requirements have more whimsy.
A lot of people joke that his artwork is sub-par and the music is repetitive, but frankly... the integration of all three into a single product / series of games is pretty amazing.
---------
I don't know if gaming is the "ultimate" form of art. And no one is going to say that Zun's art or music is the best in the world.
But the fact that Zun can do all three and have them play off each other in his games is pretty masterful. There's a big difference in feel between people who only have mastered say Programming, but rely upon a team-member to do the art and/or music.
Having the sound-effects integrate into your musical scores (thanks to understanding music theory / beats), as well as generating artwork from programmatic features (the pretty "bullet patterns" of Zun's games) is pretty unique. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8JmfCYmtHo
Zun can make bullet patterns that look beautiful, while simultaneously is fun to dodge / play with, and with sound effects that integrate well into the music.