Thread: AGS vs SLUDGE
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Old 03-23-2005, 11:02 AM   #33
Golan
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Join Date: Mar 2005
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There is something that has happened in the realm of media and film that I would like to touch on. I'll get to that later.

Artistically Strong, Technically week:
Within this topic of underground adventure games where usually one person is doing the work it seems that if that individual has strong skills in writing, composition (design, as in making things look good to the eye), and general artistic ability (the ability to output finely crafted work) that the resulting game would most likely be enjoyable. One of the side effects of having a skill in composition is that you also get a compulsion correctly implement composition and design into all your work. My point is that if learning how to work with code/scripting is an integral part of having a good design a person with the above skills would naturally force themselves to learn at least the minimum needed or find some way of getting it done.

Technically Strong, Artistically week:
Now I will get back to the topic I hinted to at the beginning. There is a reverse to the skills previously mentioned. There are some people who are very very good at coding and scripting but don't really have the artistic background or writing skills needed to make the resulting game enjoyable. There is no compulsion to learn the artistic skills simply by having the technical skills as the former skill set has. So for the person with this skill set to make a good game the compulsion to bring it all together and actually make an enjoyable must come from within the individual. This may be more common then you would think as most people I know who do well with the technical end of computing got that way from the compulsion and desire to learn it. So with the right self motivation in place a person artistically week can still make a good game it will just take more work.

Oh, media and film... right... There are some well known schools out there that train people in the technical end of the graphic arts. These schools don't teach design and composition but never the less their graduates call themselves graphic artist.

There are other skill sets out there that I did not touch on. There are some people that are good at both artistic and technical skills and as far as the mostly solo hobby of underground adventure gaming goes also most likely to produce the best output.

-- Rant Start --
The Professionals:
All this gets me thinking how a bad professional level adventure game ever gets made. If you get a team together of people who are very good at a few things and you have the right designer to orchestrate them and top it off with a good story you would think that a good game would be a no brainer. After hearing the horrible voice acting in the Black Mirror while my girlfriend played it I could not force myself to sit through it and play the game myself. Why go through all the work and drop the ball like that.
Just look at how a pixar movie gets made. Everyone is specialized to the extreme. Even if you don't like their films you have to admit that they do nice work. You know something goes wrong when you get a good team that makes something that is below them. A film like Star Wars Episode I can have the best people working on it and still be bad because of the week plot of just the person in charge.
-- Rant End --

There are also people like myself that fit into another group altogether. I'll call the group learners for lack of a better term. I'm not a great artist but I know good design when I see it. I have the technical skills of photoshop but lack previous knowledge of coding/scripting. I can learn how to script, I've just not been exposed to it before. If I was on a team I guess I would be a facilitator / coordinator. I have enough general knowledge to effectively bridge the gap in communication between a genetic engineer an auto mechanic and an astronomer. As far as my own work in adventure gaming is concerned I hope to produce something worth spending at least five minutes on.

Links and definitions: (not in order)

Artist (as related to this topic) - Someone who can command artistic ability, composition and design. Death is optional but a necessary long term goal for optimal results.

Artistic Ability (as related to this topic) - the ability to output finely crafted work.

Artistic skill set (clarification) - Writing and any of the separate skills it takes to be an Artist (see Artist). For this topic photoshop or some other paint software is required to completely express Artistic Ability (see Artistic Ability) and so is under this skill set.

Technical skill set (clarification) - Anything not in the Artistic skill set. Easy enough. I'll throw in character animation software here assuming that the original work was generated using some artistic skill. If you paint into the software directly it would be a form of paint software and then should be listed under the Artistic skill set.

http://www.markryden.com/ artist ( still alive), be inspired by his odd work.
http://www.fullsailsucks.com/ site still down story below
http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2...prweb89175.htm
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