Video Games as an Art Form

I started making video games because I wanted to make money and play a game no one ever made before. When the money didn’t come, I found out the pursuit of the art form itself was better than anything money could buy me. Video games are the ultimate art form, using all artistic endeavors man has ever devised and coalescences them into an ultimate symphony. You need painting, drawings, sculpting, music composed, musical notes, writing plots, gripping emotion, architectural alignment, societies with government, presented in a way to impact the audience. On top of the classical respected arts, you have to know how the brain works to reward it cerebrally, animation, action paced reflex situations, puzzles, and more. No other art form demands of all the other art forms and then still needs more. One could say video games are the ultimate art form, case in point: Flappy Bird.

;)

I mused about my art form because it’s totally disrespected, yet is deeper than all that came before… This prompt came from my search from the one composer who said a quote I was looking for akin to,”I’m thrusting a spear into the void no one’s entered, not looking this way or that for inspiration.” If anyone knows that composer or quote, I’d be happy. I wanted to make a secondary quote off it something like,”I’m analyzing the thrown spears of all composers, feeling how close to the target I believe they got, and then averaging their finding where the target is.”

I ended up finding a inspirational quote list from famous composers and saw I have much in common with them just because I pour my heart and soul into my art: https://racheltaylorgeier.org/2017/04/15/75-inspirational-composer-quotes/

Quotes that resonated with me:

Georg Frideric Handel: “I should be sorry if I only entertained them. I wish to make them better.”

Musing: Shows like Rawhide/Rifleman/Cheyenne were not just cowboy shows, they taught a moral to do the right thing at the right time… So people who watched em were better. Today’s shows teach selfishness and exploitation of your fellow man so are trash.

Bela Bartok: “Competitions are for horses, not artists.”

Musing: Get by and get art done. The rat race is for rats.

Franz Liszt: “Mournful and yet grand is the destiny of the artist.”

Musing: This really should be the destiny of all, but many pursuing the wrong thing catch it.

George Gershwin: “I frequently hear music in the heart of noise.”

Musing: In this bustling life, you can get see things you wouldn’t if not pressed into it.

Gustav Holst: “Music, being identical with heaven, isn’t a thing of momentary thrills, or even hourly ones. It’s a condition of eternity.”

Musing: An artist mind is always creating, everywhere they go, they’re there, but their mind is not always also there.

Joseph Haydn: “There was no one near to confuse me, so I was forced to become original.”

Musing: The hivemind is a terrible thing to mind. Do your own thing, and if you draw too much inspiration, you’ll end up tracing someone else’s work which leads us to the one everyone heard before: Igor Stravinsky: “Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.”

Frederick Delius: “There is only one real happiness in life and that is the happiness of creating.”

Musing: I explained this in my opener. I wanted to make video games for money. Now I make them for the sake of making them, money does come, but I’ve been ripped off by giant corporations more often than not. Doesn’t Google, Apple, Kongregate, MTV, Amazon, Twitch have enough money yet? Do they need to rip off small developers too?

“Well I didn’t get rich by writing a bunch of checks” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H27rfr59RiE

I’ll start to close with two quotes that basically say I should get back to crafting my art:

J.S. Bach: “I was obliged to be industrious. Whoever is equally industrious will succeed equally well.”

Johannes Brahms: “Without craftsmanship, inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind.” (And with this, I’ll be industriously pushing my craft forward today)

And close with:

Toru Takemitsu: “Music is a form of prayer.”

Please pray for me. God bless, I’m gonna start my day,
Jim

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Paypal: james_sager_pa@yahoo.com

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#1 IN THE WORLD at Starcraft/Broodwar/Warcraft3/Diablo2 Hardcore/Command and Conquer3/Starcraft2 2v2. GOAT.
Before Pinky and The Brain, The Parapalegic Mice Team existed, and I told everyone in my school for weeks in hopes someone knew someone at WB/Disney/HB to make a tv show of two mice taking over the world. Next Year Pinky and The Brain was out.

1) 10-1000x things rendered with new DOTS/ECS UNITY tech that unlocks more than just one core that most video games use: Parallel Processing done right.

2) Networking that pushes the envelope where no networking has gone before. People laugh at this like it is impossible to innovate, but I marketed it to Midway in 2003, and they laughed too. Meanwhile it was working in house as a Tekken style(3d fighter) MMO with part of what today is known as rollback code. Midway’s manager was mocking what is today’s standard thinking rollback and such was impossible. Infinite action players same zone, limit only by video card and other hardware, networking ain’t a limiting thing anymore.

3) Lore/Game Mechanics based on a custom TTRPG (Intergalactic Bounty Hunter) that most everyone liked more than any RPG. RPG rules are based on Wasteland from the Commodore 64 set in space. The space flight is the spiritual successor of 90s DOS Xwing vs Tiefighter hits that everyone was disappointed ended. I had to make my own RPG, Dungeons and Dragons armor not reducing damage did not sit well.

4) First MMO designed for late game. Everyone enjoys mmos until power capped and then get bored.
There is no power cap to begin with(just a log log logarithmic progression), but there are many many many other end game design elements to make it so want to keep playing end game! The grind is there, but better and more fun things are around too! You can build up a super big fleet and it get destroyed to pieces and you start over again. You have a power floor level that you can’t go below so you’re always building permanent power, but temporary spikes of power surges and galactic dominance for fleeting moments give a rush. The larger the fleet, the larger the fleeting moment.

5) Easter Eggs: Will contain literal Easter Eggs. You find an Easter Egg in a quest. Then you hide somewhere in space. Every day it isn’t found by another player, you get a daily reward that increases. When they find it, they get an instant reward! Then the egg comes back to you. Enjoy. Go find some place obscure in the game, space is big.

6) Space Dungeons: Competitive zones with different rules, find em, dominate em, and can you find the clues around space to find the one which will be dropping special event rewards?

7) Resource Trading like Elite, but also factory building like Factorio and Satisfactory. Your economy and drones can build stuff up, but make sure no pirate, NPC or player tries to sabotage your supply chain. There will be illegal substances like fictitious drugs and contraband weapons which you can profit from greatly, but you risk your cargo being scanned by a random and getting a bounty on your head.

8) PVP bounty system. Everyone can PVP at all times. Stakes are low if your ship explodes. If you get attacked without declaring aggressive mode or an opponent to duel, the aggressor gets a bounty on their head in accordance with the damage dealt to you. If this bounty gets high enough, and they get caught, they will be put in jail. When they log on for the next few hours or days, their character can play only in jail, and visitors come see him and such. Enjoy roleplaying being a prison inmate, or just use a different crew member on your account. Developing many crew members is a thing for when you fly capital ships.

9) Grand Space Opera-> 4x emperors around you trying to conquer the galaxy like Master of Orion on a 500 billionish system scale! They ain’t even players at first, just NPCs waging war. Who’s side will you choose? Will it be based on morality or space bucks? Ok soldier of fortune, what it will be? Do it for the money, until you realize money doesn’t mean anything living under a totalitarian empire.

10) Omnipotent roleplay: Earn your right into a a movie anime by great roleplay! Live game masters in about 6-12 months after the content updates roll through. We bias people with Founder’s RP tokens some and good manner role players who stay in character(we have chat logs and even game logs). This promotes good role play even when not live GMing. Who doesn’t want to bring their friends to a movie and surprise em with their own character in it? So stay in character for a better game! https://www.starfightergeneral.com/live-role-play/

Punky-Pulpy action, Levels, stats, skills, talents, items, fleet amassing, and great apocalyptic space plots, trippy Lewis Carrol level Mad Hatter humor along the way. It’s really weird to see how this synergizes from a game design standpoint. Players naturally want to level up and power up… That’s the twink min maxer in all of us. So when humor, plots, intrigue, or NPCs getting your blood boiling to action vs them happens, you get stoked, rewarded, happy and tossed off your axis. Then when resolved, you look back and get serious about powering up. The core of a RPG gamer is always powering up, it is something we can’t get rid of, but the core of a game designer is to get you out of a spreadsheet mindset temporarily… And then you appreciate both more. So tacky humor, along serious pulp action and serious leveling up game mechanics… It is like a symphony of fun.

Game made by a soul gamer out for the player’s best interest. 150,000 hours experience #1 in many online ladders world. I don’t care about money. I just want to play games and help the poor and sick. I want you to have faith in the spirit of love.

Are you down? Cuz I need help, like crowd source and pray for me to get this out faster. If you don’t help me, it’s still coming out.

or

Get and Play Starfighter General for Free (type of morally good free that doesn’t exploit or abuse players and gives all the content available).


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