Action-adventure

It looks like my time in Korea will be coming to a close soon. I’ve had an amazing time here, teaching English, meeting people, having experiences, writing about and making computer games… and I’ll be sad to leave. I’m also excited, though, for what the future might hold. My current plan, for when I leave Korea is to do some extended traveling throughout Southeast Asia and beyond. 

That’s exciting in and of itself, but what really has me stoked is the idea of attempting to communicate my experiences while traveling through computer games: of using computer games as a form of travel writing, if you will. You may have noticed that I’ve already been pursuing this idea to some extent with Freedom Bridge, Being There, and Loneliness: my recent notgames about Korea.

To my surprise these creations have gotten a fairly warm welcome (especially Freedom Bridge, which made its way around Twitter and the blogosphere), and now I’m looking at pursuing “travel games” in a more extensive fashion.

This is where you come in. I know that I’m going to travel when I leave Korea, because I know that I can fund the travel by doing web design while on the road. But that won’t give me much time for making games. So I’ve started a Kickstarter project to see if I can’t raise enough funding to allow me to focus on game creation while traveling, instead of web design. 

So I’m asking you to watch my intro video, check out my project website, GameTrekking.com, and consider making a contribution if you think it’s worth it. I don’t know that I’ll make anything great, or memorable, but I’m going to give it my sweat and blood—I’m excited to try and use the interactive medium in a way that it hasn’t been used before, and see what happens. 

Thank you always for taking an interest in this website, and my work.

A paper I wrote in 2005 for an undergraduate Aesthetics class, in which I examine that clichéd question: can video games be art? The question is addressed here specifically in the context of art history and art theory. To that end I briefly analyze video games from the perspectives of mimetic theory, formalism, art as play, deconstructionism, art as political platform, the Artworld theory, and the theory of aesthetic experience. The style is necessarily academic, and I hope that my reader will not hold that against me.

It is perhaps obvious, but should be noted that my views have changed somewhat in the four years that have passed since I wrote this. I still think it serves as a decent launching point from which to think about games and art, however, especially in the broader context of art theory. And that is why I have bothered to transpose it.

The paper begins thusly:

It’s 2:00 A.M. Saturday morning, January 29^th, 2005. Artist/Entrepreneur/Game Designer Derek Yu sits on the floor of his San Francisco apartment with a paintbrush in one hand and a joystick in the other; I’m halfway across the country conducting an interview via Microsoft Messenger. “Why make games?” echoes Derek, “Because to make a game is to create a world. More so than a book, a painting, or a movie, a game is something where the creator has complete control over the rules. And for a creative person, you can’t ask for a better opportunity.”

It’s 2:00 A.M. and my senses are starting to fade—did someone just compare making video games to painting and writing? I have to go to bed.

Ten hours of blissful sleep later and the interview feels like a dream: video games are video games, art is art, and that is that—all is right with the world. For two weeks. At which time an innocent friend tells me about Sanitarium, a “serious” computer adventure game that I just have to play. The game engages me, frightens me, and leaves me in emotional tatters—at which point I recall Derek’s words. Could this game be art? Surely not, but perhaps I should look into the possibility—just in case.

And now my world comes crashing down. Upon “looking into it” I find that far from being alone, Derek is only one of many people who seem to be on a veritable crusade to validate video games as art objects. I find websites dedicated to game art, museums featuring “art games,” and academic papers discussing video game aesthetics… what in the world is going on? Read more »