The video game and the left hand of art
The video game follows its (unstoppable?) the way of consolidation as one more element in the cultural ecosystem, and an excellent example of this is the presence he held last week at the Celsius festival (in Aviles), dedicated to fantasy and science fiction in all its aspects.
Conrad Roset, gray designer; Adolf Lachman, Machineries; and Johan Lun, who did the same with Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom. Three designers, three illustrators, three visual artists. Moderated by Angel Luis Sucasas (co-author of this blog) and organized by Nintendo (who invited to attend the country), the talk in the crowded auditorium of Aviles revolved around the intricacies of marriage that increasingly make up art and interactive leisure.
” In our work, there are references to the world of games like Journey or Ori, but also the world of cinema, like the films of the Ghibli studio or Disney,” explained Roset, of illustrative training and guilty of that visual wonder. It is a very personal story that addresses topics like depression and emptiness, in which a young woman travels a globe made of watercolors in search of the colors lost at the beginning of the adventure.
Lachman, who in 2008 created a visual landmark with Machinarium, revealed his fascination with old things. He works with a pencil, and he likes to destroy the worlds he designs. “I did something curious. As I was looking for the look of the drawings made by a child, then I drew with my left hand.” Also, he used an ‘ 80s scanner to get that ancient patina that permeates the world between mechanic and Fajardo from his masterpiece. ” I also tried the drawing with my left hand, ” said Roset, who confessed that this seemingly trivial fact opened up a whole world of possibilities for him.
“Monster Boy’s case is different,” said Lun. “You can’t say it had an artistic development at first, and in those early Bars They told us it looked like it was created in Flash.” It was only a year before it was released (from a five-year development) when the team set the final artistic style.” I’m not going to lie, a lot of people lost their hair when we made that decision, ” confessed Lun in laughter, while pointing out as referring to Japanese anime and manga. “We had to go back to work and redo things. But it was worth it.” “We wanted to relay the feeling of playing Zelda, at the end Fantasy 7 or 9. Or, create characters’ monkeys, but that could move in detailed landscapes. Recreate the emotions we had in playing these games that we were born in the Eighties.” If one thing cannot be denied to The Last Monster Boy is that it is a beautiful game, although in that adventure the illustration does not play as important a role as in the other two.
And when we talk about the importance of visual style, we don’t just talk about wrapping. We speak (at least in the video game world) of something that affects the very root of those that we want to transmit and that affects the rest of the mechanics of the construction.
For a few years now, what used to be the screenwriters of video games have become the narrative designers. An evolution of concept precedes the nominative change: today, the narrative integrates with the design and modifies it. Should the artist have the same consideration as the narrative designer? In other words: is the artist to draw what they are told? Or should it have a more active role, that is, to question, to perfect —as far as possible— all the gear of the machine?
” It depends on the project, ” Roset says.” You have to adapt to the language that the video game itself proposes.” “Every component of the game is an artist and must have his word. But that said, everyone can meddle in what others do,” Lachman says. He is a musician, so he also intervenes in the musical part even if it is not strictly his work.
Changed the third, about the possibility of adding emotion with the current tools, Lun explained: “in the past expressions were limited. But today the animation allows us to know the character of the character only by watching it move.” And he remembered the pig in which he became the protagonist of Monster Boy, who only with his way of moving, transmits his way of being. A new Creative panorama that, as on so many occasions when we speak of pure art, increases greatly in the ecosystem of Indian games. “Artistic games live an explosion in our sector,” Roset says. “We can’t compete with Uncharted, but we can do something artistic, something personal. We can create a unique and non-transferable vision of reality. That, in the end, is the mission of art.”