Recently, I looked back at some art pieces I did about 2-3 years ago or so. After going through the usual “oh god this looks awful” reactions that comes with improvement over time, I noticed something that was missing in my more recent work.
There was a sense of adventurousness and creativity that I had not seen in a long time.
In 2010, I played around with a project making playing cards that used C2 symmetry. I wanted the end-product to combine hand-drawn and techno-punk aspects, and playing card styles seemed like an ideal platform to try out the idea.
The Machine Court
At first glance, I immediately identified issues with proportions, line-work, layout, and a host of other embarrassing problems, but the ideas were there. The imagination was there.
The core part of creating interesting gameplay derives from established norms of fun and imbues them with differentiable aspects that make the game unique. In an art sense, this can mean adding mechanical elements to contrast medieval themes, creating steampunk-like properties. In designing gameplay, surprising the player by applying a twist to what’s expected is crucial to making a good game.
For the most part I’ve transitioned away from art and almost exclusively code gameplay for games. Reflecting back, the goal now is to channel that naive, explorative mindset and add it to the work that I’m doing now.