“We’re just emerging from
infancy. We’re still making The Great Train Robbery or Birth of a Nation, or,
to be really generous, maybe we’re at the beginning of what might be called our
talkies period.” This quote is from Warren Specter, designer of titles such as SimCity and Spore [1]. He is discussing the state of video game’s development at
large, however, this quote was taken from an interview that took place a decade ago.
Since that point, games have grown not just as an industry, but also in terms
of their complexity and ability to function as an aspiring medium for art. Games have inspired the branching plot structure of films like Run Lola Run, and blurred the line between reality and the virtual space, inspiring films like The Matrix [2]. Japanese games in particular have forged a specific style. One that is
reminiscent of the culture and art that has proceeded it.
Let
us consider the difference in a semiotic analysis of something like a statue or
painting as opposed to a piece of software. A painting is there; all of its
imagistic representations are conveyed in a single frame, and the observer
needs no pre-requisite skills to produce meaning. Much like how films are
analyzed in a variety of ways, so is the analysis of a video game. Images are
delivered at 30+ frames per second, so there’s certainly plenty to look at.
However, a strong analysis would also consider the construction of the game,
coined simply as “game design.”
Gaming
has only been considered a possible art medium within the last 20 years. While
fresh in the minds of artistic connoisseurs, specific Japanese games bear
styles that call out to the ukiyo-e prints of the 17th century. Okami is one of these games, a title that
is faithful to a highly distinct painterly style. Within the game, you will
actually paint Japanese characters with a on-screen brush to execute certain
abilities. The hard, defined lines and soft colors are meant to hearken back to
Japan’s woodblock prints. Everything in the world of Okami is ink-like, most of the demons and locals are displayed in a
streaky, borderless way. By utilizing this ink style, one is able to better
detect rapid movement and fluidity in the characters. The style is decidedly aged,
albeit deliberately, but the visual preferences of a contemporary gamer are
never lost on developers.
Journalist
David Sermon suggests that two of the flagship “superflat” games are Katamari Damaci and Wario Ware [5]. The term superflat, conceived by Japanese artist
Takashi Murakami, is broad in its definition. First, it deals with the synthesis
of Japan’s consumer culture (produced by the economy bubble in the 80’s) with
the imagination and inspired spirit of art. Murakami’s own art is a prime
example of this; bright popping colors, visually ensnaring and cute. Cuteness,
while indicative more so of the kawaii sub-culture is also an aspect of
superflat. A third aspect of superflat is its ability to inspire various
sub-cultures among citizens with a product’s widely assessable visual style.
Katamari, like Sermon suggests, effectively satisfies these bullet points [5].
Every one of its frames is an orgy of bright colors that pop off the screen and
the palette is varied. In fact, its hard not to be reminded of Murakami’s 2002
Louis Vuitton advertisement, the style is absolutely comparable. All of the characters
that inhabit the world of Katamari are unabashedly cute, often endowed with
stripes of color or insect like antennas.
Referencing
to the game design of Katamari, it
too is reflective of superflat inspiration. Within the game, you play as a
little character that shoves around an adhesive ball deemed “Katamari.” As you
roll the Katamari around the game space, everything, cars, people and buildings
stick to its surface. A successful game session renders an entire digital
civilization one flat color. The environment is transformed from being a 3D
space to a completely flat one. As debris is stuck onto the Katamari, the speed
and trajectory of its roll is changed, much like the cultural direction of
post-war Japan.
Desire an off-the-nose example of superflat gaming? How about Paper Mario? As Mario
made the slow crawl from 2D to 3D, Nintendo decided it would be wise to flatten
the Italian plumber once more, creating a visual style that is retrospective
and relevant to Murakami’s superflat. However, in agreement with Sermon,
Mario’s evil brother Wario offers more to examine.
Wario
Ware’s visuals are comparable to the likes of Katamari: bright, attractive and
luscious. The art direction is purposefully designed to not be off-putting,
only emitting sentiments of delight and excitement. The design of Wario Ware is
perhaps more intriguing, though. The progression of the game is this: players
are given a string of small “mini-games” to play through, each one lasting only
a handful of seconds. This build contrasts to the staging of the typical video
game, which is typically an elongated experience with the consistent use of
reoccurring characters and a persistent story line. Essentially, this is a
title that is very easy to pick up and put down. There is no story to discover
per-say, but there is a context to explain the purpose of these mini-games.
Within the fictional setting, Wario is the manager of Wario Ware Inc, a company
that is attempting to indoctrinate large groups of people into enjoying these
little bursts of entertainment, as opposed to a full-length title.
An
aspect of superflat is it’s the self-awareness of the commercial/consumerist
cultural roots, which birthed the term. Lead designer Iwata said in an
interview, “the story in the game is the story of the game.” Iwata is hopeful
that the success of the Wario Ware series could shift the industry to this new
paradigm of fast, pick-up-and-play gaming. The superflat qualities become
highlighted when one considers that the games real-life business strategy is disclosed,
quite blatantly, within the setting of the software [5]. Additional examples of
this consumer awareness can be found elsewhere.
Square-Enix’s
strangely titled (or perhaps mistranslated) game The World Ends With You. The game is classified as a role playing
game, a genre that has flourished greatly for the Japanese culture. In an RPG
game, you have a hero (or a group of heroes) and you battle and defeat monsters
in order to advance and develop the strength and power of your hero. The player
becomes aware that work will equal success. The
World Ends With You is slightly different. You are still combating fearsome
monsters, but the main expansion of your characters power comes from the
donning of new outfits, specifically pins, a fashion accessory that increases a
character’s ability. Here we find that consumption equals success. One can
shoot a straight line through these design choices right back to Murakami’s
style, right through to Japan’s fascination with fashion style. This software’s
inspiration is not difficult to track when looking succinctly at the methodology that it pre-dates.
Let us take
a moment to assume that the art direction in games is one of the fine arts,
bearing just as much weight as anything found in an exhibition of Murakami’s.
The bar from making this assumption is that games are a consumer product as
well as a medium. Video games require a certain level of skill in order to
access and properly manipulate all the aesthetics it has to offer, a developer
must assume not everyone knows what the “A” button is. For that reason, a
certain level of accessibility needs to be in place.
This vice
produces an obsession with contextualization, an attempt to label all aspects
of the game space so as many people as possible can enjoy its content. Let’s
consider, for the sake of dichotomy, a California produced title Gears of War by Epic games. One must
hold in their minds the Buddhist concept of Mujo, a complete disregard for all
pre-existing labels and thoughts that come bundled with our observations of the
world around us. Basically, the mountain is not
a mountain. Gears of War makes a
point to surround the player with mythology of the world they’re experiencing,
the enemies they’re facing, even detailing the function of the weapons they
wield. Due to this heap of context, the player is unable to generate any
original thought or apply imagination to the game they are experiencing since
all the blanks have been filled in already.
Shadow of the Colossus, developed by Team Ico in 2005, successfully
escapes this obsession that other games possess. You are not told what is going
on in Shadow you play as a nameless
boy in a quasi-fantasy setting, you ride in on a horse, also nameless, and the
world you explore in uninhabited. In fact, your overall objective is left to
mystery; nothing is spoon-fed to the player in terms of purpose or description.
You are simply there, and everything else is in the hands of the player to
discover. The lack of labeling allows the user to fill the space with their own
original understanding and theory of what’s developing around them. This
cultureless, barren realm harkens to the ideals of Mujo, where satisfaction
begins with one’s own ability to perceive self-dependently. Team Ico has
successfully reflected Japanese culture while dodging the hyper-contextualized
structure that most other titles follow.
The
aesthetics in these games are often experienced from the perspective of one
character. Interestingly enough, these characters also echo visual trends found
elsewhere in Japanese culture. Cloud is the protagonist from Final Fantasy VII, one of the best
selling RPGs of all time; any Japanese gamer has been familiarized with him. His gaze is
turned away, a pensive and pathos expression wears his face. This is a staging
that remains consistent across hundreds of Japanese gaming avatars. A man or
woman so seized by feeling or mental peril that they look outwards. As a matter
of fact, Cloud’s last name is purposefully chosen as “Strife.” This gaze is
found ever so commonly in the geisha, whose sensitivity is accentuated by their
removal from the now.
This
is a character from the popular series Kingdom
Hearts; she is also highly comparable to the geisha. This series also lends
itself to notions of superflat, as well. The term deals with mercantile, but
also with the aesthetic exchange and westernization of Japanese style. In Kingdom Hearts, one finds a blend of
popular Final Fantasy and Disney characters, in addition to set
pieces from American hits like Aladdin and
Beauty and the Beast. This was a
decision made in order to maximize sales world wide, while a clear distinction
between the East and West is bordered right within the game setting.
Mizuno
Junko’s art is known for her signature clash of kawaii cute and adult sexuality
and brutally. Although her work spans her own line of condoms and lubricant,
her art always shows images of women posed provocatively, usually among gore
and violence. This “sweet violence” is found in video games as well. Lollipop Chainsaw is a future release by
Platinum Games. On the right, we see all three of these Junko staples combined, sex,
violence and innocence, as shown by the high school cheerleader garb.
Interesting to note is the face of the character on the left – she looks
American. If not for the topic of this project, one could likely assume she was
from a game developed stateside. Much like Kingdom
Hearts, this design is utilized in order to achieve global appeal, a
mercantile awareness of superflat, as well. This is not the only instance of
westernized characters, either. Across all 14 Final Fantasy characters we find that the design is indicative of
popular Japanese manga, while the complexions are entirely Caucasian.
Japanese
game developers are highly interested in this pathos game design, a
design that can be summarized within the hopeless expression of Cloud. Journey is a game released this year by
That Game Company. In an interview, designer Aaron Jessie said “This studio is really about an emotional experience. Experience is the number one thing the studio goes for [4].” The visuals of Journey are absolutely striking.
Polar opposite to the likes of Katamari,
it’s look is clean, immaculate and deliberately bland. The game follows a
similar mujo structure, much like Shadow.
The player is unsure of what to do or where to go. They are in a world where a
high peak is off in the distance, and the landscape slowly draws you towards
its crest. Linearity is not involved however, and the player can venture to the
mountain any way they choose.
Nara
Yoshimoto has made many of these kinds of paintings, an innocent child floating
abound seemingly aimless in her direction. The environment, akin to the one’s
in Journey are clean and barren – but
purposefully so. Children, as Yoshimoto suggests, have not fully assumed the
role of their minds or bodies, deeming them lost or in state of limbo. This
unstructured state of development is defined by the unoccupied surroundings.
Specifically in this image, the destination of home is in sight (the mountain
in this case) but the path is unclear. Journey
functions much in the same way; the player is lost and wandering but with a
hint of initiative.
Gaming
has acted as a kind of hub for these various inspirations and artistic history
that has graced the minds of Japan’s citizens. Since Warren Specter’s quote,
gamers have found their hobby act as a meeting of kawaii, Japanese fashion,
pathos fascination, Buddhist ideologies, and superflat ideals. Fascinating is
the fact that this contemporary media is still able to represent the ukiyo-e of
yester-century. These time aware aesthetics are slowly peeling away with newer
releases as developers primarily focus on global sales rather than artistic
fidelity and historical faithfulness. The westernization of Japanese games, in
many ways, is beginning now, and the future of this digital art will surely be
something to keep your gaze on.
Sources:
Sources:
[1] "Games, The Lively New Art" by Henry Jenkins: HERE
[2] "Art Form for the Digital Age" by Henry Jenkins: HERE
[3] "Some Notes on Aesthetics in Japanese Video Games (pg. 211)" by William Hurber: HERE
[4] "Interview with Aaron Jessie of ThatGameCompany:" HERE
[5] "The Cultural Economy of Ludic Superflatness" by Dean Chan: HERE
