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AI Does Not Make Art

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  AI Does Not Make Art Let’s not bury the lede. Everyone already knows that “AI art” is not art. Even strong advocates of it do not discuss it like art, they don’t treat the output like art, and no one would describe an AI robot as an artist. The point of this essay is to discuss the meaning of art and what makes this art or that not, and why the question of “what is art?” is fundamental to the process of making it. And how all this relates to why we call something which we know not to be art “art”. Probably the first thing I think of when I hear “art” is statues and paintings, but the term’s usage is actually quite broad. Well, whether videogames can be considered art might depend on whether the reader believes that art must be non-interactive, or art must be created by a singular auteur, or a number of other factors, What about “Modern Art”? Some people will look at its abstract shapes and see art, some will see just mess and chaos. Or postmodern art. “This is not a pipe.” Makes ...
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Idleon

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Idleon has to be the most intense spread sheet manager I've ever played. I've got so many chickens in the oven you'd think I was the head chef of a banquet hall. I've got so many irons in the fire that most of them have melted together. There's a lot to do in this surprisingly well-crafted web of relatively simple mechanics that all tie together into a singular, long and grindy, but nonetheless interesting experience. It took me a while to give this game a shot. I have a general interest in idle games and occasionally check what steam has for them. This is always near the top. But I can't remember exactly why I didn't pick it up or what prejudices I held against it. Well, that's all in the past now; I did pick it up and I rather like it. Idle games are a hard sell for a lot of people. "Why do I want to play a game that plays itself?" Well, I feel like that's hard to answer because there are a lot of angles to look at it with, but for this a...
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Against Analytical Games Appreciation

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This post is a little underdeveloped, but it outlines why I decided to start a blog. There's this great GDC talk, " You Have No Idea How Hard It Is To Run a Sweatshop ", and it has this slide which I really enjoyed: The talk covers the folly of games attempting to create meaning through theme only to have players discover the underlying mechanisms of games and, over time, seeing the theme as only pretty makeup over core mechanics and calculations. And I suppose what appealed to me about this is that I feel the general process for analyzing games does exactly this, intentionally. As game makers, we try think about games in terms of these mechanics which might lead to a good user experience. Coyote time makes platformers feel more responsive, pop-up tooltips bring information efficiently to players, camera shake makes hits feel more responsive, etc.. We try to learn lessons from the games we play that seem generally applicable, easily reproducible. But very little of the an...
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Lonely Mountain: Snow Riders review

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I first saw Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders in an Olexa video . I purchased it after watching just a couple minutes. Physics-based mechanics with slightly janky controls, but a lot of opportunity for skill expression? I knew I would love it, and I do. When I say janky controls… When you press right on the joystick, the little guy tries their best, but it’s fighting against a lot. Gravity, how well it can push against the snow, how easily it can change its momentum. That right input was really just one of many opinions on which direction they should be going. The geometry of the mountain is complex, riddled with bumps and tiny vallies to push you in unexpected directions. Flat and concave surfaces can help build a lot of speed, and they’re easier to turn on, too, while convex hills slow you down and you risk getting air time It's really hard to see where I drew that picture that there's any difference at all where I hit this bump, but hitting it just right reduces air going into a...
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