11 ms·

Drawing is the best videogame

202 points by justanothersys 8y ago

audiometry 8y ago
Was curious to read this, but the font is appalling. Hurts to read this on my phone without glasses.
- mrob 8y ago
  There's no actual font. It's just vector graphics in SVGs. No alt text either. This is one of the least accessible web pages I've seen. EDIT: Fixed by the author. Thanks for the accessibility update.
  - bestest 8y ago
    it's so terrible it's amazing.
  - justanothersys 8y ago
    I wanted to handwrite the letter to fit the content. I've also provided a text transcript (https://ditbvg.justanothersystem.org/ditbvg-transcript.txt https://ditbvg.justanothersystem.org/ditbvg-transcript.txt) and audio recording (https://ditbvg.justanothersystem.org/drawing-is-the-best-videogame.mp3 https://ditbvg.justanothersystem.org/drawing-is-the-best-vid...) for accessibility. I updated the <img> tags with alt attributes for you which should work better if you are using a text-mode browser. Thanks for reminding me. :) It should be live eventually but in the meantime you can use this link: https://ditbvg.justanothersystem.org https://ditbvg.justanothersystem.org
    - pluma 8y ago
      That you provide the transcript and audio recording is amazing. I think the descriptions of the illustrations could be improved a bit though: they make sense if you've seen the images but they don't really provide the same information. As an example: > [ Illustration of what I thought Zelda was versus what Zelda really was. ] This is a map of the game world with a distinctly visible 16x16 grid and a highlighted 4x5 region. That "what Zelda really was" was more than 12 times larger than "what [you] thought Zelda was" is lost in that description. But that information seems to be what that picture is intended to illustrate. The transcript reads more like a draft: "this is where that picture goes". Instead it's more helpful to think about why you want to put that picture in particular there, what a normal sighted person can see in it that that you want to emphasize. For example: > In-game rendering of the Zelda world map laid out on a 16 by 16 tile grid. A small village in the West wedged between a forest to the North and a mountain range to the South, lakes and rivers throughout the East. The village I thought encompassed the entire playable area barely covers a tenth of the map. (or something like that, I don't words good)
      - justanothersys 8y ago
        Thanks for the advice. I think the Zelda diagram could have easily been more abstract, but when finding a nice diagram I decided on the world map. I actually wrote the descriptions before I made the pictures and perhaps it's better to go in the other direction for accessibility in the future.
- skilled 8y ago
  It's definitely an out there design. In fact, I found it hard to fix (read: it's SVG) the font even from a desktop browser. And the audio attached at the top is a little too cringe for me. Images seem to be the only thing looking great on this page.
  - bestest 8y ago
    you can't fix the font: view-source:https://tci-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/ditbvg/text-1.svg https://tci-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/ditbvg/text-1.svg
    - skilled 8y ago
      That's what I meant. ;-)
- loeber 8y ago
  Trying to read this on the desktop. Even worse. Bummer, because it seemed like an interesting story. Had to give up after two paragraphs.
- gnarbarian 8y ago
  You can listen to it too.
  - pluma 8y ago
    This assumes you either have headphones or you're in a place where listening to it on speakers doesn't disturb anyone. And of course that you can hear and follow the narration. Luckily there's a transcript. EDIT: FWIW something (presumably the subtle color rotation going on throughout the entire page) seems to cause my laptop's fan to spin up as soon as I'm on that page.
- avian 8y ago
  I wonder, do you go to an art gallery and complain that paintings don't adhere to the Material design? This is a work of art. It's supposed to be playful and colorful and a bit crude. The message would be quite different if it would be written in a dark-grey Helvetica on light-gray background, don't you think?
  - zapzupnz 8y ago
    > The message would be quite different if it would be written in a dark-grey Helvetica on light-grey background, don’t you think? Yes, it would be quite different. It’s be readable, to start with. Also, GP was complaining about the font — which is very decidedly /not/ made for legibility. You’ve added colours to the hypothetical, slightly changing the argument. Also, what’s with the crack about Material design? That has nothing to do with anything, least of all the well-studied and thoroughly understood principles of text legibility. No, people don’t go into art galleries and complain about them not adhering to user interface design principles because that’s absurd and irrelevant. This is text intended for people to read, not a drawing. Your argument is a weird straw man one.
    - avian 8y ago
      The point I was trying to make was that the parent comment completely missed the point. Is the hand-written text really intended for people to read? Why is there a voice-over then? Or a link to a plain-ASCII version of the content in the bottom? It should be obvious that the form was a deliberate choice on part of the author, not some kind of web design incompetence. If nothing else, the color shifting backgrounds, blinking dots and animated swirls should give it away. You don't need to like it, but commenting on the font choice is just as silly as judging paintings by human-interface guidelines. Speaking more generally, I was just being annoyed with this type of comments. See any post that links to a website that doesn't adhere to whatever the latest web design fad is and there is a good chance that a large part of the discussion will be about how the font or colors make people's eyes bleed. As much as HN is able to foster intelligent discussion, this aspect of it is pretty annoying.
      - 8y ago
nv-vn 8y ago
Lovely article! Reminds me a lot about how I came to programming and what drew me into it. A good read to explain that idea to any friends who might be interested
keiferski 8y ago
The easier-to-read transcript: https://tci-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/ditbvg/ditbvg-transcript.txt https://tci-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/ditbvg/ditbvg-transcript...
- jbkrule 8y ago
  Um, sure, I guess if you want to remove every element that make this interesting or unique then go ahead. I'd rather experience it how the storyteller wants me to.
  - keiferski 8y ago
    This link is at the bottom of the webpage, so clearly the author wanted to include it.
  - pavel_lishin 8y ago
    > I'd rather experience it how the storyteller wants me to. I don't think the storyteller took into account how hard it is to focus on text when the background looks like an optical illusion. It's also completely inaccessible to people who are severely visually impaired. Thanks for considering the author's intent, but some of us need a handicap ramp to get up there.
hajderr 8y ago
Love the article, the web site and the fonts too! It was so easy to read. So you were on a euro-scandi tour, too bad we missed each other :)
- Rexxar 8y ago
  I don't think there is any font, all letters are slightly different. It's probably manual input converted to svg.
  - justanothersys 8y ago
    Yes, using https://goodnotes.com https://goodnotes.com, with a bit of post-processing for minification.
    - mkl 8y ago
      That link doesn't work for me, but https://www.goodnotes.com/ https://www.goodnotes.com/ does. An iOS only app. It does OCR, but I suppose that information doesn't get exported.
      - archagon 8y ago
        Actually, I believe the OCR information persists as an invisible layer when you export to PDF.
  - hajderr 8y ago
    edit: the handwriting that could be a font :)
Agentlien 8y ago
I can very much relate to the feelings of vastness, freedom and sense of awe. I experienced the very same when I, as a kid, first came across Zelda. My first Zelda, though, was Ocarina of Time. Despite having a SNES I'd somehow missed Zelda completely before OoT and I didn't have a GameBoy before GameBoy Color. Video games have always meant a lot to me, but Zelda is one of the few franchises which have blown my mind and made me reassess what games can be and do. (Earlier, I'd had that from the Magic Carpet games and later on I'd experience it again with Morrowind). I can also relate to the idea that understanding more about what games are and how they work can take away some of the magic. It's no longer a vast world filled with freedom. It's a computer program with a scripted story. On the other hand, having learned programming as I grew up and having worked for the last few years in the video game industry brings a whole other level of appreciation for the craftsmanship and attention to detail in some of the best games. That said, I do still feel like I can lose myself in the world of well-crafted modern games as well. All it takes is a game which is good enough to tickle the imagination and invite your immersion. It's funny, though, that the one game in recent memory which made me re-experience that sense of vast freedom and that treasured feeling of "can games do that?" was the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
- elcomet 8y ago
  I discovered zelda very late, as an adult, and I don't share your awe. It's a nicely designed video game with tricky puzzles, but I think the script is still very linear. You don't have much freedom (except freedom to get lost not knowing where to go to complete the quest).
  - _i____ii_______ 8y ago
    Setting foot on Hyrule Field in OoT after crawling out of the cave of 90's 2D games was momentous for me as well. "I can just run around wherever?" Yes there was still a fence and you were in a yard still and linearity was still in play but it seemed there was an expansiveness and freedom to it. But if you've played Witcher 3 before OoT then it's going to seem like a prison.
    - 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
EamonnMR 8y ago
I wonder what the colored dots above some letters mean.
- mkl 8y ago
  I think they're just part of the background, like stars, and not connected to the letters at all.
t0ny 8y ago
shameful abuse of JS
- icebraining 8y ago
  There's barely any JS, it's all SVG + CSS.
- justanothersys 8y ago
  no JS except a one-liner that waits for some images to load before presentation
Hoasi 8y ago
I can confirm the sentiment although coming from another perspective. I was never interested much in video games because I would rather spend my time drawing.
falcolas 8y ago
A thought: Drawing is a great way to explore the worlds of your imagination, but you’re limited to your own imagination. To expand the scope of the world you can create, you really do need to visit the worlds imagined up by others. Be it in books, video games, TV, movies, or radio (try listening to “War of the Worlds” sometime with an era-appropriate mentality, it’s kinda crazy).
- bargl 8y ago
  This is a great point. I find I'm a WAY better DM in my D&D game now that I've had years of books to back up some of my plans. Instead of having to create everything from scratch I am able to integrate these other worlds into my own. It helps so much in creating a fuller world for my buddies. I think it's paid off in that my last foray into DMing (same guys) ended in a 2 year break and this time they seem to want to keep going. I partly blame Ravenloft, but only partly.
grawprog 8y ago
Video games inspired me to learn to draw. I was always terrible at it and never bothered to learn how to do it properly, I figured it was just something I couldn't do. But a while back, I played a game with artwork I really enjoyed and I started actually looking at it the way the lines were drawn and everything and realized there wasn't that many of them and it wasn't really all that complicated despite looking nice. So I set out to draw as many of the sprites and characters from the game as I could and did them over and over again until I got them as close to the references I was using as I could. Since then, i've tried to learn as much as about drawing and art as I can. I'm not saying I would really call myself an artist now but i've been happy with the progress i've been making and find myself enjoying the process. It's a cool feeling to look down at some paper and see an object that came from your mind. Lately, i've been learning more about shading and colouring my drawings. I've been enjoying learning about light and colour theory it makes you look at the world in a new way. I also like the process of layering colours or values in a drawing. I also do stone carving and crafting and it reminds me of the process of polishing stone. I still enjoy video games occasionally but I do find myself leaning more to creating something, playing music or working on hobby programming projects than playing a game.
- justanothersys 8y ago
  You may enjoy these two films: Painters Painting (1973) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCnvrNfrUGg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCnvrNfrUGg Film before Film (1986) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKTvEsvH59g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKTvEsvH59g
- matrixagent 8y ago
  A bit late, but do you by any chance have some resources to share that helped you? Started drawing a bit more lately and would love to improve beyond just practicing more.
dfxm12 8y ago
There are games where you may express yourself via gameplay as you express yourself via drawing. These are the types of games that make no assumptions in how you will play. They give you a set of rules, yes (otherwise, would it be a game? - This is the only problem I have with the article, it's not fair to compare drawing to gaming), but after that, in a way, the d-pad is your brush, the buttons are your colors, and the game is more about how you express yourself rather than advancing a story or reaching a goal. These are few and far between though (Ikaruga, fighting games, parts of Katamari Damacy, among others), and many popular games are so rigid and linear that I can understand where the criticism is coming from.
- justanothersys 8y ago
  I agree with your sentiment about certain games being more expressive than others. I was really big on Quake and Unreal Tournament 2003/4 and my first painting program used the same control scheme as those games, because I thought it had more expressive potential than other painting software I tried: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndz-co7Xpn8&feature=youtu.be&t=1710 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndz-co7Xpn8&feature=youtu.be...
- cableshaft 8y ago
  Minecraft (in particular their Creative mode) seems to be the closest software to a paint program, as far as artistic expression is concerned. I haven't seen any other software where so many people have created their own worlds and objects in 3D, painstakingly, brick by brick, that can be explored and interacted with in first person. I even built a small city in the game myself several years ago, and would spend some nights just watching tv while strip mining in the game, in order to gather the raw materials to build with. No other game before or since has compelled me to do that. There's probably a market for a dedicated paint program where you are essentially placing different shapes and colored/textured 3d blocks on an invisible grid, with the focus on providing features for that, not making a game around it.
undershirt 8y ago
For those reading—this is a performance art and really has to be listened to while reading to get in the intended headspace.
sitzkrieg 8y ago
This seemed interesting, but it freezes Firefox mobile and back didnt work. Or it was too toast, argh
p1mrx 8y ago
Viewing this page on my Skylake laptop burns 4 threads at 60% CPU utilization.
- justanothersys 8y ago
  Depending on the browser / OS combo you use, animated CSS filters can really take a toll on a page. Chrome on macOS was terrible while testing for example, but Safari was great.
markhollis 8y ago
I think one can experience something related in either writing or even just playing with puppets. J.K. Rowling had to 'program' the rules of her wizarding world, in a way. As a kid, I used to play some kind of civilization and empire game with K'nex pieces that I used as little puppets, without knowing that computers existed. Part of it is certainly the joy of building a dynamic model of a virtual world.
zapzupnz 8y ago
> Just like with today's iPhone, you couldn't write programs on the device itself. Tell that to the developers of Swift Playgrounds, Codea, Pythonista, Continuous, Hopscotch, Scratch Jr, Pyonkee, and plenty of other apps. (Yes, I am aware that one can do a lot less with these than native development with Xcode, but that "less" is still non-zero. In the case of apps like Codea or Pythonista, a few now-native iOS games started life in those apps because they expose quite a lot of the native frameworks to the user.)

Was curious to read this, but the font is appalling. Hurts to read this on my phone without glasses.

mrob 8y ago
There's no actual font. It's just vector graphics in SVGs. No alt text either. This is one of the least accessible web pages I've seen. EDIT: Fixed by the author. Thanks for the accessibility update.
- bestest 8y ago
  it's so terrible it's amazing.
- justanothersys 8y ago
  I wanted to handwrite the letter to fit the content. I've also provided a text transcript (https://ditbvg.justanothersystem.org/ditbvg-transcript.txt https://ditbvg.justanothersystem.org/ditbvg-transcript.txt) and audio recording (https://ditbvg.justanothersystem.org/drawing-is-the-best-videogame.mp3 https://ditbvg.justanothersystem.org/drawing-is-the-best-vid...) for accessibility. I updated the <img> tags with alt attributes for you which should work better if you are using a text-mode browser. Thanks for reminding me. :) It should be live eventually but in the meantime you can use this link: https://ditbvg.justanothersystem.org https://ditbvg.justanothersystem.org
  - pluma 8y ago
    That you provide the transcript and audio recording is amazing. I think the descriptions of the illustrations could be improved a bit though: they make sense if you've seen the images but they don't really provide the same information. As an example: > [ Illustration of what I thought Zelda was versus what Zelda really was. ] This is a map of the game world with a distinctly visible 16x16 grid and a highlighted 4x5 region. That "what Zelda really was" was more than 12 times larger than "what [you] thought Zelda was" is lost in that description. But that information seems to be what that picture is intended to illustrate. The transcript reads more like a draft: "this is where that picture goes". Instead it's more helpful to think about why you want to put that picture in particular there, what a normal sighted person can see in it that that you want to emphasize. For example: > In-game rendering of the Zelda world map laid out on a 16 by 16 tile grid. A small village in the West wedged between a forest to the North and a mountain range to the South, lakes and rivers throughout the East. The village I thought encompassed the entire playable area barely covers a tenth of the map. (or something like that, I don't words good)
    - justanothersys 8y ago
      Thanks for the advice. I think the Zelda diagram could have easily been more abstract, but when finding a nice diagram I decided on the world map. I actually wrote the descriptions before I made the pictures and perhaps it's better to go in the other direction for accessibility in the future.
skilled 8y ago
It's definitely an out there design. In fact, I found it hard to fix (read: it's SVG) the font even from a desktop browser. And the audio attached at the top is a little too cringe for me. Images seem to be the only thing looking great on this page.
- bestest 8y ago
  you can't fix the font: view-source:https://tci-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/ditbvg/text-1.svg https://tci-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/ditbvg/text-1.svg
  - skilled 8y ago
    That's what I meant. ;-)
loeber 8y ago
Trying to read this on the desktop. Even worse. Bummer, because it seemed like an interesting story. Had to give up after two paragraphs.
gnarbarian 8y ago
You can listen to it too.
- pluma 8y ago
  This assumes you either have headphones or you're in a place where listening to it on speakers doesn't disturb anyone. And of course that you can hear and follow the narration. Luckily there's a transcript. EDIT: FWIW something (presumably the subtle color rotation going on throughout the entire page) seems to cause my laptop's fan to spin up as soon as I'm on that page.
avian 8y ago
I wonder, do you go to an art gallery and complain that paintings don't adhere to the Material design? This is a work of art. It's supposed to be playful and colorful and a bit crude. The message would be quite different if it would be written in a dark-grey Helvetica on light-gray background, don't you think?
- zapzupnz 8y ago
  > The message would be quite different if it would be written in a dark-grey Helvetica on light-grey background, don’t you think? Yes, it would be quite different. It’s be readable, to start with. Also, GP was complaining about the font — which is very decidedly /not/ made for legibility. You’ve added colours to the hypothetical, slightly changing the argument. Also, what’s with the crack about Material design? That has nothing to do with anything, least of all the well-studied and thoroughly understood principles of text legibility. No, people don’t go into art galleries and complain about them not adhering to user interface design principles because that’s absurd and irrelevant. This is text intended for people to read, not a drawing. Your argument is a weird straw man one.
  - avian 8y ago
    The point I was trying to make was that the parent comment completely missed the point. Is the hand-written text really intended for people to read? Why is there a voice-over then? Or a link to a plain-ASCII version of the content in the bottom? It should be obvious that the form was a deliberate choice on part of the author, not some kind of web design incompetence. If nothing else, the color shifting backgrounds, blinking dots and animated swirls should give it away. You don't need to like it, but commenting on the font choice is just as silly as judging paintings by human-interface guidelines. Speaking more generally, I was just being annoyed with this type of comments. See any post that links to a website that doesn't adhere to whatever the latest web design fad is and there is a good chance that a large part of the discussion will be about how the font or colors make people's eyes bleed. As much as HN is able to foster intelligent discussion, this aspect of it is pretty annoying.
    - 8y ago

Lovely article! Reminds me a lot about how I came to programming and what drew me into it. A good read to explain that idea to any friends who might be interested

keiferski 8y ago

The easier-to-read transcript: https://tci-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/ditbvg/ditbvg-transcript.txt https://tci-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/ditbvg/ditbvg-transcript...

jbkrule 8y ago
Um, sure, I guess if you want to remove every element that make this interesting or unique then go ahead. I'd rather experience it how the storyteller wants me to.
- keiferski 8y ago
  This link is at the bottom of the webpage, so clearly the author wanted to include it.
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  > I'd rather experience it how the storyteller wants me to. I don't think the storyteller took into account how hard it is to focus on text when the background looks like an optical illusion. It's also completely inaccessible to people who are severely visually impaired. Thanks for considering the author's intent, but some of us need a handicap ramp to get up there.

hajderr 8y ago

Love the article, the web site and the fonts too! It was so easy to read. So you were on a euro-scandi tour, too bad we missed each other :)

Rexxar 8y ago
I don't think there is any font, all letters are slightly different. It's probably manual input converted to svg.
- justanothersys 8y ago
  Yes, using https://goodnotes.com https://goodnotes.com, with a bit of post-processing for minification.
  - mkl 8y ago
    That link doesn't work for me, but https://www.goodnotes.com/ https://www.goodnotes.com/ does. An iOS only app. It does OCR, but I suppose that information doesn't get exported.
    - archagon 8y ago
      Actually, I believe the OCR information persists as an invisible layer when you export to PDF.
- hajderr 8y ago
  edit: the handwriting that could be a font :)

Agentlien 8y ago

I can very much relate to the feelings of vastness, freedom and sense of awe. I experienced the very same when I, as a kid, first came across Zelda. My first Zelda, though, was Ocarina of Time. Despite having a SNES I'd somehow missed Zelda completely before OoT and I didn't have a GameBoy before GameBoy Color. Video games have always meant a lot to me, but Zelda is one of the few franchises which have blown my mind and made me reassess what games can be and do. (Earlier, I'd had that from the Magic Carpet games and later on I'd experience it again with Morrowind). I can also relate to the idea that understanding more about what games are and how they work can take away some of the magic. It's no longer a vast world filled with freedom. It's a computer program with a scripted story. On the other hand, having learned programming as I grew up and having worked for the last few years in the video game industry brings a whole other level of appreciation for the craftsmanship and attention to detail in some of the best games. That said, I do still feel like I can lose myself in the world of well-crafted modern games as well. All it takes is a game which is good enough to tickle the imagination and invite your immersion. It's funny, though, that the one game in recent memory which made me re-experience that sense of vast freedom and that treasured feeling of "can games do that?" was the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

elcomet 8y ago
I discovered zelda very late, as an adult, and I don't share your awe. It's a nicely designed video game with tricky puzzles, but I think the script is still very linear. You don't have much freedom (except freedom to get lost not knowing where to go to complete the quest).
- _i____ii_______ 8y ago
  Setting foot on Hyrule Field in OoT after crawling out of the cave of 90's 2D games was momentous for me as well. "I can just run around wherever?" Yes there was still a fence and you were in a yard still and linearity was still in play but it seemed there was an expansiveness and freedom to it. But if you've played Witcher 3 before OoT then it's going to seem like a prison.
  - 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

EamonnMR 8y ago

I wonder what the colored dots above some letters mean.

mkl 8y ago
I think they're just part of the background, like stars, and not connected to the letters at all.

t0ny 8y ago

shameful abuse of JS

icebraining 8y ago
There's barely any JS, it's all SVG + CSS.
justanothersys 8y ago
no JS except a one-liner that waits for some images to load before presentation

Hoasi 8y ago

I can confirm the sentiment although coming from another perspective. I was never interested much in video games because I would rather spend my time drawing.

falcolas 8y ago

A thought: Drawing is a great way to explore the worlds of your imagination, but you’re limited to your own imagination. To expand the scope of the world you can create, you really do need to visit the worlds imagined up by others. Be it in books, video games, TV, movies, or radio (try listening to “War of the Worlds” sometime with an era-appropriate mentality, it’s kinda crazy).

bargl 8y ago
This is a great point. I find I'm a WAY better DM in my D&D game now that I've had years of books to back up some of my plans. Instead of having to create everything from scratch I am able to integrate these other worlds into my own. It helps so much in creating a fuller world for my buddies. I think it's paid off in that my last foray into DMing (same guys) ended in a 2 year break and this time they seem to want to keep going. I partly blame Ravenloft, but only partly.

grawprog 8y ago

Video games inspired me to learn to draw. I was always terrible at it and never bothered to learn how to do it properly, I figured it was just something I couldn't do. But a while back, I played a game with artwork I really enjoyed and I started actually looking at it the way the lines were drawn and everything and realized there wasn't that many of them and it wasn't really all that complicated despite looking nice. So I set out to draw as many of the sprites and characters from the game as I could and did them over and over again until I got them as close to the references I was using as I could. Since then, i've tried to learn as much as about drawing and art as I can. I'm not saying I would really call myself an artist now but i've been happy with the progress i've been making and find myself enjoying the process. It's a cool feeling to look down at some paper and see an object that came from your mind. Lately, i've been learning more about shading and colouring my drawings. I've been enjoying learning about light and colour theory it makes you look at the world in a new way. I also like the process of layering colours or values in a drawing. I also do stone carving and crafting and it reminds me of the process of polishing stone. I still enjoy video games occasionally but I do find myself leaning more to creating something, playing music or working on hobby programming projects than playing a game.

justanothersys 8y ago
You may enjoy these two films: Painters Painting (1973) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCnvrNfrUGg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCnvrNfrUGg Film before Film (1986) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKTvEsvH59g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKTvEsvH59g
matrixagent 8y ago
A bit late, but do you by any chance have some resources to share that helped you? Started drawing a bit more lately and would love to improve beyond just practicing more.

dfxm12 8y ago

There are games where you may express yourself via gameplay as you express yourself via drawing. These are the types of games that make no assumptions in how you will play. They give you a set of rules, yes (otherwise, would it be a game? - This is the only problem I have with the article, it's not fair to compare drawing to gaming), but after that, in a way, the d-pad is your brush, the buttons are your colors, and the game is more about how you express yourself rather than advancing a story or reaching a goal. These are few and far between though (Ikaruga, fighting games, parts of Katamari Damacy, among others), and many popular games are so rigid and linear that I can understand where the criticism is coming from.

justanothersys 8y ago
I agree with your sentiment about certain games being more expressive than others. I was really big on Quake and Unreal Tournament 2003/4 and my first painting program used the same control scheme as those games, because I thought it had more expressive potential than other painting software I tried: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndz-co7Xpn8&feature=youtu.be&t=1710 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndz-co7Xpn8&feature=youtu.be...
cableshaft 8y ago
Minecraft (in particular their Creative mode) seems to be the closest software to a paint program, as far as artistic expression is concerned. I haven't seen any other software where so many people have created their own worlds and objects in 3D, painstakingly, brick by brick, that can be explored and interacted with in first person. I even built a small city in the game myself several years ago, and would spend some nights just watching tv while strip mining in the game, in order to gather the raw materials to build with. No other game before or since has compelled me to do that. There's probably a market for a dedicated paint program where you are essentially placing different shapes and colored/textured 3d blocks on an invisible grid, with the focus on providing features for that, not making a game around it.

undershirt 8y ago

For those reading—this is a performance art and really has to be listened to while reading to get in the intended headspace.

sitzkrieg 8y ago

This seemed interesting, but it freezes Firefox mobile and back didnt work. Or it was too toast, argh

p1mrx 8y ago

Viewing this page on my Skylake laptop burns 4 threads at 60% CPU utilization.

justanothersys 8y ago
Depending on the browser / OS combo you use, animated CSS filters can really take a toll on a page. Chrome on macOS was terrible while testing for example, but Safari was great.

markhollis 8y ago

I think one can experience something related in either writing or even just playing with puppets. J.K. Rowling had to 'program' the rules of her wizarding world, in a way. As a kid, I used to play some kind of civilization and empire game with K'nex pieces that I used as little puppets, without knowing that computers existed. Part of it is certainly the joy of building a dynamic model of a virtual world.

zapzupnz 8y ago

> Just like with today's iPhone, you couldn't write programs on the device itself. Tell that to the developers of Swift Playgrounds, Codea, Pythonista, Continuous, Hopscotch, Scratch Jr, Pyonkee, and plenty of other apps. (Yes, I am aware that one can do a lot less with these than native development with Xcode, but that "less" is still non-zero. In the case of apps like Codea or Pythonista, a few now-native iOS games started life in those apps because they expose quite a lot of the native frameworks to the user.)