What does an Art Director do? Game artists are fundimentally the brain behind everyone working on a single project. their job requires them to solve problems related to everything and anything that a currnet game could and most definatly would face, weather that be photoshop or the 3Dgame engine specified to such things as what a characters shoe is going to look like, thus an art director will inherintly have to keep all his team in check and all on the same path or a so called game could end up looking some what, messy - in terms of visual style. as an art director i would personaly put forward my own ideas rather sneakily and maybe ad a few things into a game that would take my personal art style or cheaky ideas, not all that disimilar to John Romaro's coligues oddly placeing johns face in teh game, on the first Doom game.

Who are they responsible to? Art director - although quite a high status and resposible part of the games chain that it is, is below the first link in the chain, the Games designer, as in film the art director would be directly below the production designer or below editor in publishing. the art director can and most likly is a person brought from outside to express the ideas from the games designers to all the artists and creators of the games practical side. he would control the workings of all these and report back the games progress to the designers to make sure everything is going the correct way.

Do you think it's a creative role? Art director dips his paw in every part of the games pipline, from art to 3D engines, it is only as creative as the art director would like but there are limitations to an art directors use of creative expression as they are far removed from conscept design and art in general but they do over see these things and have their input just the same.


What qualities do you think youd need to develop if you want to become an Art Director in the future? To develope myself in the form of an art director i beleive experience is key to being able to handle the pressure of all the tasks that can quite easily be split in to several well payed jobs. people skills and maybe a million years in the industry will almost bring me up to scratch with the trials and tribulations of an art directors Daily! tasks. being able to keep an entire team - of up to more than 100 people on next gen games - on track and all following a specific style. making a game look feel and sound well would have to come a close second.

Reveiws are for people that want another persons oppinion

for arguments sake i am going to stick to games reveiwers and not reveiwers in general. reveiwers are given a game to play and evaluate on "their" experiences with the game. weather it be graphics game play or over all feelings, it is a personal take on somthng someone else has created. maybe the game designer wants this overcite maybe he doesnt but to be honest putting reveiws that are obviously going to be read by the masses you have to stick to what i like to call...RESTRAINT!...people are going to take every little word you say and twist it to fit their own personal veiw on a game, almost like a war in which a reveiwer takes the first shot and an apposing or agreing person takes the next shot as the reveiwer cowers in wait.

novice reveiwers tend to take their personal veiws to a point - a little like i am doing now - in which onlookers can take advantage of. the second link hilights a less animalistic take on clashes between points of veiw but the theory is there. what if i were to say "i dont like project gothem 3 because its linear and i dislike racing games to an extent in wich i wish to vomit" the reveiwer will almost certainly take that as a personal attack and feel non the better for personalising his words for the masses. some things should be let go.

game journelists also face the scrutiny of the much larger percentage of the games world, the recreational players. people have an over veiw of journelists and reveiwers but hey, we all buy these reveiws and in turn, even if we disagree immensly, we pay their wages through sales and they benifit from us doing so. their point has been portrayed and many of them are strong willed enough to take everythng we say about them, with a pinch of salt.

Ranking a game in its most basic sence seems almost heart breaking as many games that are left on teh shelf because of a bad reveiw have deeper graces that need adressing, but reveiws tend to reer towards "i like the graphics but...!!THE FRAME RATE IS A BIT SLUGGISH!!" ranking a game on its graphics and/or game play alone seems almost meaningless, what does this game have? what can it show for future development? games can be considered milestones and are a learning process for games companies. To put it simply, if i wanted a game to be changed in a certain way such as farcrys low contrasting lush green fowliage, i'd make a comment expressing that, rather than giving the game an 8 because it had good game play but the graphics made my eyes ache. looking at a game and giving it a score is pointless. looking at a game and giving your oppinion on its failiures and successes gives the developers and readers somthing to work from. hten maybe sales would be increasingly more perposfull.

ngj..

What other forms of games writing can you find?

games writing can take the form of ratings reveiws and general discussions and can also be found in many formats such as blogging, devotedURLs and even discussions through other games or chat rooms. writings from sites such as http://uk.ign.com/ are a basis for delivering games writings inside the games world. people can express their oppinion through message boards. articles in newspapers depicting games sales or game trials are common place in todays technological age. many games have also been made into movies or vise-versa such as "Final Fantasy" or "Resident Evil". games writing doesnt just stop at somes score out of 10 its mass marketed and put out there in many forms for us to see on a daily basis.

Both subjectivity and objectivity have there status and are regarded to be a necesity in writing. i feel that both types of writing deliver a persons point of veiw weather bias and straightforward or broad and discussed. if a person must express an oppinion on wich he or she cannot be shyed away then so be it but if a writer can openly agree to critisism and discuss to means then that is a course best suited to its perpose

F.E.A.R?,,,next gen?

1. review some of these links on Game Design
2. write your blog entry, and consider the following questions:

What is meant by Gameplay?

game play is a term many people use to fill the gap where other words fail to fill. something that can be tagged as the games soul or reason for being...failing that it can be described as a games longevity or the players experience of a game other than a bit of eye candy and catchy line or two. for most people a game is played for fun and excitment and this is generally the way game play is merited upon. "does this game lack game play?" yes? many people would pull apart a games defining points in an attempt to rid it of its so called "game play" and miss the point entirly. for example i played a game called Condemned: criminal origins recently and found it to be overly satisfying and enjoyable to smash the skull of a crazed lunatic in the desperate attempt to....what? i just realy liked beating people up! The lighting also reflected the dark diranged esscence of the game. some may say this game lacked game play if all i remembered about it was crushing my foes in increasingly more violent ways, but i played the game and enjoyed every last second to the point in which i could wait to catch my next victim unawares and feel my 2x4 connect with human flesh. game play is more than how the game realed me in and kept me playing, it is better described as a feeling of satisfication weather it be violence, pleasure or pain, in the end "each to his own".

Who are the leading lights in Game Design? games designers come from all backgrounds, genres and skills thus there are hundreds if not thousands that deserve the title of leading lights
Eugene Evans, VP, Marketing & Business Development, Mythic Entertainment,Inc.
Montgomery Singman, Chief Professor, Shanghai Theatre Academy
Lan Hai Wen, CEO, Link China Entertainment
John Needham, CFO, Sony Online Entertainment
Joshua Hong, CEO, K2 Networks

games design is a fundimental part of the economic structure in teh computer age that we live in and will continue to develope through the imagination of the next game enthusiast. Games design takes place in all walks of life and in many areas of the world, such as Russia, America, Japan and little old England but the design process is created in the same place it always has, the minds of games enthusiasts all over the world, hidden away somewhere in dark computer rooms in the attempt to make millions of people happy.

Is it a single person's responsibility?

Over the years games design has gotten more complicated and technical with many people taking part using their indevidual skills such as texture mappers and level designers to artists and sound designers. from the first games to the most rescent, games have had increasing nubers of staff required to get to the finished product, sometimes as much as 150 or more people (Doom3). however games design has to have a beginning and that can be found at one persons idea or conscept wich is annalysed and split up into design stages. the first doom game was designed by non other than John Romero along with other games such as wolfenstein3d and the first quake. some people assume that games are developed and set on a path that is layed exactly how it started but many things change throughout the process. such as zelda: the ocarina of time. some of the locations of objects and creatures were changed even after the strategy guide was published. in short, games design is the sole job of everybody working on the game, after all, thats why they call it a design team.

Do different genres require different design principles? different genres of games are required to go through a similar process, every time. the games pipline requires research into a particular genre that may give the game its starting point and could effect its overall outcome but in terms of genre, if a game was to be an FPS for example then one would have to cinsider violence and game structure (psychology?) compared to an RPG that may entail more than just killing the next thing you see with a fully loaded hand cannon, what if an RPG needed more of an intelectual approach (myst or atlantis) as to find objects, solve puzzles or say the right thing to the right person to get you where you want to go. design of everything else depends on teh genre of teh game and above all the audience that likes this genre. games such as atlantis would be more suitible for an older more mature person that lacks teh hand eye cordination of a next generation FPS addict. the design principles of every game doesnt always go according to plan and may inherrit a class that was not originally intended such as GTA. it was first designed as a game for any body to play but as it grew so did the violence and the lastes versions are certificate 18+. the principles of game design cmay be able to go off at tangents depending on teh genre but the main structure is still there. http://www.wunderland.com/WTS/Andy/Games/DesignPrinciples.html

What's important for you, when you play?

when i play a game i want to almost always see somthing new that may not have been done or used in that way before or maybe some new graphics technology, such as crysis (not F.E.A.R.). game play is assential but when a game is given to me i expect a certain amount of realism. im not just a guy that wants a game to look good i want it to feel good. designing a game that has great shaders and real time shadows is one thing but lacking game play and or quality is a no no. i recently played Baldurs Gste1 again and i loved it as much as when i first played it. this being an iscometic 3rd person rpg that has next to no graphical need what so ever. It has immersive game play and i am not forced to go along a set path to complete the story, the game allows me to go where ever want to and complete as many sub missions untill i totaly forget about the storyline.