Assignment 7: Critical Review- First Draft

Video games have been around for roughly 85 years, starting out in 1940 where computers occupied an entire room to run. Now in 2025, you can have a computer running a game in the palm of your hand; games have evolved since then, not just in hardware but also in design.

The game that started the boom in the gaming industry was 'Space Invaders', released 1978 by Tomohiro Nishikado who was inspired by both Tom and Jerry and Casper the Friendly Ghost. Originally in development, Nishikado thought of using tanks and warriors for the designs, however after the the release of Star Wars resorted to using sci-fi elements like aliens and spaceships.

It took Nishikado, alone, to create the visuals, which he designed with simple sketches and reduced them into pixel (otherwise known as bits); after that, he would create the programming and mechanics of the game on a circuit board.

The success of Space Invaders echoed throughout the world which opened up for more games to be created, Toru Iwatani would create the next big hit.

Iwatani wanted to fill a gap in the gaming industry and discovered that women weren't as interested in shooting games as men were, instead of shooting, Iwatani would make an eating action game. His research would lead him to a pizza place, where he became inspired by a missing slice of pizza, that was were the idea of 'Pac-Man' would be developed-- and do so using squared paper and pencil.

As gaming expanded, the introduction to 16-bit games came to fruition, and a game called "Final Fantasy" was attempting to make their mark. Yoshitaka Amano an artist hired to create visuals for the game would design concepts for the game, thus being the first (known) game to create high visual art in the development of a game; and do so using watercolours and acrylics. The designs would be reduced down to 16-bit technology, though as technology developed, we can slowly see the original concepts shine through 3-dimensional characters.

The gaming industry has changed since then and nowadays you would find larger companies designing games with multiple departments to help flesh out a game. Typically you get Concept Artists, Character and Environment Artists, Animators, Technical Artists, Game VFX, UX and UI Designers, Sound Designers and Game Designers.

It's the job of the Concept Artists to design solutions for what the overall look and feel of the game, and is typically done through quick idea iterations. The design process is typically done digitally, but there are instances where sculptures would be used or other traditional mediums.

All throughout the process, Game Designers will create the mechanics of the game and establish the experience; with UI and UX designers creating the players experience and visual rules of the game. They work with the directors of the game to help develop the story and overall players experience of the game, figuring out the climax's in the story and interactivity.

Character Animators will direct the 3D characters with story and acting performance, in the instance of 'The Last of Us' motion capture was used to create the performance-- common among modern games. The animators would then add depth and weight to the characters that would be missing in the studio performance.

The added touches would be the sound design and the VFX, which in the Riot YouTube series 'so you wanna make video games' highlights how just as important these elements are, as it helps to create audible cues and help communicate gameplay, as well as evoking an emotional response from a player.

Big game companies can have many people working on a project at a time, however Indie games included a single individual or a small team to create a game.

Expressed in 'Indie Game: The Movie', typically Indie Games are produced as a medium of self-expression and requires a lot of a time to perfect a game-- in most times sacrificing years worth of time, due to not having as many people as a big company would.

Most instances, Indie Games have created bigger impacts on the communities than the big-titles, such as Baldur's Gate 3, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Stray, and Gris. Each standing out for its story, personality and innovative gameplay.

Stardew Valley stands alongside those great titles, created by Eric Barone, who was inspired by Harvest Moon, Initially, he wanted to create the project for his CV. However after learning new skills for the game and refining them, he would feel that urge to go back on his work and improve other aspects of the game-- taking up 4 years of his life to eventually release it.

Eric created every aspect of the game that would require large teams for a big gaming company to do, and would ask players for feedback on what to improve on; because of that Stardew Valley became a sensation and continues to be played 9 years later.

To feel inspired by previous games opens doors for other developers to create their own stamp in the industry, brothers Chad and Jared Moldenhaur used to play "run and gun" games as kids and as they grew up they eventually found themselves wanting to create their own game. They came up with the concept inspired by 1930s animation, Cuphead would be developed between the brothers and their family and friends to create a unique title to the gaming market. The design process included something new, hand-drawn animations and props; heavily inspired by old-cartoons like 'Silly Symphony' and those same games they played when they were young.

The design process between larger companies and indie developers is somewhat the same- depending on the artistic styles of the game, however a lot of time goes into this medium; for Eric Barone, he spent 4 years creating his game and continued to apply bug fixes and updates to the game to this day (now with help from a small team).

Big game companies can't exactly create risky new projects that are innovative without threat of losing audiences and losing money from publishers; with an indie developer you already may not have the funding to live to continue making the game, but you have a lot more artistic freedom. But both are just as risky.

Developing a game draws a lot on research, artistic styles and story-telling-- as well as the technical sides of playability and mechanics. The games that stand out the most either have incredible story or really interesting style (or blend of the both); and you can find that older games like Space Invaders and Pac-Man, have allowed for the gaming industry to flourish with creativity. Despite the fact that there wasn't as much thought of the visuals of the game till Final Fantasy.

Newly announced games like 'Felt that: Boxing' creates new visuals of digital puppets and 'Out of Words' being made from stop-animation, games that have been able to be created because of the history's innovations. Allowing new ideas, whether successful or not can pave new ways for other creators to design their games.

The way we design games has changed but not forgotten, it's expansive with the amount of technology or mediums we can use to create visuals for a game, like simple pen and paper to digital tablet to create characters, 3D models, environments, anything!

As we reach the end of this critical review, I can't help but reflect on how much game design has changed how we use games, not just for fun and shooting but for telling stories and self-expressive art.

Media collected (so far)

I've collected a variety of gameplay footage and behind the scenes videos intended for this video essay, I'm not able to upload it all but here are just the few small clips I could manage to upload. I will edit it down and play around with it.

Reflection

I think I need to delve a little deeper, the essay appears a bit surface level-- and my original essay went way too much into the development of a game, almost spewing step by step of games and how it works. I would get a lot of tunnel vision, and so I pulled back a lot.

I was lucky enough to catch the summer game fest that which announced new games coming up in the next few years, and a few titles seemed to show innovation-- therefore including it in the essay as a pin point of what to come in gaming.

I was also extremely tempted to create my own animation visuals to convey elements of my essay, for example drawing a pizza and showing a missing slice moving away to show Pac-Man. But I'll see if it's something I can do for my essay.