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ARTing the game: Press PILOT to Start!

The Academy in Canvas project – artistic research

MORE ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

The presence of video games in modern society is increasing, and thus their importance is growing. With the change in the cultural paradigm in the last 20 years, we no longer perceive games only as entertainment, but also strengthen their social, educational and artistic potential.

According to Nathan Deardorff, video games are a medium (which unites several) media[1]; experts of different profiles participate in the design, pushing the boundaries of their own creativity, exploring new conceptual, technical/technological and visual design possibilities, as well as ways of communicating with the audience. The first communication with the game is visual; sight is our dominant sense, so we will initially be attracted to the game (a good review and) an impressive, unusual and/or harmonious appearance. However, the role of the artist is twofold: in addition to creating what we watch, in the game he also creates what we see. Thus (in)directly influencing our visual perception, he collages content from reality and/or imagination and translates them into a new world prepared for play.

It is precisely parts of such a new world that are shown in the exhibition ARTing the game: Press PILOT to Start.

Organized after the completion of the piloting of the Video Game Design and Development program, the exhibition explores the creative potential brought by the fusion of traditional and new media and shows a selection of sketches and works created in different phases of the development of pilot versions of four video games: A Walk in the Park, Planet, path of view, and Center. Although the artists are responsible for the performance of the visuals, the works reflect the ideas and reflections of all members of the teams who worked on the games, thus emphasizing the multidisciplinarity in the production of the video game and pointing out that teamwork is the only possible way to its quality thinking and realization.

At the exhibition, in addition to sketches and visuals of different phases of work, you can see and play prototypes of the resulting games:

A Walk in the Park is a casual puzzle mobile game, which wants to become a top down, pixel art, adventure with humorous elements. The player in the role of a dog, in cooperation with his owner, navigates through the condensed schedule of daily walks in the park, with the aim of completing all daily tasks in order to advance to the next level.

Planet is a mobile game of creating or arranging planets, in which the player turns an initially empty planet and destroys or misses selected meteors of various colors in order to control what will be created on the planet. The player can also answer tasks for creating a planet, and share the results with other players.

Path of view is a mobile video game full of spatial puzzles that the player solves by understanding the limitations of movement in a given dimension. The game uniquely shows the complex relationship between two-dimensional and three-dimensional beings, in order to bring us closer to the human (mis)understanding of the fourth dimension.

Hub is a mobile horror game where the player, in search of a lost friend in the core of an unknown planet, must listen to the sounds of the creatures he meets along the way in order to distinguish deadly creatures from harmless ones.

EXHIBITORS

Vanja Čulek • Jelena Đanko • Neva Kiš • Bela Lacko • Bruna Nakić • Luka Rudan • Alma Trtovac • Hana Volner • Astrid Vujnović

GAMES CREATED

A Walk in the Park 

  • Game design: Klara Raškaj
  • Visual artists: Neva Kiš, Bela Lacko
  • Developers: Karlo Cividini, Noa Midžić
  • Sound: Sven Senečić
  • Production: Luka Habuš

Planet

  • Game design: Dorijan Strnad
  • Visual artists: Astrid Vujnović, Alma Trtovac
  • Developers: Antonio Matok, Danijel Pirc
  • Sound: Dino Divković
  • Production: Alma Trtovac

Path of view

  • Game design: Vanja Čulek
  • Visual artists: Luka Rudan, Hana Volner
  • Developers: Josip Hrvatić, Nina Kolarec
  • Sound: Nela Gluhák
  • Production: Filip Prah

Hub 

  • Game design: Mihaela Sladović
  • Visual artists: Jelena Đanko, Bruna Nakić
  • Programmers: Ivan Kolanović, Stefan Vedrina
  • Sound: Toma Širok
  • Production: Benjamin Noah Mariček
  •  

The exhibition was realized as part of the Edu4Games project and the A>>C program.

In order to contribute to the development, and above all to the quality of games in the country and the region, the Edu4Games project was launched – Development of occupational standards and qualifications and new study programs in the field of video game design and development. It is carried out in cooperation with several components of the University of Zagreb – the Academy of Dramatic Art, the Academy of Fine Arts, the Design Studio at the Faculty of Architecture, the Faculty of Organization and Informatics and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, as well as in cooperation with industry experts. It is designed so that the teaching and learning processes of future video game creators are focused on artistic and scientific practice and research.

More about the program at: http://edu4games.adu.hr.

The "A>>C" program includes the presentation of artistic research projects, exhibitions of established artists, as well as artists of the younger generation. The program aims to establish a platform for socializing and communication through art and to set a positive example of cooperation between institutions, both cultural and educational, artists and audiences, and thus contribute to the understanding and thus the progressive development of contemporary art in Croatia.

More about the program at: https://www.facebook.com/akademijaucanvasu.

[1] Deardorff, Nathan, "An Argument That Video Games Are, Indeed, High Art", Forbes, 2015.