Last week, I talked about video games as art. This week, the metaphors are coming out in force, because I’m taking you back to school for an art history lesson. Don’t worry, it won’t take very long, and if I’m being honest, it won’t be too in-depth. But there are similarities between video game history and art history, and I think it’s fascinating.
Art historians believe that art began with cave paintings tens of thousands of years ago. Early cave paintings depicted animals, drawn with simple pigments such as berries or mud and using branches as brushes, if they weren’t drawn literally by hand. Despite the relatively simple nature of these drawings, their forms are easily recognizable. I can only imagine what the first attempts at drawing a water buffalo looked like. There was no art teacher to show these ancient artists how to paint.
At this point, I’d like you to head over to ponggame.org and play one round of Pong. You can play more, or practice, but the discussion works best if you play one game. Win or lose, you can keep reading after the game is done.
Done? Good. The middle schoolers generally didn’t win their game of Pong. In fact, usually half of the students didn’t know how to play Pong, which was exactly what I wanted to get across. Pong is one of the first video games, and definitely one of the first major successful games. The designers did not have instruction on how to program their game. The students did not get instruction on how to play Pong. Pong is an ancestor of modern games, and it was created by hand compared to all the education and training that go into modern games. Pong is the early cave painting of video games.
I specified “early” cave painting because cave paintings evolved. Historically, cave paintings existed for thousands of years before paintings depicting humans appeared. Cave paintings existed for so long; which person decided to draw a person? Who was that innovator? Whoever they were, it was a big change, allowing early artists to show not only hunted animals, but the hunters themselves.
It’s time for another game break. This time, webpacman.com is your target. While you may be crazy good at Pac-man, I’d like you to play just the first level. If you lose all your lives, that’s OK. If you get to level 2, pat yourself on the back and come back here. You can go for the Level 256 kill screen afterwards.
Pac-man is still an ancestor to modern games, but there’s something different about it compared to the games that came before it, especially Pong. Pac-man is in color; before it, Pong, Space Invaders, and Asteroids were all very popular, but they had a limited color palette. The designers of Pac-man didn’t know that they were setting out to create the single most recognizable video game in history. They didn’t know they were breaking new ground, just like cave painters didn’t know that they were starting something new by drawing a person. Pac-man is the later cave painting of video games.
From here, art history moves at a clip, with far too many innovations. Some of them have video game parallels, like 3D graphics and chiaroscuro. But at this juncture in the workshop, I had to find some way to plow through a lot of art history at once. The secret was a Greek temple. Historians can tell it’s a Greek temple not just because it’s in Greece, because some of them aren’t in Greece. The style of the columns, the specific design in the triangle above the columns, even the number of columns indicate which society designed the temple, or which society influenced the architect.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a good free game for you to play. But if you’re reading this, you probably have video games laying around. Boot up a game from a major franchise and play it for a few minutes. While you do, think about what elements of the game, besides the name and possible iconic characters, indicate that this game is part of that franchise. If you don’t have a game like that, here’s some Super Mario World gameplay. I can’t guarantee it’s safe for work or kids, but it is entertaining.
Game franchises are like artistic movements. People who know games can tell if a game is from a certain franchise. Mario, Zelda, Kirby, Metroid, Halo, Gears of War, Uncharted, Ratchet & Clank, Madden, NBA 2k, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, etc. You don’t need to see the name of the game to recognize any of these titles.
I’ve been writing more for this article than any of my previous posts, and there’s still more I could talk about. I’ll end it with my list of “games I don’t have or are too complicated for students to play but everyone should play anyways”, and a call for responses. How do you believe games parallel art history? Is there an example game I should look into?
The List:
- Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (and all Metroid games in general)
- Psychonauts
- Ikaruga
- Jet Set Radio Future (and the other Jet Set Radio games)
- Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
- Portal
- Shadow of the Colossus
- Undertale
That's Pretty NEET 