Art Games Thesis

As our junior year of college drew to a close, the three of us found ourselves wrapping up a First-Person, Movement Shooter, Roguelike, Resource Management game…. We really enjoyed it, but we also found ourselves confronted with the reality that many, if not most, of the games we had made ended up as consumer facing products. While we don’t have all that much against the idea of games as a commercial product, we all felt a desire to further explore games as a form of personal expression. Coming into college, we were each interested in what it would mean/look like to pursue games as a medium for individual and group based artmaking. Now, in our senior year, we are setting out to explore these questions and push our relationship with games deeper in our year long Art Games Thesis. Take a look at our work below! Take a look at our work below!

terminal connection – Final Reflections

If this is the first post you are reading, we recommend starting with our Overview post, followed by our Process post. If this is not the first post you are reading, thank you so much for reading our writing so far (and playing our game?) This project has meant so much to us and…
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terminal connection – The Process

This blog post explores our process of creating terminal connection, including the process of finding and settling on the full idea for the game as well as a few core discussion points that emerged during production. We have a ton of very spread out thoughts about this game and how we made it, but…
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terminal connection – An Overview

This blog post explores our final game project, terminal connection, and the intention behind it. terminal connection is a metaphor for doomscrolling in which the player flies a plane. They must stay close to surfaces to keep the plane’s engine running through diverse and intense landscapes. In creating this game, we remained focused on…
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Aero-Dynamics – 2/9/24

What were we trying to accomplish and what did we do to pursue the goals we set for ourselves? This is our first project for the second semester of this thesis. We ended 2023 with a prototype and a topic — to recap, our goal is to spend the entire semester making one game…
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The Tower – 12/6/23

Ascend to the top of the Tower and find the answer you seek. The game was made over the course of three weeks with the intention of making a a game about hyperreality.
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A Little Treat – 10/31/23

In the year 2055, a walk home from work has new requirements. Luckily, a little treat sure does go a long way. The game was made over the course of a single week with the intention of making a game based on a proverb.
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The Egg – 10/24/23

Clean up the rubble after a tragic dragon attack. The game was made over the course of a single week with the intention of exploring the theme of power through narrative.
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Zach’s Self Portrait [Kaleidoscope] – 10/9/23

What were we trying to accomplish and what did we do to pursue the goals we set for ourselves? For this project, we decided to try to each make a self-portrait in the form of a game. We spent two weeks on our projects and were very careful about not sharing too much information…
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David’s Self Portrait – 10/9/23

What was I trying to accomplish and what did I do to pursue the goals I set for myself? I’ve done self portraits in other artistic mediums, but attempting a self portrait in the form of a game is new territory for me. How do you even make a self portrait game, what does…
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Austen’s Self Portrait – 10/9/23

What was I trying to accomplish and what did I do to pursue the goals I set for myself? To unhelpfully summarize, I sat and and tried to hold the lumpy blob concept of a self portrait and the slimy goop that is game design in my brain at the same time and tried…
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