Thesis
As our junior year of college drew to a close, 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 were conceptualized as consumer facing products. While we don’t have all that much against the idea of games as a commercial product, we all felt that our understanding of how to engage with games, specifically as an art form, had barely developed since high school. 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.
Us
Austen van der Byl
Heyo, I’m Austen! I’ve occupied my body for just over two decades and have spent some time in it over the last few years making games. That said, I’ve been playing games for just about as long as I can remember (starting with Kirby’s Nightmare in Dreamland). I believe there’s quite a bit to be learned and lived through in games – this year I’d like to explore and experiment with what that means in the context of art. Games have made me feel lots of things, and I hope to make games that people can feel in – we’ll see how it goes!
David Zheng
Hey everyone, I’m David! Games and art have both been important aspects of my life growing up. I’ve been drawing, painting, and taking art classes from a young age. In middle school I started 3D modeling, animation, and writing stories. Eventually, I fell in love with game development as a combination of all the artistic mediums I enjoy jumping between. I’m excited by how interactivity can allow us to re-contextualize, reflect upon, and process our emotions and experiences. I’m hoping to make games that can bring about new feelings and help revisit old ones. Some of the games that have made the biggest impact on me are Journey and Before Your Eyes.
Zach Northrop
Hey there, I’m Zach! I’ve been making games since I was 15, working as a designer, composer, sound designer, and programmer. I grew up playing drums and found a love for game audio and adaptive music composition on some game jams with friends. Since then, this has grown into a love for creating wacky and experimental game mechanics that communicate and express emotions. I was inspired by The Beginner’s Guide to move towards artistic games, and others like Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice and ABZU showed me the depth and potential of the medium. This year, I’m really hoping to develop my ability to connect to my work in games deeply and move towards a more experimental approach to game design.
Art Games Thesis 