Level up: exploring the artistic side of video game design

At the core of this is a shift in perception among audiences about the artistic and creative merits of video games as a medium, especially those who were not part of a fandom their whole life – they never needed any convincing. “I was very much a let-me-drown-my-Sims-in-the-pool kind of person,” says Rachel Dalton, who is now the head of design at Lost in Cult, a creative agency and book publisher devoted to the preservation of video game culture and the celebration of its artistic legacy and innovations. Things changed when she came upon the footage of the 2001 action-adventure game Ico, whose backgrounds look very much like something out of Giorgio De Chirico’s canvases, and the 2010 puzzle-horror Limbo. “I had just seen the things that were advertised everywhere,” she says. “Then seeing the kind of work that actually goes into creating a game definitely changed my perspective on it as a kind of artistic medium.”

And while games like the Final Fantasy VII R project, The Last of Us, and all the Dark-Souls-like action-adventure games have reached a level of cinematic excellence, when we talk about artistry in game design, it’s usually because of independent productions that push the creative envelope of the medium – drawing from visual arts such as cinema, comics, animation, and architecture. “Indie games have a similar impact as other indie entertainment industries,” reflects Cédric Babouche, creative director of the 2023 point-and-click adventure game Dordogne, known for its impressionistic watercolour landscapes. “As game creators, that’s a medium that gives us the opportunity to look for new visual and narrative directions and dare to experiment with slightly different gameplay.”

Ghibli seems like a recurrent inspiration. For example, Gregorios Kythreotis, creative director of Sable, credits the Japanese studio, alongside Moebius and Jodorowsky’s Dune for the way he built the desert-like landscape of Sable – style-wise, he used ligne claire, a nod to his background in architecture. “The strongest commonality between them – as well as just having extremely fantastical ideas– is the portrayal of normalcy of daily life for the people that live in their worlds, which I think is something that we really focused on in Sable.” Babouche admits to the Ghibli legacy as well. “We took an approach close to animated films,” he explains, regarding the way the main character Mimi stands out against the backdrops. “In Miyazaki’s films, the colouring of his characters is very flat and stands out from the very painted or even realistic settings. This makes them easier to read. It was a technical choice at the time but it has become a manufacturing habit that is normal for everyone, general public and professionals alike.”

Looking towards Japanese productions appears to be a way for independent developers to differentiate themselves from either 3D photorealism or vintage-inspired pixel or low-polygon art styles, and we have to remember that what we might perceive as a novelty in Europe and the US is nothing new in Japan, where even multi-chapter sagas adopt a wide variety of styles. “ [Japanese productions] are afforded a really passionate —like otaku —fans who are gonna love that stuff forever,” says Winnie Song, assistant arts professor of Game Design at NYU’s Game Center. “And I think they’re emboldened by that and are braver. The fanbase base is really rock solid and they can continue on that path of experimental anime styles.”

Analogue Goods for Digital Worlds

Speaking of vinyls, a thing that characterises these independent productions is the emphasis on tangible material collections, which include, but are not limited to, physical copies of the games, design works, and, of course, vinyls, thanks to the work of companies like Iam8bit and Lost in Cult. “People are drawn to craftsmanship and they’re drawn to those types of video games for a reason: it’s the same audience,” says Dalton (Lost in Cult’s head of design), when talking about the market for analogue ephemera in a digital-first world. “The people that appreciate beautiful video games, and really rigorous designed video games are also going to appreciate rigorously designed and tangible objects.”

Her colleague Jon Doyle sees this as a larger tendency beyond their built-in customer base, one that aligns with people wanting to escape their digital existence by buying point-and-shoot cameras or mp3 players. “What we’ve seen is that a huge majority of our audience at this stage is under the age of 40 — it kind of bucks the trend of traditional video game merchandise, which tends to go higher as you go older. Gen Z are predominantly the largest growth sector for vinyl as well, which is notable because they’ve technically grown up without it,” says Doyle. “The ability to hold things in your hand and see the artists’ intent, and the creative process is second to none.”

And this is certainly not just the purview of indie games: take a colossus like Mario, where its latest titles, namely Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Princess Peach Showtime, not to mention the whole Paper Mario spinoff, honour the visual and the performing arts in equal measure. “Bigger studios and publishers are more and more influenced by more daring proposals in terms of art direction, leaning away from photorealism and towards very unique art styles,” concludes Babouche. So it seems, as with most creative media, the indie pioneers of video game artistry have paved the way for industry behemoths to soon follow suit – but that’s a whole other story (or gameplay) for another time.