Wednesday, July 06, 2016
Video Games as an Art Form Part 2: Game Design for Theatre Professionals
HowlRound: I am going to teach you how to make a video game. Sort of. You can’t do that in one article. But I am in a good place to help. As a playwright and producer who also makes video games, I want to talk you through the process of how we made our game. Heroes Must Die is my mad project that just wrapped up, which combines a story-driven video game with its sequel as a live-action theatre show set in the world of games.
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In recent years the areas of films, theaters and video games have began to increasingly overlap with one another. As more and more responsibility falls on the media designers in theaters, and sound designers often work for both films and video games, it’s important for us to learn how those other areas work, and combine their characteristics with theatre’s in a creative way. This article further illustrates this new fusion, as the author him/herself is both a playwright and a video game designer. While this identity might be hard to achieve, for it requires extensive knowledge in both theatre and computer science, some other roles listed in the article are quite sensible. Writers develop storyline in video games just like playwright; Designers need to consider visual effects like in the theatre; Artists create art (which is only 2D not 3D); and Composers set the rhythm of the game just like in the theatre. In 21th century the nature of theatre is gradually changing, thus instead of following the old custom of creating a show, it’s important to venture into different areas, relates them to theaters, practice their advantages in theatrical production, and create a new form of theatre in our time.
I think it’s very interesting to see how similar video games and theatre are when it comes to design and production of the game. As a gamer, I like to learn about the actual process that goes into making the games that make it to our consoles and electronic devices. Many positions, especially when it comes to designing, overlap between games and theatre, and they follow the same general production schedule. I think it’s a cool experiment to make a video game with a stage show sequel, as it brings together two art forms that people generally look at as being very different and forces them to see the similarities. There’s a lot to learn from both media as things are done slightly differently and to work in both one must be able to learn the particulars of each, helping to improve their skills and making for an even better designer and storyteller.
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