THE BORE
General => Video Game Bored => Topic started by: Vrolokus on September 11, 2008, 06:29:14 PM
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For those interested, I interviewed David for Joystick Division, and parts 1 and 2 of the huge transcript are online now (part 3 comes tomorrow).
It turned out okay, mostly thanks to David. His answers were really thoughtful and interesting, he really did a good job. Part one is mostly his background and bio, a sort of "getting to know David" piece, while part two is exclusively on Braid.
You'll see them at www.JoystickDivision.com (http://www.JoystickDivision.com).
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That was a good read. Hellman seems like a pretty cool guy.
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He was really interesting to talk to, and a great sport. No matter how much you prep to interview someone, they can blow the whole thing by just sitting there and not really doing their part... not a problem with David.
Glad you guys like it so far!
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The final part is now up. Here's links to each:
Part 1 (David's background, talking about art and being an artist):
http://www.joystickdivision.com/2008/09/interview_with_art_director_of.php (http://www.joystickdivision.com/2008/09/interview_with_art_director_of.php)
I like art that shows evidence of a struggle or a process, and I feel less of an impulse to make work that’s very clean or very neat and tidy. I like things that show a little bit of process behind them, or almost look like they’ve been revised in the process. I think you see that in Rembrandt, he’s scratching things out, it seems tumultuous the way things came together. And I think you can see that in Braid, it was something I tried to do with the particle objects, make it look like the picture was being created – you wrote in your review something to that effect, and that felt really good to me because that’s sort of what I was thinking: the idea that it was being created as you were watching, or that its reality was somehow fluid or shifting in a way. I read an essay on Cézanne landscapes… I think it might have been a Merleau-Ponty essay, Eye and Mind. There was a great passage there where it describes his work with landscapes as “seeming to show a world in the first moments of its existence”. You’re looking at this thing that has just come into being… that made sense to me at the time.
Part 2 (On Braid):
http://www.joystickdivision.com/2008/09/interview_with_braids_david_he.php (http://www.joystickdivision.com/2008/09/interview_with_braids_david_he.php)
...when I first played the ending – which was a much earlier version of the game, of course, without the art that’s in there now, but it was pretty much the same – I thought: this game is really doing something interesting with embodying its themes through the gameplay. I mean, all games embody their themes through the gameplay on some level, but this was purposefully. It wasn’t starting from something we’re used to experiencing in a game or expressing through game mechanics like “exhilaration” or “conflict”. It was something about reversal and about relating to people. And just by putting in these figures, using characters – the princess, Tim – just that little bit of window dressing is enough to set your mind on interpreting these mechanics as expressive. If you replaced Tim and the princess with blocks or something, I think a large part of the game’s meaning would still be intact, but people probably wouldn’t be inclined to look for that meaning because they’d just see it as a game mechanic.
Part 3 (On him as a gamer, the state of art in games, and what's next for him):
http://www.joystickdivision.com/2008/09/interview_with_braids_david_he_1.php (http://www.joystickdivision.com/2008/09/interview_with_braids_david_he_1.php)
I have no idea what’s going on inside of companies. I think that it’s a mistake to point at the fat cats at the top and just assume that they’re crushing all the goodness out of things. I mean, people make things that are like what they like. You can tell a lot of people making videogames love the games they played a few years ago or they’re playing now, and they want to make something like that but just add their stamp to it. That’s fine, I just think maybe that’s some of the sameness.
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Thanks.
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Does he say how much of a dickhead Blow is?
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blow is awesome, demi loves little cocks in his mouth and anus
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yeah, the interview was done really well imo, you guys seemed to have a pretty natural banter going and david managed to answer quite a few of your tougher questions. good work
what a guy... he's so dreamy :omg :heartbeat :-[
>:(
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Thanks guys. And as a writer for a shamefully underread site: double thanks. ;)