The final chapters explore art games, chiefly through the work of Natalie Bookchin’s Intruder (1999), and subsequent game pieces. But it’s not as if we haven’t been here before – Blais & Ippolito offer significant discussion in At The Edge of Art (2006).
The main contribution of ‘Critical Play’ lies in it’s re-visioning of art history in light of the modern day importance that play and games hold. Ultimately, Flanagan has provided a framework from which further, more current discussion of art-games can take place. It’s true. Yes – games can be art; games have been art; games will be art.
I found it disappointing, however, to see modern day contemporary game designers such as Rod Humble, Jonathan Blow, and Jason Rohrer ommited from the text. Or indeed the explorations of the Tale of Tales collective, or thechineseroom Half-Life 2 mods.
The tendency seems to be to disregard the workings of Game Designers, and leave the art with a capital A to the Artists. Flanagan does indeed offer a few tips and models for how one might approach radical game design, artful game design; design with social, ethical and cultural consequence. And this book does succeed in exploring what it set out to achieve.
Maybe the work of actual (art) game designers thus far is rather uninteresting to the academic world. Independent game design certainly hasn’t rated much critical attention. We see the big, commercial games, the World of Warcraft’s, the Grand Theft Auto’s, and forget to explore the subtle, meticulously crafted worlds of Flow, Braid, & the delicate statements of Passage, Gravitation, & Between.
Critical Play was a necessary step in the compendium of historical game texts. But now we’ve put that baby to sleep, lets move on and really start talking about games.
m. leaf-tierney
