Art: A How To on the Do's and Does of Doing It; That is to say, Art

As I increase in age I reflect on my days as a teenager and young adult prattling on to my peers about art and the creation of art and self-reflection and philosophy and the occasional dirty joke. As time went on those peers had grown into contemporary artists who all have reflected to me some strange shared delusion that I managed to impress meaningful perspectives and approaches to them.

Now, I would never claim to be anything more than a madman with a computer (the modern day's sandwich board) but it is plain to see that I have had many strong opinions regarding art throughout my life that tend not to fail me in producing art that is said to be "quality" or "effective."

Given that I have this dusty blog that I never use, I figured I would this opportunity to express some of my perspectives on art in a radically condensed format. If you read this and feel enlightened or inspired, then bravo! Perhaps you can apply this in some way to your approach moving forward as an artist and I hope it benefits you greatly. If you read this and think I'm a madman, then cheers and I hope you were entertained.

Dr. Bitsy-Love, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Small Projects

Hmmm, I seem to remember having a blog... whatever happened to-

Oh.  Oops.

Yeah, to say the least it's been a minute or so since my last post.  But, hey, I've been doing lots of stuff and accumulating things to write about and share so why not hop back into my bloggin' shoes and talk about what's up?

Let's start with the journey I took in making several games using Bitsy.

Just woke up from a strange nightmare

I just woke up from a strange nightmare. I'm not even sure if I can call it a nightmare, but it spooked the hell out of me. Here's what I can remember of it.

I was living in an apartment. Not totally unlike the townhouse I live in right now, but it was one story and all the walls, floor, and ceiling were white but dimly lit- like everything was lit with fluorescent bulbs that weren’t getting enough power. Another difference was that there were a lot of doors to the outside. Out the front door was a courtyard area enclosed by surrounding apartments. It was the dead of night, must have been around 1 or 2 am.

But I didn’t want to go outside. No matter what I wanted to stay in the apartment. Taking even a single step outside filled me with dread and anxiety. I’d need to run back inside to stop hyperventilating.

Halloween Scavenger Hunt Rerelease

Three years ago I released a small game to my friends on social media sites.  This game was called "Halloween 2013," or "Halloween Scavenger Hunt."

This year I decided to update and rerelease the game with some new features.

Mold Sim - Undertale Edition

Want to help me keep making free games?  Try checking out my art shop and buying some cool merchandise with my characters and designs on it.  It helps me stay alive long enough to make stuff!

A (Relatively) Short Dissection of Rocket Knight Adventures, My Favorite Game

I write a lot about game design on this blog.  I write about how to do it right, how to do it wrong, and why certain concepts are really important to consider.

Now, considering how much I perseverate on these topics, you might be wondering what the ideal is for me.  Sure, I've brought up some games I really like, such as Super Mario Brothers 3, Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Saint's Row: The Third...

But what is the ideal?

The ideal is Rocket Knight Adventures on the Sega Genesis.

Let's start

Minesweeper Proves Presentation is Everything

You know what game I keep coming back to?  A game that is loaded with tension, strategy, risk, reward, and scaling difficulty?

Minesweeper.  And it's a great example of how presentation can be everything to some audiences.