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.

Do NPCs In Video Games Really Die?

Mortal Kombat

Since the early 90's, old people who had no idea what video games are and Florida lawyers who are willing to spin the grief of parents who have lost their children to violent crimes to make a quick buck have tried to question the issue of violence in video games.  I mean, it's undeniable that video games depict a lot of simulated death.

Now, those disrespectful politicians and opportunists who I mentioned above have tried to rattle our ears with the concept that our brains can't understand the differences between reality and video games; that these video games will rot our minds and turn us into killers.

Half-Life 2

Those crusty old farts are full of it.  We know that now.

But, what if we actually are all killers?  What if those virtual characters, packed with "AI", are actually living things that we're killing?

A Brief Explanation of Educational Computer Games

Math Muncher

If you grew up in the 90's and early 2000's, then you remember playing some serious educational games either in school or at home.  The funny thing about them was that they never really felt like they were teaching you stuff.  You were just having a lot of fun.

But you did learn.  You had to!  It was the only way to play the game.  How can you munch math in Math Muncher without knowing the math?

These games were great ways of teaching children how to learn while having fun with the topics.  But there's not that much of this anymore.  What happened?  Where are the games that, dare I say, made learning fun?