Rahil Patel

(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ |

Category Archives for: Personal

Creativity Derives from Nothing

30 April 2013 by Rahil

Disclaimer: This thought is probably ripped from Jon Stokes.

Creativity. Creating something. How does one create something? Well, it’s easy to create something like something else, just copy, but that’s not very creative. I think the amount of creativity could be measured by how dissimilar it is to everything else, and is probably how fine art is judged. How does one create something like nothing else? How does on achieve pure creativity?

Creativity starts with nothing.

But starting with nothing is limitless. There has to be a beginning.

One method to help the creation process is by adding a contraint. First, a medium. Then, perhaps something is chosen arbitrarily: a word, a subject, an object, or out of inspiration: a thought, an image, a feeling. The rest is creativity. For example, game jams and similar events work well because there are contraints: the game medium, a theme, and time. The space between the single word theme and a complete game is filled by creativity. The constraint adds direction, and in the context of game jams, it enforces it, forcing one to create something.

If the resulting creation isn’t very creative, then perhaps the creative process was affected by one’s experience with the medium. Consuming media does not always affect creativity positively. A person who has vast knowledge in fine art does not make one more creative than one who does not. The consumption of art may affect the person negatively, as the person may be more inclined to create something like something they really like, or copy.

A recurring thought I’ve had: If one lived in humanly sustainable vacuum, a world where there is very little, that person would be extremely creative.

In the past, I stayed up late nights, consumed lots of media, avoided normal life activities, replacing them with films. As a result, I spoiled myself with fine art. For example, I wanted to create films with social realism, in a contemporary foreign setting, with long takes, and other characteristics I liked in art films. I also wanted to avoid things I disliked in pop films. Although I have taste, I like and dislike certains things, I don’t think it positively affected my creativity. Perhaps I now know what I want to make and what I don’t want to make, but avoiding the consumption of films altogether I wouldn’t have to avoid anything, and I wouldn’t be copying anyone, and it would have resulted in a better creation.

Now, after consuming very little media while travelling, then glancing at media, I find everything extremely uncreative in every aspect. I wonder why anyone would make such a thing. Of course, I know this because I consumed a lot of media in the past, I know what exists, but still, I feel a huge difference in the amount of creativity of media.

Consumption is a necessity in life. Travelling is a form of consumption. Instead of consuming art, I think it’s better to consume life. Explore places, eat something new, cook something new, play with friends, tend to family, explore people’s minds, create relationships, deepen relationships, create something with others, consume something with others, talk to people, observe nature, try a new job, try a new hobby, learn a new language. Live life, then create something from it. Perhaps these are the greatest derivatives of creativity: personal experiences.

In order to achieve pure creativity, one must remind oneself to do the following: starve oneself from art (at least the medium), start from nothing (or something minute), and live life. Then, create something from it.

Leave a comment | Categories: Art, Personal

Universalism in Art

27 May 2012 by Rahil

I recently saw an elderly person perform stand-up comedy and it triggered the thought of universalism in art.

Humor from elderly people is almost always universal from my experience. Everyone probably has a humorous uncle that’s able to make the whole family laugh.

I personally wouldn’t ever want to create something targeted to a specific audience. For example, I wouldn’t want to create an movie based on a manga, which is likely targeted at the Japanese and Otaku population. I’d want to create a Miyazaki film. I don’t even think of anime when Miyazaki comes to mind. Yet, Miyazaki’s films possess many common characteristics of anime. Why? Because his work is universal; It’s able to reach to everyone.

This thought reminds me of when Jenova Chen mentioned wanting to create an experience that is as universal as Miyazaki.

Another example of universalism in art is Pokemon. Pokemon do not conform to any culture. They are creatures, quite different from real animals, having somewhat unique names (maybe they mean something in Japanese?). My mom doesn’t know anything about the show but when she hears “pikachu” in Ash’s pikachu’s voice, she associates it with the pokemon in her mind. That’s powerful. I believe the reason Pokemon was a success is because it is universal.

The same goes for many Disney films, and other things often revered by the public — The Godfather, Shawshank Redemption, Michael Jackson, The Beatles, Marvin Gaye, etc.

Universalism is achieved by avoiding references, cliches, and things that would limit the audience.

A digression
Hmm. Perhaps a method to create something universal is to figure out how to introduce something innovative to the broadest audience. Finding something specific in the world that you think is beautiful, and trying to show it to the world by making it more accessible.

Yeah. That sounds like the virtue of commercial art. Fine art doesn’t care for everyone else. It’s a little more pretentious.

I guess it’s a choice. Should one strive to create something universal (commercial) or not (fine)? I guess that’s up to the artist. Sometime’s it’s nice to have positive feedback from the public, instead of that 1% who actually understand the importance of those things in museums.

Leave a comment | Categories: Art, Personal, Uncategorized

What makes a game meaningful and how innovative mechanics aren’t enough

25 March 2012 by Rahil

During the production of my first few game prototypes [September-November 2011], I was inspired to create games with new game mechanics. But now as I am creating this month’s EGP game, novel game mechanics are not enough for me. It’s not enough to motivate me to continue creating.

I am now gearing towards Jenova Chen’s philosophy. Making a game that causes the player to feel a certain way.

Thinking about film for a second, as films have greatly influenced me, I cannot think of an experimental film that greatly affected me. The films that the were meaningful to me, that influenced me, were ones that made me feel differently. [Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind did come to mind]

I can’t name many games that directly express a feeling. Most current great games have a novel game mechanic and fit the secondary art (story, graphics, music) around it [in good taste] to express the feeling: Ico (care), Shadow of the Collosus (epicness), Braid (enigmatic). Few games have a more direct approach: Dys4ia (frustration) [IMO, amazing], …But That Was [Yesterday] (sadness) and Between (lots!). Okay it seems now I’m just naming some of my favorite games. But perhaps that’s the reason they are my favorite. They were meaningful because they made me feel a certain way. They moved me.

Isn’t that the core of art, an expression of feeling?

What place do purely mechanical games such as (glancing at IGF) Spelunky, Antichamber, Beat Sneak Bandit, The Floor is Jelly, even the mechanically genius Storyteller have? In order for it to be meaningful to me, will these games have be fully developed, realized, harness an emotion for it to have a pronounced affect on me? [Botanicula did make me smile]

I think so. I don’t even care about most of those game as of now.

If Braid did not have the story, graphics, level design, and music that it did, would it have been great? I don’t think so. It would have just been another puzzle game with cool new mechanics. A forgotten IGF winner for best design. A squander.

The importance of “finishing your game” is reiterated. And by finish, it is implied to develop the game until every aspect is fully thought out, until you’ve spent years of your life creating something, something that somehow your life now depends on, in hope that it will be equally appreciated by others as it is to you.

Leave a comment | Categories: Game Development, Games, Personal | Tags: ,

Inspired by Films (and everything else)

28 November 2011 by Rahil

After watching a great film I am inspired. It just happened again with 35 Shots of Rum.

After experiencing a great film I reflect upon my life, my past present and future.

It reminds me of what’s important in life, placing everything into perspective. I immediately begin to remove anything invaluable nearby (close browser tabs, clean my desk, clear my schedule) so that I can focus on what’s most important. It keeps me on track.

Sometimes it pulls me away from my lucky American life, and makes me think about how wastefully I’ve spent my time and money. It holds me close to the ideal simple life. [Man Push Cart, Turtles Can Fly].

Sometimes it reminds me that I am not the only one and that I am normal. [The Apu Trilogy, Tree of Life, Fish Tank, Still Walking].

Other times I just ponder. It’s sadly one of the few times in my life I am not busy, away from the distractions of the modern world. An ample portion of my thoughts text file was written after watching a film. I owe films for providing me these crucial moments. I’ve made many life altering decisions during them.

Of course it’s not limited to films. It could be a TED talk, a Youtube video, a comic book, a crucial life event, anything. But it’s so convenient to watch a film in two hours on my laptop knowing that there’s a great chance of it affecting me. It’s a tough decision to risk my time on anything else when I know I can be satisfied with a film.

Leave a comment | Categories: Personal | Tags: , , ,

My First Game Jam

24 October 2011 by Rahil

Here’s the story behind Can You Imagine Yourself as a Verbal Assassin?.

Well, not the whole story. I’ve divided the story into two parts as I was involved with two games, one with a team and one personal. The first story is about the development of my personal game. The second story is about my experience at the game jam and the development of the team game. I’ll start at the time the theme was given.

Jammers (I’m making this term up) were able to choose any posts by the Horse ebooks twitter account. No one knows the origin or reason for the account. It appears to be run by a program which grabs phrases from the internet and posts it every few hours. The results are interesting, as some phrases seem poetic.

Initially I was felt bummed out for having such a broad theme, but then some of the more thoughtful posts stuck out to me. “Will there be cars without drivers?”. I thought about some futuristic place where suddenly the protagonist realized there are cars without drivers. Where are they all going? What is their purpose? The second one that stuck out was “Can you imagine yourself as a verbal assassin?”. So I imagined. How can you be a verbal assassin? What dose that even mean? How do you kill with words? Is the theme implying that a verbal assassin is lesser than a normal assassin? Then somehow I got the idea that the assassin talks out loud, “move up, move up, move up, stab”. That’s going to ’cause problems with an assassination. People will hear the assassin. Then the vision of a Metal Gear type game came up, in which sound waves are displayed every time the character talks, and you must be careful so that the enemies cannot hear you. Most of these thoughts occurred within the first hour. It was the most exciting part. There was so much creativity brooding.

I didn’t spend very long on the game. Maybe 5 hours one day and 4 hours the next day. I got the core mechanics down the first day and threw in a story and level design the next day. Because I didn’t spend much time on it, I wanted it to just show the mechanic, the idea, in the comedic way. No polish. I could have added Metal Gear sounds, or even a parody of it. I’m sure if I polished it it would have been more fun for the jammers to play. But I guess after making my last game, I don’t care for polish. I only care for experimenting and art.

The game didn’t fly so well with the players. I should have reduced “move up” to “up”, as players got frustrated typing, or were just unable to touch type (that was painful to watch). “Move up” was in there because I had I planned to add other mechanics such as “say move up”/”whisper move up”/”yell something”/”stab up”/etc. I actually had a more difficult second level, but I correctly guessed that it would have frustrated the player so bad that they would never get to the ending. Ah well. Again, my game wasn’t meant to be popular or polished, it was meant to be experimental.

It was fun to see different personalities play. Some without patience. Some expecting more polish. Very few able to figure out they could move in any direction. I guess a simple fun platformer like MeatBoy is what they desired. Too bad this was not the game.

I guess that’s my personal gripe against game jams. It seems the most polished game (fully equipped with assets) would win. Even in Ludum Dare, this happens. I would personally strive for the most innovative badge, not the best game overall. Who cares for a non-creative polished 5 minute game?

Of course I didn’t win anything. Actually, I was surprised that the game I voted for won first from the judges. That game actually was unique, fit a craaazy theme, and was polished. Congrats to that guy. The other winners were simple polished games.

I still love the idea of my game and may go further with it. Using a microphone, the player could say “up” and the sound wave and character movement would depend on the player’s volume. A teammate mentioned maybe the sound waves could bounce off of the certain walls. That’d be awesome too. I’m reminded of Devil’s Tuning Fork. I think waves itself can be explored a lot more.

The Team Story.

Rewind back to the beginning, when the theme was given. All of the jammers started looking at the feeds on their Macbooks and Iphones, throwing out ideas. Teams were not chosen by an administrator. Jammers were just told to form teams within the first few hours, naturally. Veteran jammers, and anyone who came with a friend were already had a team. The stragglers just awkwardly gravitated toward another and it eventually worked out. There were a bunch of programmers, some musicians/sound folks, some illustrators, and everyone was essentially a game designer.

The team I got along with was awesome. Really great people with good taste and values, which was discussed at some random bar that served meatballs and potatoes, and later at Barcade. The discussion of art in games was really interesting. It’s nice to know that everyone agrees that Braid is a powerful statement, that Machinarium is cool, and that Gears of War is a teenage kid’s fantasy.

Moving along, the team consisted of me, an iOS programmer, a Processing programmer/sound engineer, and a game designer/artist/musician/asset master. Three programmers whom all used different languages. Perfect.

One of the ideas that the game designer pitched was about the horse tweet “Advantage”. The player needs an advantage over other players to win. A multiplayer game in which everyone is against a common enemy, yet compete against each other. It’s simultaneously cooperative and competitive. That was the main idea/mechanic. It could be applied to any kind of game. The first game that came to both of our minds was space invaders. It works, it’s fun, it’s easy to implement. So, he later pitches the idea to the other two, then we go to the drawing board, and bam, a game.

To win, one player must have x points more than the player with the second most points. Everyone loses when the enemies destroy the base.

We wanted the game to be four players, so the iOS developer was silently chosen as the main programmer. The other programmer planned to learn Objective-C/cocoas2d/box2d and help. The game designer/asset master created design documentation, raster graphic art, AND music (It was amazing how he just made Egyptian melodies. It even had basslines!). I sorta left the group, as I didn’t feel I’d be helpful programming in a framework I’m unfamiliar with within 48 hours.

From what I gathered, the iOS developer (who’s just started programming recently) had troubles using Box2d and wished he hadn’t used it at all as it was the cause of most of the problems. Without it, I’m sure he could have made the game. So in the end, the game was incomplete. I believe it would have won if it was complete. I think the team is going to finish it anyway. I’ll even look at it myself, to try iOS developemnt.

So the moral of the story is: If you plan to create a full game, use the framework you are most familiar with. Learning a new one (or one you are inexperienced with) within 48 hours is tough. Oh, and if you plan to win, make it simple, polished, and minutely creative.

Leave a comment | Categories: Game Development, Games, Personal, Uncategorized | Tags:

Overcoming the internal conflicts of an artist

03 June 2011 by Rahil

These are the same universal conflicts conveyed in mainstream film cliches, advertisements, and other media.

The way people, or at least an artist, should think is simple: just do it. Nike’s slogan reigns true.

But for me, I’ve had troubles. I’ve partially developed bad habits in an suburban environment in which I over research and get districted trying to figure out how, when even I know all I have to do is just begin. Begin a project.

Jonathan Blow approached these conflicts in a keynote speech.

Jonathan Blow is the developer of the video game Braid. A game that I consider the Watchmen of video games, as it exposes the potential of a medium, as it expresses art at such high quality no other game can compare. Thanks to recent software developments, now, a team of two people can create an entire game, allowing independent developers to express themselves. Now, there also are multiple platforms (Xbox Live, Steam, Facebook) for these games to reach a wide audience to. Now is the time for games to exceed, to become a medium that can compare to film or literature.

He began with a presentation about “How and Why”. He felt the reason people come to conferences is that people want to figure out how. “How do I become an indie developer”, or “How do I get a publishing deal”. This disregards the other half of the question: Why. “Why am I doing what I am doing?. What is my core motivation to do these things?”

His answer was simple and mirrors my recent thoughts. The answer is that you already are an independent game developer, you just have to start making things. The How part will solve itself as you are making things.

Although he is talking about independent games, these morals apply to any art medium. His answer reminded me of the ending of a poem by Anis Mojghani in which he says, “Already am, already was, and I still have time to be”.

Thinking back now on films, I can’t think of many where this conflict is fought. I can only think of films where only the external conflicts are displayed. Hrmm, so maybe it isn’t a film cliche.

So where does this leave me?

After watching a great film, I’m able to think about life on a higher level, putting everything into perspective. I then feel that the things I’ve been doing recently are insignificant, I need to clean up all my shit and just do it. The problem is I never get to doing it.

An associated major problem is the concern of money. My day job is programming. Most working environments for programming jobs aren’t relaxing, or brooding creativity. They’re marketing heavy, deadline driven, burn you out environments with a bad work/life balance. So, often, more time than I like is wasted in my day job.

Again, I come to question what choices do I have? Find my way into an amazing profitable independent video game company? Most are just a few friends that got together and made up a cool company name. The other choice is slowly becoming inevitable: One day I will have to give up my day job and put all of my time, effort, and money into my personal work.

I haven’t gotten to that point yet. I haven’t found a project that I feel great enough to. But I will do this: I will purge all of my insignificant crap that distracts me, so that I can focus on what’s most important to me–my work.

Leave a comment | Categories: Personal | Tags: , , , , , , ,

A thought about creative careers and the influence of money

26 May 2011 by Rahil

Figured I should post something as I will be job hunting soon and my website is listed in my resume!

Like any techie, this domain is reserved for my personal use. Of course I wanted to design a cool website for myself but it just isn’t a priority. Which leads to what’s currently on my mind.

I had a thought about me trying to explain why there is such a small amount of creative companies that I’d want to work for. It started with an example and went from there.

Dreamworks is making Shrek X because upper management know it will make money no matter what the quality of the end result is. The original Shrek was a huge success, so marketing capitalized on it and turned it into a franchise. This limits the creativity of the team, probably forcing the auteur to quit because of it. Upper management probably makes rough deadlines–one Shrek movie per year. The company is now crap. Just like that.

Well okay, Kung Fu Panda 2 seemed to fare well with the critics. I haven’t seen it.

Anyhow, this deterioration occurs to companies in every creative/entertainment industry. The music used in Shrek X are from popular artists because the public can recognize it, resulting in a more accessible product that is easier to market. Shrek X the video game is handed off to some game studio, restricting creativity, limiting quality due to a short deadline, resulting in more crap.

Only a handful of quality companies become large and successful companies–Pixar, Apple, Blizzard. So that leaves a few large companies and striving independent studios that favor quality over money.

I want to find a job within one of these companies, make a steady paycheck in a stress free work environment where I can cherish my work, ’cause working hard for something I’m not proud of is dissatisfying. After securing a job, I could then use my free time to work on other aspirations–music and film–to make something of my own. Possibly create my own company, or with friends. Personally invest in myself, or pray for an angel investor. Is this the only path in such a money-whoring world? Maybe I should just forget money completely. Become a traveling artist, a bum in most’s eyes. Oh right, then I can’t support a family. Hmm… Yup, that’s the only path I can currently think of. The only path without selling my soul.

Leave a comment | Categories: Personal | Tags: , , , , , , ,

Why have a personal blog?

02 January 2011 by Rahil

I just needed to write. Anyone can write a book. Maybe there’s some skills involved, like fitting wordplay and rhymes into a song’s harmony…I just had to make sure I can write.

I don’t know what my next career is, or what I’m going to do when I get to San Francisco, but it probably involves writing. I could be writing scripts, making critiques, or documenting source code. It’s a skill that needs improving, and lasts forever.

A friend once started blogging. He said the reason he started was so he could write. He blogged for the sake of writing. It doesn’t matter who read it. He wrote his thoughts, observations, and published it on the internet.

Maybe my INTJ personality is good at writing. I can’t draw but I sure can place my thoughts onto paper, placing forth my judgement and personal observations.

Ugh, but non-fiction is boring. I hope I can write something cool, like an Alan Moore script!

Leave a comment | Categories: Personal | Tags: , , ,