Mac Games in the Art Debate
I’ll begin this by saying something that I know will make many of you scoff at my gaming cred. For many years my main computer-gaming platform was a Mac. That’s right—an Apple Mac! And I loved the beige beast.
“But SystemShock was never released for Mac! How could you possibly know games?” I hear you say. Well, frankly, you can shut up. I also had a PC, but I played more games on Mac because the games had different aesthetics; different priorities. As a young gamer forming his ideas about games, I found the dichotomy between the games on the two platforms fascinating. Plus, I found the simplicity of many Mac games liberating from dungeon-trawling in Baron Baldric: Mystic Towers (1994).
Coming from this background, it strikes me as odd the the debate about games as art has seemingly ignore games developed solely for Mac OS. For me at least, this gives rise to a somewhat hollow debate—simply put, we’re neglecting a part of gaming history.
Granted, Macs were never good for gaming. They lacked power, upgradability and, considering the age of the average gamer, affordability. I think these factors all generated something of a—now institutionalized—Mac-phobia amongst gamers. Even though I run a PC as well, whenever I tell gamers I own a Mac, I get questions like “You heard of this game called Counterstrike? It’s like Virtua Cop but completely different.”
That said, however, most Mac owners weren’t gamers: the people buying Macs were graphic designers, web developers and desktop publishers. But even designers—yes, designers—needed distractions.
Because most Macs were used for work, games made for them had to function as temporary, short-term distractions (at home Mac users were reading Doug Coupland and watching I’m Alan Partridge). The upshot: games developed for Mac had to cater to an aesthetically conscious, casual gaming market. And indeed, many Mac-exclusive games were visually impeccable.
Maelstrom: time for some ‘stroid grinding!
Developers catered to this audience by using the principles of existing games—largely arcade-style games from the 70s and 80s and DOS games from the 80s and 90s—and treating them as a canvas onto which they could build good visual ideas.
A buffet of games emerged that, while simple, looked great. They had lush textures, colorful character and environment design and smooth motion mechanics comparable to many current games.
Nanosaur: in-psycho-credible!
An example of this is Maelstrom (1993) made by Ambrosia software. Flying through sparse space environments shooting asteroids—what more could you want? In the Space Invaders-esque Apeiron (1995), instead of playing a spaceship shooting down alien things, you’re a green spinning cone shooting a caterpillar as it closes-in on you. Oh, and there are mushrooms in your way.
Apeiron: Space Invaders if made by CS Lewis.
This article is only a superficial foray into the art debate. My aim is to incorporate a piece of history. Many of the comments made about Braid focus on its sumptuous design. Now we can reanalyze the debate in terms of games that predate it but are comparable on a visual level. With regard to this, I direct you to this article at Games Aren’t Numbers—interesting overview of critical reasoning regarding video games as art.
From this discussion, some questions emerge:
- How do Mac games inform contemporary games
- In their context, how do we read the games that came before and others of the time?
- How do we categorize them in modern critical terms?
- What artistic components of theirs are present, absent or notable these days? What are said components and why?
All forms of criticism arise, in essence, out of the search for understanding, regardless of one’s subjectivities. And the more panoptic the debate, the more enlightening it is. As game criticism grows, we must make sure we acknowledge and discuss games on objective, critical grounds.
It is all art. Already there are lcds in museums. Art has gotten broad. At first there was development on development and everyone was doing similar things. Then all of a sudden we have everything, pictures, links, sounds from the last 100 years. It is all accessible. It is all somewhat artful.
Programming has earned respect as an art only in fringe circles, but digital art is now mainstream.