What is the 'punk' of video games?

[Thursday]

Apologies for the typo in the thread title.

I meant what is the 'point' of video games?

Cyberpunk 2077

[PlanktonSideburns]

It's gotta be a flash game

Either pico's school or crucify me jesus

This is the best answer

[bgmnts]

There was a game called State of Emergency where you literally join a riot and start fucking up shops and kicking the shit out of everyone for no discernible reason I can remember. Is that punk or just criminal?

[Goldentony]

Pub Rock - Dizzy Prince Of The Yolk Folk
Prog - Broken Sword
Punk - The Warriors (PS2)
Post Punk - Clash At Demonhead

[RHX]

Doki Doki Literature Club. Short, terrifying and still talked about now.

[bgmnts]

I played that at around 3am half sleep deprived. Didn't enjoy my time.

[PlanktonSideburns]

There was a game called State of Emergency where you literally join a riot and start fucking up shops and kicking the shit out of everyone for no discernible reason I can remember. Is that punk or just criminal?

looks ace either way

[St_Eddie]

There was a game called State of Emergency where you literally join a riot and start fucking up shops and kicking the shit out of everyone for no discernible reason I can remember. Is that punk or just criminal?

If there ever was a game developed by 4chan edgelords, it would be that.

My favourite game of all time, incidentally.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Shirley the Prog of games would be one of Hideo Kojima's absurd works.

[Chriddof]

Serious answer: it would be something that completely rejects the ideals of the gaming industry as it currently stands, and acts as a cultural challenge to the spectacle of "triple A gaming" - and crucially it would do so in a way that would invite derision and hatred from certain kinds of established voices (as punk did back in 1977). So, in this case at this point in time, it would be things like walking simulators, queer / trans themed IF, odd unclassifiable art game stuff.

[Emotional Support Peacock]

Stardew Valley

[TrenterPercenter]

Not sure about punk but Toejam & Earl was the most 90s game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29TaGhYZZlA

[kidney]

Dwarf Fortress

alternatively, some other game

[NoSleep]

Punk - The Warriors (PS2)

Good call. Based on the film (it's actually a prequel) and including voice acting from some of the original cast. 3D beat 'em up where you expand the gang's turf (in single player mode) whilst multiplayer is some good fun, too. I need to play this again.

[bgmnts]

Plus you can nick car stereos.

[GoblinAhFuckScary]

Is it fair to say that most people with the knowledge and accessibility to design and produce videogames have a tendency towards having certain privileges i.e higher education/tech etc.

If a big part of the punk ethos is in DIY and that anyone should be able to do it providing they can find basic (usually affordable) equipment, there seems a limit to how punk a videogame can be without appealing solely to aesthetic.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Is it fair to say that most people with the knowledge and accessibility to design and produce videogames have a tendency towards having certain privileges i.e higher education/tech etc.

If a big part of the punk ethos is in DIY and that anyone should be able to do it providing they can find basic (usually affordable) equipment, there seems a limit to how punk a videogame can be without appealing solely to aesthetic.

thats why i think Newgrounds back in the day was the CBGBs of games

[Lemming]

Yeah, it's got to be something like Pico's School. Mindlessly "offensive", very low-budget DIY, responding to a big topical issue of the day, and more importantly, the biggest thing it has in common with punk, is that it's SHIT

[willbo]

i feel like the puzzle game not pron was kind of punky

[Cuellar]

Leisure Suit Larry?

[earl_sleek]

Dwarf Fortress

I nearly posted that earlier, but while DF definitely has a strong ramshackle DIY streak, I think it's too sprawling and ambitious to truly be punk. Perhaps it's the Sandinista! of video games.

[Zetetic]

Is it fair to say that most people with the knowledge and accessibility to design and produce videogames have a tendency towards having certain privileges i.e higher education/tech etc.

At this point? Probably not really, no. Well, no more than the knowledge and accessibility to put together a bad example of any other audio-visual artform and arguably considerably less.

[Zetetic]

For example:
https://itch.io/games/made-with-bitsy
made with
http://ledoux.io/bitsy/editor.html
which will run on almost any personal computer from the last decade if not last two decades I'd imagine.

(You could probably use it on a phone, if you really wanted to.)

[GoblinAhFuckScary]

At this point? Probably not really, no. Well, no more than the knowledge and accessibility to put together a bad example of any other audio-visual artform and arguably considerably less.

Really? You can make music right now you want with any object capable of producing friction. Phones with videocameras are widely available and affordable so photography and filmmaking is accessible. Almost anyone can do these things.

Videogames require expensive hardware, coding takes time and patience and money. Anyone can make music and not many people I know can code even if they wanted to. I'd like to code, but have struggled to learn. You can just make videogames they require certain rigid digital boundaries.

[Zetetic]

You can make music right now you want with any object capable of producing friction.

I think this is not terribly meaningful.

Or, if it is, it's absolutely trivial to create the computer game equivalent of the music created by me rubbing my face against a door or something.

Videogames require expensive hardware

Trivial hardware. Any personal computer from the last two decades.

coding takes time and patience and money.

As does production of any form of art, doesn't it?

At least with coding, you've probably already got all the actual things you need or you can get them at no cost.

I'd like to code, but have struggled to learn.

In fairness, most programming languages and their ... ecosystems are terrible[nb]The exception is Ruby, sort of. Maybe.[/nb] (perhaps particularly in games), and that does raise the bar substantially in terms of time and energy required.

But there are loads of zero-code (or close to it) tools for making games, or things close to games depending on how fussy you are about the term. Off the top of my head: RPG Maker (currently on sale for €2), Bitsy (Free, linked above), Twine (Free).

These might not allow you to make the games you want to make, of course, but then you've got to adapt yourself to the tools available. (Which arguably brings us back towards a "punk" aesthetic on a genuine basis.)

[Zetetic]

Returning to the original question about an aesthetic that speaks to independent self-expression made with readily-available tools and built in part from recycling iconography from existing culture or something like that, it's possibly Garry's Mod gamemodes and "Definitely Not Another Snow Elf Waifu" mods for Skyrim.

[GoblinAhFuckScary]

I think this is not terribly meaningful.

What do you mean? The point is music is literally always available. Music is just organised sounds.

Trivial hardware. Any personal computer from the last two decades.

I mean half the people I know who own computers can barely run Chrome well, let alone more dedicated resource hogging software

As does production of any form of art, doesn't it?

At least with coding, you've probably already got all the actual things you need or you can get them at no cost.

I mean we're talking about punk which is meant to be something anyone can do. The point is deliberately anti-elitism. Good art can be made instantly, but good videogames will probably always necessitate experience.

In fairness, most programming languages and their ... ecosystems are terrible[1] (perhaps particularly in games), and that does raise the bar substantially in terms of time and energy required.

But there are loads of zero-code (or close to it) tools for making games, or things close to games depending on how fussy you are about the term. Off the top of my head: RPG Maker (currently on sale for €2), Bitsy (Free, linked above), Twine (Free).

These might not allow you to make the games you want to make, of course, but then you've got to adapt yourself to the tools available. (Which arguably brings us back towards a "punk" aesthetic on a genuine basis.)

Yeah I agree with the freeware/cheap software resembling something much more egalitarian and 'punk'

[Zetetic]

What do you mean? The point is music is literally always available. Music is just organised sounds.

This does not meaningfully describe the vast majority of 'punk' music produced or listened to, almost all of which is created using instruments and the vast majority of which is listened to via recordings. Which raises the bar, a bit.

I mean half the people I know who own computers can barely run Chrome well, let alone more dedicated resource hogging software

Which is why I've highlighted tools that are 1) in browser[nb]Firefox is available, I should probably note![/nb] and 2) extremely lightweight.[nb]Lighter than either GMail or Hotmail interfaces, I'd guess, for example. Certainly lighter than Twitter. Possibly lighter than many popular 'static' websites now.[/nb]

Edit: Given what I said about last two decades, I'll see how usable Bitsy is under TenFourFox running on my mother's 366Mhz iBook from 2000. (Might be a few months before I can do this.)

Good art can be made instantly,

I really don't believe this is true. (Edit: And if it is, I reckon the examples of tools I've given get you close enough to it.)

Yeah I agree with the freeware/cheap software resembling something much more egalitarian and 'punk'

And there's a huge set of people making games using these.

It's not just that they're free/Free/cheap, it's that they do massively lower the bar in terms of technical familiarity. I've picked Bitsy and Twine because there's practically no bar there.

[Zetetic]

I'll admit that my view might be coloured by repeatedly proving to myself that I don't have the patience and tolerance for Badness[nb]Which I am trying to grow out of, still[/nb] required for learning how to produce any music or to be able to model stuff in 3D and the like.

I also think that computers have introduced one truly novel massive bar-lowering tool (to all sorts of artforms) in the form of Undo.

[Consignia]

Chrome is one of the most resource hungry applications out there; I wouldn't use it as a metric of how easy it to run other software.

In the mid-90's I wrote loads games without knowing much code using software such as "Klik n Play". I didn't learn actual programming until much later in life. These days there's tons of low friction ways of making using easily available tools; all requiring as much ability to code as you feel you want control over it. Some stuff you probably knock up on a Raspberry Pi, no bother.

And you do see loads ideas that push against mainstream triple A in these spaces. In fact, the low friction even allows lot's of crap too; just see the dregs Steam can offer.