AK: How do you define a game?

JC: In the traditional sense, they are interactive contents considered mainly for entertainment and leisure purposes. However it is often considered the most commercially successful art form of interactive media. Whether game is going to become the new name for interactive media just like the "film" of motion pictures is still unknown.

AK: I’m wondering the difference or split (if any) between an art game and game

JC: Game is really just a medium, so anything in a medium can be art or not be art. Art is a communication between the creators and the audience, where non art can also be entertaining. However, there's no intellectual message embedded. Someone said art is for changing the world while entertainment is for leisure.

AK: Hmm. Postmodern is not to change the world.

JC: Yeah that's why I didn't completely agree with him.

AK: what is the drive in your art making?

JC: To me art is sharing understanding of life with others. Whether it's an opinion or an appreciation, artists express that message and feeling through their works.

AK: are you saying that an artist can create a game around his appreciation for the relationships formed between user and piece (game)?

JC: very likely. For example, in architecture, the artists design a building with consideration of how human interact with the building, the lighting, the shadow and so on. I'd consider that as an interactive art rather than a sculpture of concrete. In fact, if you look at a well made sports car, isn't it an appreciation of the relationship and extension between the driver and the machine?

AK: :) indeed it is

JC: However, while most people make cars, they don't necessarily put their messages in it. They are just making a car. They forget what they want to express through the metal. Therefore, the car is just a car, not an art.

AK: yes. That’s clear :)

JC: if I'm an industrial designer I might be able to design a car that expressing my feeling about peace, depression or anything. I think artists are people who have something to say and have the desire to share with others. And the medium they can use are unlimited.

AK: Do you see digital as a medium?

JC: digital is a tech term to describe that things are stored in numbers, usually 0/1. So I won't call it a medium.

AK: Yeah. But I keep seeing "the digital medium"

JC: well that means "any medium that uses 0/1 to store" which can be painting, movie, music and game, anything as long as they are stored in some kind of data format.

AK: Do you feel that there are universal structures to the game (like having a goal and levels and so on)?

JC: there are conventions, but never rules. So goals and levels are not mandatory. But it would be easier for others to understand if a game has them.

AK: what's the most abstract game you've seen?

JC: it's hard to define abstract, maybe that means the opposite of realism

AK: umm, I mean farthest from the classic game while still falling under the term Game

JC: I can't really choose the most abstract game of all time. There are too many art pieces that are considered non-game.

AK: I’m trying to get a grasp of the poles within the game medium. But I’m asking what you consider a game... I dun care about other people

JC: you can try out "passage" which is a game that I considered art. One of the most inspiring games I played in the past two years…

Read it here.

Social pressure is the enemy! I've seen it happen. How in heaven's name are you going to find your own track if you are always doing what society tells you to do? I also spent a year teaching in a boy's prep school and that was a crowd that was trying to make up their minds, you know? I've seen them since and those who followed their zeal, their bliss, they have led decent, wonderful lives; those who did what Dad said they should do because it's safe found out it's not safe. It's disaster.

to be continue...

My friends who I used to make game together with left their jobs and started up their own studio in China. They entered XNA dream build play competition last year with this game. Though they didn't win any publishing deal, they are still trying to finish it. I was lucky to get a copy of the game. It is already a solid demo. I'm eagerly waiting to see more...

Thanks to Kellee Santiago's wonderful post, all our detailed schedule at the conference can be found here.

Time: December 27th, Thursday, 1:00pm
Location: 上海交通大学 Shanghai Jiao Tong University
上海市 闵行区 东川路 800 号 电信 3号楼 3-200

I'm the second presenter.

Kellee recommended this movie to me last week. Though I am not really into romance movies as a whole, this particular one interested me because it is a collection of 18 short movies made by 18 famous international directors. Plus it all happened in Paris a place every tourist would have dreamed of to go. I am curious to try out these short samples and see whether any of romance genre or the city Paris have a place in me.

After watching all of them, I found that the ones about the classic love lose me very quickly. On the other hand, the ones about love between parents and child, person and city entertained me the most.

My favorite one is the last one, called 14th arrondissement. It is about a middle age American woman travel through Paris alone. It has nothing to do with love between people but the love towards a city. As a lone foreigner living in a beautiful city, the feeling this movie evokes can really resonate with my own experience. Maybe you can get what I feel through this movie if you happen to travel alone.

Watch the youtube clip of 14th arrondissement - 6'35" after the jump...

Director: Mamoru Hosoda
Producers: Mamoru Hosoda, Shinichiro Inoue, Jungo Maruta
Writers: Satoko Okudera, Yasutaka Tsutsui
Cast: Riisa Naka, Takuya Ishida, Mitsutaka Itakura, Sachie Hara

An unexpected delight and one of the most acclaimed anime features in recent years, THE GIRL WHO LEAPT THROUGH TIME is the first animated adaptation of a 1965 young adult novel that had been an instant sensation in Japan, spawning countless films and TV programs over the ensuing decades. Director Mamoru Hosoda updates the tale to present-day Tokyo, all while remaining true to the same enchanting story of a girl who learns to time-travel...

Hosoda is a remarkable new talent who, together with a stellar creative team including art director Nizou Yamamoto (PRINCESS MONONOKE) and character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto (NEON GENESIS EVANGELION), has crafted a magical and surprisingly affecting film full of humor, warmth and the bittersweet pangs of first love. After soaring through this journey with Makoto, one will never experience each moment quite the same way.

This video reminds me that humanity doesn't only belong to us.

Last night I finally got the New York based magazine, "Theme". It features a special issue this month about nerds. Why do I care about it? Well, they did a profile for me. -_- Am I a nerd?

Nerd has been a relatively negative vocabulary in my memory. But I have never thought too much about the meaning of this word. Now looking at the definition on the web:

Nerd, as a stereotypical or archetypal designation, refers to somebody who passionately pursues intellectual or esoteric knowledge or pastimes rather than engaging in a social life, participating in organized sports, or other mainstream activities.

I feel both proud and also a bit shame that I am a 100% nerd. The article on the magazine is a really good summary of my game design philosophy, too bad it's only available on paper. And here's the table of content.

‘You’ve got to find what you love,’ Jobs says. I am very touched by his speak and cherish that I have already found what I love and am doing things that I won't regret if I die tomorrow.

However, entertainment is the emotional food for human beings. When you are sad, you need some thing to make you feel better. When you are too stressed, you want to see some thing to calm you down. It is all about the feelings its audience experienced rather than a product which is very much about features and functions. When people comment about main stream entertainment like movies and literatures, they talk about how it feels. When people talk about products and software, they talk about the technical features. It's also very interesting to see people describe certain product as an entertainment and experience. For example, ipod and bmw.

As a main stream medium, video games are often treated like products and designed around features such as "40 hours gameplay, MMORPG, FPS, WWII" I think it is time, we, the game enthusiasts, to review and design games as an entertainment medium rather than software products, to care more about how our audience feel rather than how long they can play.