With a group of Indies from Argentina, Fernando Ramallo and Martín Gonzales, we decided to make an experimental prototype per week.  The first week was at the same time as the Experimental gameplay project so we decided to take his theme.

The theme was “Story Games”.  At first, I was only sure that I didn´t want to use the theme as an excuse to tell a story. The prototype I developed consists in letting the player and the computer the task of creating it.

The player interacts with the system placing items on a grid. These elements can be diseases, religion, hobby, job, education and a wall. She can also place babies of different genders.

The person the player places on the grid interacts with the different elements and the other people in different ways according to his personality. Each thing changes the personal story of the habitants of the grid.

This way, the creatures can fall in love, have friends, estudy, work, get married, have kids, hate, murder, etc…

When one of these creatures dies, the player can choose to save his story of life. Each character wrote a journal with every of his experiences of his personal life. These journals are saved in the game folder.

Then, the players can read these stories and take the ones they like the most to make his own tale based on those little virtual creatures.

Clarín (04-06-2011) Páginas 60-61

EN: Article about art games in the biggest news paper from Argentina. I’m in the picture bottom rigth.

¡No se lo pierdan! Pueden escucharlo on-line aquí.

EN: Tommorow Tembac is going to be talking in a radio show about videogames and art.

La entrevista a Agustín se realiza en el minuto 4.

For a spanish version of this post, feel free to read the one I posted in my website.

The exposition is going to be held at CCR, Junin 995, CABA, Argentina, from the past Thursday to this Sunday, scheduled from 2pm to 9pm.  It’s name is “Game ON: El arte en juego” (Game ON: the art being played) and had a lot of repercussion.

Tembac will be introducing his latest production specially made for the gallery named Objeto A (Object A) invited by Fase 3, a game-art named Vestigios (Vestiges), and the whole presentation is being cured by another world-recognized indie dev: Daniel Benmergui.

The game-art is about two opposing battleships, whose mission is to eliminate the opponent.  Each player controls a ship, with a Microsoft XBox controller, provided by them.  But the main idea of the game is to create visual art while playing: each ship leaves a colour trail behind, and that composes a beautiful picture.  Those brushes are on top, and ships are invisible, so it’s not that simple to destroy the opponent.  And, it’s actually not the point
After a while, the game becomes quite addictive, specially when you are winning.  Wait… ¿when are you winning? To find that out, visit the exposition and see it for yourself.

That’s how the screen might look while playing.  Some of those paintings were made in yesterday’s exposition at the gallery.

“Even if you aren’t a gamer or don’t like videogames – says Tembac – you can’t miss this because very good examples of one of the most modern and more important forms of art of the XXI century is going to be displayed”.

Tembac tell us that

I took as a source of inspiration for avant-garde artists. The way in which viewers interact is inspired by the “action painting ” of Jackson Pollock. The typeface that makes the different events is reminiscent of the work of Lichenstein or introductory titles of the film “Enter the Void” by Gaspar Noe. The colours chosen and the overall aesthetics are inspired by various authors of the Pop stream.

Although visually inspired by these artists advantage is taken of the digital image by modifying it in real time to create an audiovisual work that is only possible on a computer.
Each player participates in and adjust the work as if they were the artist. The objective is to modify the other artist combining stealth with action.

Players control their character with the left stick and can shoot in four directions using the colored buttons. Depending on the color of the button pressed is the color of fire. If the shot hits the other player that is modified in size and color. Each player may be amended 9 times.

Each controlled character leaves a trail of color, this allows stealth hiding in plain sight using color. Each player can stalk his opponent confused about their location to gain strategically.

Although if players wishes they may also choose not to compete and instead work together to create the image they want. If players simultaneously press the start button, they can end the game.

The production is created during installation and every game leaves a mark. The final image is stored and saved on a public server on the Internet for each participant to download.

The link to those saved painting is this one: http://tinyurl.com/galeria-vestigios

Every new day of the exhibition, more pictures will be uploaded.

Right now, Agustín P. F., aka: Tembac, is one of the most recognized Argentinian indie game developer, and has lately have a large impact on local news:

Experimentar, parte del juego (2011-05-05) – Clarín
Radio interview at 8:30am http://t.co/Hoz2Aqd (2011-05-03) – BlueFM
El arte en juego (2011-04-30) – Debate

And many, many more in the last month.

To be always updated, follow Tembac on Twitter and Facebook.
You might also like to follow Agustín Perez Fernandez

http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/12401

A lot of cool projects were selected the years prior, for example: Katamari Damacy, Today I Die, Flow, Braid, Portal, etc. There are always fresh and amazingly creative ideas presented so it is a real honor to be selected.

Mantra is my new game. I didn´t released it to the public yet so If you want to have the first look and you are going to attend the GDC, come to listen us Thursday at 1:30pm

There is a nice selection of speakers this year and I can´t wait to see the other projects.

See Map

We made very good games and most of the people were inexperienced. You can try all the games here:

http://www.globalgamejam.org/games/2011?tid[]=3805

My team was incredible and they all worked very hard.

Our game was a joke about upgrades. The ship starts with all the upgrades available but every time that the player loses one life she has to choose a feature to downgrade.

Play it here

http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/espectaculos/17-20515-2011-01-18.html