Ever since my daughter played the game Undertale, she was obsessed with it. There were only a few that genuinely piqued her interest, so I decided to give this decade-old game a shot. With low expectations, I started playing this retro-looking 2D game, and completed in just a few hours. After I finished the game however, I found myself thinking more about the story. I decided to give it another shot to unlock an alternate ending. After achieving the ending that I was aiming for, I am still not satisfied and am currently playing my third run of the game.
“Wow, this is something else“, I thought to myself. Why does this weird looking, seemingly simple game had me hooked? What was it with this game that evoked this feeling not just for me, not just for my daughter, but for millions of other players around the world? The reason was simple: the creator (Toby Fox) poured his heart and soul into making this game.
And like any other software engineer who thinks they are the hot stuff, I decided to create my own game! Undertale inspired me to start building my own game, and with AI-assisted development in my arsenal, nothing can stop me!
Except there was something that stopped me.
Creating the world, the character, and how the game looks is the easy part. But a game isn’t just about its graphics. The game is what the player will experience while playing it. I can think of the main idea of the game and major components of the gameplay. However, when I try to think about the subplots, the conflicts, the journey of the protagonist, I always fell short. I ran out of ideas very quickly.
I have the scaffolding ready for a game, but I do not know how the story goes. My game lacks its soul. This soul is what made Undertale special for many gamers, in spite of how it looks like from the outside.
Creation
It seems common sense that art is something that you see, like a painting in a museum, sculptures in a park, or murals in walls. But in reality, the artwork was already completed way before the painting, the sculpture, or the mural was created. Creating a piece of art is not the beginning of the process, but its end phase.
Before a musical masterpiece was put into a score sheet, the melody was already stuck in the head of the composer.
Before the first brushstroke in a painting, the painter already saw the image in all its detail.
This is also evident for prolific authors. You may wonder how they were able to write several books, taking years of hard work, and still be able to generate ideas or scripts for a newer book.
A Gust of Wind
Treat a work of art like a prince: let it speak to you first.
Arthur Schopenhauer
I do not think of myself as an author nor an artist, but I do sometimes have glimpses on how it feels like. When I am not doing any work or thinking about something serious, that is when ideas come pouring through my head. While taking a shower and thinking of nothing, I suddenly get hit with this idea for an article. And this is not just the article title or the opening paragraph, but for entire sections: main points, ideas to consider, references to other work.
These thoughts seem to come from nowhere, and I feel the need to catch them before they disappear. If I took too long to write them down and record them somewhere, they eventually fade and can no longer be retrieved.
I can only imagine that this is similar to how these composers, painters, and authors arrive at their works of art. The idea, even the entire piece, already lived in their head, screaming to be born into the physical realm. These artists have no other choice but to let them out, or else they will either be driven mad by these thoughts, or watch them disappear forever.
Chaos
You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.
Friedrich Nietzsche
There is a scene in the anime Honey and Clover where Hagumi, an artist, was pondering on the things she wanted to create.
I chase after each image that flies out.
I catch them… I battle them…
And consume them after sampling each flavor.
I name and return them to where they ought to be.
Over and over…
It requires to much time.
She likened art to opening a box, where images, ideas and thoughts immediately escape the box after it was opened.
Creating art for her was the struggle to chase those images which escaped, and then painstakingly putting them back together to where they should be.
From what seems to be an empty space, like a blank canvas, or something chaotic, like the rugged edges of a stone, or clay, an artist’s vision brings the image from chaos into something beautiful.
Your best work are from ideas that seemingly come from nothing and trying to get out of your head. Are you ready to pull these out of the chaos and into reality, or are you letting them vanish into nothingness again?