Video Games, Art, Minimalism, and Where the Middle Ground Is - Part 1

Hello! I hope that you're enjoying my Video Games, Art, Minimalism, and Middle Ground series regarding Animal Crossing: New Leaf. If you care to see all previous posts, click below:

Part 1 - Interior Design
Part 2 - Patterns and Designs
Part 3 - More about Patterns and Designs
Part 4 - Introduction to Town Decor
Part 5 - Pattern Design in Town Decor
Part 6 - Gardening in Town Decor

Onwards!

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I have a confession to make. I have a dirty little secret, you see, and I think it's time I confessed it. Yes . . .

The Main Room - Alpine Series - Japanese 

. . . I am not only a casual gamer, but a lover of Animal Crossing: New Leaf. It's going to open with music, sorry . . .

One of my four mannequins - all the ones you can earn!

Yep, I love New Leaf. For those of you who don't know, Animal Crossing is a life simulation game wherein you are the only human - the major - in a town filled with nothing but anthropomorphic animals. Mice, bears, bunnies, ducks, zebras, monkeys - and those are just the animals in my town! (Actually, my mouse friend moved out. Penelope . . .) It's an incredibly fun game with shopping, interior design, expanding your house, helping your friends, and - for the first time EVER in Animal Crossing - acting as mayor to improve your town with public works projects such as clocks, lights, benches, and other unique additions to your town!

Due to my "Pack Style", as proclaimed by Lyle (a home evaluater), some of my space looks cramped in this room.

Of course, there's so much of this game to be explained, and I don't really have the luxury of talking about of that immediately - today, I just want to focus on something that I've been thinking about for the last few days. So we're just going to focus on the interior design aspect.

Second Floor - Regal Series - Apartment

During the game, you can expand your house from a tiny little shack to a glorified mansion, which costs bells - your in-game currency, of course. It's pretty easy to earn bells through fishing, bug-catching, or fruit picking, but it's HARD to pay off all of your home loans and expand your place to the max - something I only achieved earlier this week with my first player. There are plenty of ways to decorate the inside of your home, too, including many furniture series, sets, and selections. You can even customize your furniture, something I've done in almost every room of my house.

Mother's Day in-game grants you pink carnations! They fit in perfectly with my pink Regal series.

Of course, it's very difficult to fully furnish your house, even to complete just one set. It took me ages to complete the above rooms' series, and that's even saying it with the ease of this game via getting model houses and visiting other friend's towns to buy their stuff from their stores!

Basement - No Series - Surrealism

Anyways, I'm digressing. What I really wanted to talk about today was about my basement room. Well, about all of my rooms, really, but mostly about my basement. You see, your house gets evaluated by a group called the HHA - the Happy Home Academy. They basically tally up your style with use of furniture, etc, and give you a point total that can result in some pretty nerdy prizes. They don't, however, count the basement, so you can do whatever you want with it. Which, of course, is what I've done.

No, you can't jump in the Outdoor Pool. Although I wish I could.

My basement room looks pretty nice, right? It's very outdoors-y, very peaceful. But if you look closely, I have some clocks scattered around. An alarm clock, owl clock, cuckoo clock . . .

A second one of my mannequins. Flowers from the outside . . . and two clocks?

The point of this room is supposed to be like a surrealist dream; it's incomplete, obviously, but it's meant to look like paradise. Safety. Home. Perfection. But here's the problem: all of the clocks are there, all ticking down the time. While you might be in Paradise for a long while, you will never be able to stay forever. You are always reclaimed, either by life or death.

More of my flowers. And a better view of the owl clock!

My making the room had more to do with wanting to mess around with a nice little room I had expanded to its potential, that was all. At least, that was all at first. But then as I began to add onto it, as I began to figure out how many pieces I needed for the wheat field and what clocks I could add to the room or did I really want to add that picnic table in . . . I began to ask myself questions.

. . . could you consider this . . . art?

West Wing - Polka-Dot and Balloon Series - Playful

It's no secret that I'm an artist. I firmly believe myself to be an artist. I write; I sing; I draw. I do these things because I love to create, because I love to see my vision come to life. I make art because I have a vision in my head that I want to see with my eyes.

. . . but that's the same thing I have about my house in Animal Crossing. Does that automatically make it art?

North Room - No Series - Specialty

I refuse to denounce it from the offset. I believe that anything can be art. A pile of rubbage can be art; one man's trash is another's treasure, after all. I believe that a photograph is art, that a sketch is art, that music and paintings and fabric are all art. But asking about art in a video game format stumps me.

I think it's because we typically don't see art in video games. Do we have digital artwork? Yeah. But do we look into games like these and expect to find art? Nah. It's not even described that way. It's a life simulator. It's not about the prettiest house, it's about messing around a little, just playing casually. But just because it's in the context of a video game doesn't mean that it's not art, nor a lesser form of art. Right?

East Room - Pavé Series - Blue

I've been a casual gamer for the majority of my life. I have a brother who is obsessed with games. I have another brother who has a degree involving Game Art and Design. So yeah, video games ARE art, in a sense - even simply talking about the graphics, it's definitely art. There's a style to it, there's an appeal to aesthetics. And why shouldn't it be? Bad graphic design can ruin a perfectly good game. It is, after all, the first thing we see in a game.

So, is what I'm doing above - constructing rooms in a life simulator with an intent in mind - art? And - this occurred to me as well - can we suppose it equal to other types of art? Really?

Truth be told, the thoughts I had about this, I figured would take one post. But no; after a lot of thought, I realized that I have far more to say than can fit into a single post. So expect updates! And more parts! I mean, this is mostly on the fly, but I think these are important questions to ask. Why? Because they are questions. Question everything, for it's better to ask and know than remain silent and not.