Scenography in Video Game Art

Adolphe Appia proposed the idea of rhythmic spaces, also
known as "living spaces," where the player/character  is capable
of z-movement in addition to more standard x-y movement.

"Scenograph of Kentucky Route Zero"
Tamas Kemenczy

- "Building environments with theater in mind"
- Simulated depth,
- Set design becomes sculptural--"no longer baked into a backdrop"
- Designing dramatic spaces to be responsive to player movement--much more in dialogue with the player.
- Choreography of video game movement to compel thematic drama
- Lighting to direct the player's eye
- Because no longer constrained by physical limitations, we can create surreal, emotional spaces rather than logical or rational ones.
- Settings become emblematic, symbolic of internal experiences and emotions
- Single unifying visual metaphor for each scene
- Art deco, modern design styles carry "promises of the future"
- Visual system to convey semiotic signs; not necessarily plot oriented, but we use light to pick up clues as to what is happening.

Really, I just loved the framing on this--the simplicity, the fusion 

of round and rectangular shapes, the sharp contrasting values, the 

emotion inherent within the piece as a whole. Truly an amazing scene.

I guess the take-away from all this is that in designing video games, we need to draw upon pretty much all knowledge--theater and art, psychology and sociology, anything you could every study--in order to craft meaningful player experiences. Game design has as much to learn from theater or from scenography as it does from more directly related subjects as programming or visual art, and only when we begin to harness the vast creative capacity inherent within games will we be able to access the full potential of video games. Theorists like Wagner spoke of an eventual medium--the gesamptkunstwerk--that would come to encompass all the artistic mediums in harmony, and at least for now, I see that medium as video games. I think there's a lot of potential that is yet untouched, especially in terms of conveying meaningful emotional experiences. I don't know if we'll ever see a fulfillment of Wagner's or many others' dreams of the pinnacle of all artistic works, but I sure hope tohelp video games climb to a new level of legitimacy and creative implementation.