Game:

Super Mario Bros. (1985)

Duration: 17:34

1,344 views

78

Aesthetics are a weird thing.

Some people think “aesthetics” simply means visuals, but it's far more than that.

Aesthetics is even more than just artistic style, it's the blending and melding of effective artistic techniques to create an appealing and deeply satisfying rendering.

Now that could mean a lot of things, but in the case of today's video, I'm talking about a particular aesthetic, one that's beauty is not exactly always recognized by all who perceive or judge artistic merit.

You see, these days many video games are developed with the intent to capture the “retro aesthetic”, take Shovel Knight, or the other many many indie games that's visual style attempts to mimic the classic visuals and sounds of a time gone past.

But why attempt to recreate the past? Is it simply to appeal to those who enjoyed video games from past periods of time and capitalize off nostalgia? (well... yeah. Of course)

But I think there's actually something deeper to the retro aesthetic, and in studying this aesthetic, we as appreciators and potential developers of video games can learn something not just about electronic entertainment, but art and the very philosophy of noticing beauty.

I know it may sound silly, but there is something deeper here in between the huge pixels and mechanical musical notes; if you're willing to look, that is.
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Back in the 80s and 90s, video games were just taking off in terms of mainstream popularity, but the computer graphics and systems used to display said video games were limited compared to today's technology. Obviously.

You look at hyper realistic graphics in Unreal 5 and... Pitfall... they're a little different.

We had big blocky pixels and bloopy sounding noises and tunes that came from clunky cartridges being electronically ran inside boxes of circuitry, usually connected through a monitor of some sort.

Whether it was a television set, arcade cabinet screen or a computer desktop, video games had a particular look and feel to them.

They had simple controls and game-play mechanics that were often designed so that just about anyone could pick up and play. Think about Pong or Atari 2600 games.

But these weren't exactly games that could necessarily compete with photo-realism like some of the video game experiences we have today, as a matter of fact, it was almost the exact opposite.

Pixels in their state couldn't be used to create polygonal forms and depth like they can now, and they wouldn't be for quite some time.


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