So I showed up on TIGRadio last night, talking about Marian, the Humble Indie Bundle and a number of other interesting topics! If you’re interested, you can check out the archives at TIGRadio.com. (direct link)
If you haven’t heard of the Humble Indie Bundle yet, (how is that possible?) then you should definitely check it out. Pay anything you want for 6 awesome indie games, including Aquaria – and part of your contribution will go to the EFF and Child’s Play charities as well. 
The site also features real-time stats, and a couple secrets…
Also: check out the responses to last week’s post about “Self-Management” – there are some interesting thoughts:
Dale Johnson wrote a Comment on May 12, 2010 at 9:36 am
Wait… Secrets?
Aerendyll wrote a Comment on May 26, 2010 at 4:30 am
Ooooh, I believe a friend of mine bought Aquaria using that Humble Indy Bundle. c: I didn’t even know she did until she told me a few days ago… I was a bit surprised since she tends to get a little frustrated by games where reflexes are needed, but I’m curious to see where this leads to.
Also, about your games is art thing: I thought up a theory on that a few days ago. I don’t remember everything, but… It kind of boils down to art and games being both composed of two or three basic elements: tangible art, conceptual art and in the case of games and some other art – interactivity.
+ The tangible art is everything you can directly see, feel, hear, taste, smell, etc. It’s the part of the art that our senses directly perceive.
+ The conceptual art is the ideas and motivations behind the art – the message the author wants to tell. (Not specifically concept sketches or anything similar to that.)
+ The interactivity is self evident – it’s the way people can interact with it and sometimes change the way it works or looks like.
I’m thoroughly convinced that the best art knows how to balance out these factors in an appropriate way. I myself notice that I’m very into art that has something tangible that’s very beautiful, but without a good concept behind it it doesn’t make a very lasting impression. Opposite to that good concepts do impress me, but if the visual art is not any good I can’t get myself to really like that specific piece or art.
Add fun interactivity to this mix, balance it out some more and you have art/games that will make a very good impression.
Now to translate this into games specifically, there’s some games that did some aspects really well, but messed up at (some of) the others, unfortunately.
+ Tales of Symphonia – very nice visually, but I don’t like the battle system and the concept behind it is pretty cliché. It doesn’t make a very lasting impression on me so far other than that it has pretty designs for characters and the environments.
+ Tetris – good interactivity, but the graphics of the original version are… not very pretty. The concept also isn’t very deep when you look at things like story. (Since it’s an older game I’m not sure the concepts for the interactivity are original or not – I’m guessing they are.)
I’d throw in a game with just a good concept, but I’m not sure which one did just the concept right, but messed up at the other parts. It’s a bit hard to find one since games that solely have a good concept tend not to be published or even finished in the first place.
What I’m getting at is that I believe good games with a lasting impression need to mix these factors well and balance them out. Some games which did this correctly for me are Beyond Good & Evil, Aquaria (I bet you didn’t see that coming ;3), ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. I’m sure you played at least two of these, since you mentioned ICO somewhere if I’m correct. (And I actually would be surprised if you never played Aquaria aside from testing, even if it was just for a bit.)
I’m kind of curious about your views on this, but no need to answer if you’re too busy. ^^;
The reason why I posted it in here is because I thought of it while listening to this broadcast of TIGRadio. Sorry if it’s a little elaborate… ^_^;