The Interactive Canvas - Kickstarter

Looks like I am finally participating in a Kickstarter, but not from the side of things I expected to be. Matt from Digitally Downloaded is leading the charge on a hardcover book called The Interactive Canvas, which is a book that champions the idea that games do in fact have artistic value and is centered around interviews with people who have demonstrated this in our industry.

Hopefully this gets off of the ground and for those who follow this blog, I will be participating in the process (interviewing, writing, not sure exactly what all I will be contributing yet) and it is something the Digitally Downloaded team is excited about.

Below are some excerpts from the Kickstarter campaign:

Video Games Can Be Art What happens when you bring the creators of The Witcher, Alice: Madness Returns, Deadly Premonition, Braid, Dear Esther and Europa Universalis IV together to discuss their games and their creative inspiration? You get some truly great insights into the artistry of game development.
And that's exactly what we've done! The Digitally Downloaded team has an idea for a deluxe hardcover book about games as art, and we've got some of the greatest game artists working in the industry keen to participate in it, including;

• American McGee, Spicy Horse; American McGee's Alice, Alice Returns
• Jonathan Blow; Braid, The Witness
• Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, CD Projekt Red; The Witcher series
• Hidetaka Suehiro (aka SWERY65), ACCESS Games; Deadly Premonition
• Ed Key; Proteus
• Michael Samyn and Auriea Harvey, Tale Of Tales; The Path, Luxuria Superbia
• Dan Pinchbeck, The Chinese Room; Dear Esther, Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs
• Guillaume Provost, Compulsion Games; Contrast
• Thomas Johansson, Henrik Fåhraeus, and Johan Andersson, Paradox Development Studio; Crusader Kings II, Europa Universalis IV
• Nic Watt, Nnooo; escapeVektor
• Tamara Schembri and Peter Budziszewski, ToyBox Studios; Flowmo
• Neil Rennison, Tin Man Games; Gamebook Adventures, Fighting Fantasy gamebooks on iOS and Android
• Mike Bithell; Thomas Was Alone

Those are some pretty cool industry names, and there is more:

In addition to the interviews, the book will involve a series of in-depth features on a range of different topics. One of them, for instance, will be on the topic of music in video games and feature interviews with some of the industry's most exceptional composers, including:

• Inon Zur (Dragon Age, Prince of Persia)
• Jesper Kyd (Assassin's Creed, Hitman)
• Oliver Deriviere (Remember Me, Of Orcs and Men)
• Mark Morgan (Wasteland 2, Planescape: Torment, Fallout 2)
• Peter McConnell (Broken Age, Sly Cooper: Thieves In Time)

Finally, a number of guest writers will pen features to round out an in-depth discussion about games as an art form. For instance, Brendan Keogh, well-respected game academic and author of the brilliant deconstruction of Spec Ops: The Line, Killing Is Harmless, will pen an article for the book.

You can read about (and contribute) to the Kickstarter here. Please click this link to take a look. No really, click here. Or here if you like. Maybe here instead? You get the idea. :)

And here is the video attached to it:

I suspect this will not be the only time this month you see me posting about this, and any contributions toward this goal are helpful so please take a look and see if this is of interest to you. If so? We appreciate all the help we can get. Thanks for reading!