Who influences me creatively?

When it comes to being a creative person I am influenced by what could be called childish wonder.  I like things that I find “interesting” for lack of a better word, it doesn’t have to be impressive or actually important, it could simply be something trivial.  I guess the best way I could describe this would be to use a label from a card game I play called Magic: The Gathering.  I’m called a Timmy, or a Power Gamer; I like to play fun and interesting cards, I don’t play to win, I play to have fun.  This is a very bare bones description of my creative mindset, I love to learn about new things because I find them interesting; I love fun little gimmicks or gizmo’s and I like to think of random little things myself.

A group that I truly admire would have to be Team ICO, the creators of the video games ICO, and Shadow of the Colossus.  While I haven’t had a chance to play their first game (ICO), I have played Shadow of the Colossus, and it was honestly a game that changed how I looked at video games.  Rarely does such a truly impressive and amazing game appear; this was also the first game that I considered a true work of art, its setting, story, and the feel of the game were just different than any game I had played before.

The one thing I really love about Shadow of the Colossus is the fact that the theme of the game first is made to seem didactic at first, but soon become a much more active issue later in the game.  After the player runs into the various colossi they begin to notice that many of the colossi are not violent in any way, they simply wander around until attack by the player, and the few that do attack seem to be protecting something, such as their territory in the same way that an animal might.  Then there is the song that plays when a colossus is defeated, normally when an enemy is defeated a victory fanfare or something like that would play, but not during this game, here an incredibly melancholy song plays, one you would imagine would play during the death of the gentle giant character in a film.

Another interesting thing that Team ICO Plays on that music I just mentioned.  Normally when traveling around the world there is no music at all, only wind, and the sound of the character and his horse breathing.  But, when a colossus is encountered music begins to play, and it’s actually a calming melody.  The big change comes when the player finally begins to scale the colossus, the music changes a battle theme type of music, and when that happens it gets my blood pumping.  To me this is a use of Tension, not uncomfortable tension, but an actual tension, that actually makes you nervous.  The Release is that death music I mentioned earlier.

Their use of Affinity is also rather impressive.  The player is the exact opposite of this, the player is in direct Contrast with the rest of the world; the world around the player doesn’t appear to have dealt with a human being in hundreds of years, nature has taken over the few ruins that populate the land, the few forests the player encounters are dark, green and overgrown, very few clearings can be found, the water is clear and clean as well.  The Colossi have an incredible affinity to the land around them. The colossi are made of stone and flesh; they look as if they have become part of the land itself.  Plants have begun to grow on some, some appear to have partially fused with earth, and the stone ‘armor’ on them is very similar to the ruins of the world. They are in harmony with the forbidden land when the player has intruded, or at least that’s what I think. Here's a look at all of the colossi.

One of the things I find most impressive though, is the fact that even after 5 years, people are still exploring the world in Shadow of the Colossus, trying to find any secrets that may have been missed, that simply amazes me.  To create something that can captivate people this well and for this long, that it what I want to do with my life.