Flash Friday: Second Empire Artistic Demimonde Edition

March 8, 2013 11:46 AM

In the new game Avant-Garde, you play an up-and-coming artist in 19th century Paris, a contemporary of Manet and Bouguereau. Carve and sell allegorical statue groups! Get snubbed by Napoleon III! Subsidize Gustave Courbet's drinking! Compose and promulgate your own aesthetic manifesto!
posted by Iridic (55 comments total)

Does it do anything other than just say Paris, 1863 for two minutes? Or is that a bug?
posted by Rory Marinich at 11:48 AM on March 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

The art students ball had better be a bonus round.
posted by The Whelk at 11:56 AM on March 8, 2013

i've played for five minutes and have not had a drop of mercury-aged absinthe. Is that a bug?
posted by Think_Long at 11:57 AM on March 8, 2013 [4 favorites]

This better include syphillus as an option.
posted by Shasta at 11:58 AM on March 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

It picks up a lot once you get the rocket launcher.
posted by theodolite at 11:58 AM on March 8, 2013 [5 favorites]

Oh hey, right on the day I have "The Afternoon of a Faun" and "The Drunken Boat" open in my other tabs.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 12:00 PM on March 8, 2013

I'm in debt already and nobody wants to buy my stuff. My urge to powergame is strong, but I don't know what any of these statistics do.
posted by codacorolla at 12:11 PM on March 8, 2013

This is hilarious. Bougereau just called me Horrible.
posted by benito.strauss at 12:23 PM on March 8, 2013

This is great! Boulanger denounced my work in the National Assembly! Auguste Blanqui has said I'm not invited to the Commune! Henri Toulouse-Lautrec has called my masterpiece an "affront to all that is good" and vowed to quit drinking! Berthe Morisot kneed me in the groin!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:43 PM on March 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Goddmanit people why did you have to post this when I'm not on a flash enabled device.

I hate you all, I shall paint a series of revenge paintings detailing your dishonor.
posted by The Whelk at 12:48 PM on March 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Those fuckers at the Salon wouldn't take my bold new "Anatamist" still life? This is an outrage!
posted by Copronymus at 12:49 PM on March 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

So if you keep painting after World War I do you become some sort of immortal superpainter or does the game kick you off at some point?

Because the former possibility seems like it would be hilarious. Or possibly the concept behind a very weird comic book.
posted by KChasm at 12:53 PM on March 8, 2013

I spent more than an entire year drinking in the cafe and somehow managed to win the gold medal at the salon. Take that, Manet.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 12:54 PM on March 8, 2013 [3 favorites]

Apparently, I crave fake approval because I'm just sitting here cranking out technically proficient nudes for the Salon and basking in their medals.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 12:55 PM on March 8, 2013 [5 favorites]

So if you keep painting after World War I do you become some sort of immortal superpainter or does the game kick you off at some point?

A Self-Portrait Of Basil Hallward
posted by The Whelk at 12:59 PM on March 8, 2013

I feel like such a craven sellout painting 4 new bourgeois Realist paintings each new year just to get something accepted and then painting the stuff I actually like during the summer.
posted by Copronymus at 1:00 PM on March 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

What's the relation of the bar lengths for the stats that seem unrelated to the numbers assigned to them?

ETA: Ah, that's experience.
posted by ursus_comiter at 1:08 PM on March 8, 2013

I wish it showed examples of paintings in the same class as yours; when you create a mediocre post-impressionist religious pencil sketch, it would be fun to see a relevant image.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 1:13 PM on March 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

This game is basically all grinding, isn't it.

Aren't all skills?
posted by echo target at 1:18 PM on March 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

It does make me want to paint...
posted by dreamling at 1:22 PM on March 8, 2013

It's grinding with nice backgrounds.

My clicker finger advanced all the way to "10".
posted by notyou at 1:29 PM on March 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

So, has anyone had success getting anything other than realist paintings accepted at the show? Is that the point?
posted by leotrotsky at 1:32 PM on March 8, 2013

Aren't all skills?

::Swings chair, cracks whip::

Back, Gladwell, back!
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 1:34 PM on March 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure that's the point leotrotsky. At least, they wouldn't accept my masterpieces of giant religious bronzes in my own personal style, so obviously they're not accepting any quality art outside their narrow worldview.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 1:38 PM on March 8, 2013 [4 favorites]

It also seems to have been designed by the International Still Life-Pencil-Paper Cabal since as far as I can tell, that's easily the best thing to work on.
posted by Copronymus at 1:47 PM on March 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Copronymus: Yep, 30f a pop, paint them realist style, Keep one on the back burner for exhibitions, and grind away on the live models that sounds much dirtier when I type it out. The Gold medals then become trivially easy, and Gold medal winning paintings sell for a multiple.

I take away the lesson that Realism is the only good style, because it's the one that makes me rich.

Thanks, Art History game!
posted by leotrotsky at 1:53 PM on March 8, 2013 [6 favorites]

i tried to be deeply avant garde and fashionable and ended up 10k in debt at the end
posted by PinkMoose at 2:16 PM on March 8, 2013

The best part about being a rich artist with a shitton of awards is that now people will pay big bucks for my allegorical charcoal frescos in my own deeply unpopular style.
posted by Copronymus at 2:22 PM on March 8, 2013 [3 favorites]

Protip: create REALISM stuff out of bronze, the more expensive subject the better, and finish them 100%. Exhibit them at the paris salon and you'll always get the gold award, which should get you 9k+ when you sell your work. Max out all skills asap, it's worth it.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 2:26 PM on March 8, 2013

The downside is that my years of grinding have apparently rendered me too skilled with composition to properly execute my personal style in its more avant-garde form.

I shit Very Good Realism, you cretins, now my bronze self-portrait in Anamatism Squared means nothing to you?
posted by Copronymus at 2:28 PM on March 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

damn it feelz gud 2 b rich
posted by Foci for Analysis at 2:29 PM on March 8, 2013

best game
posted by Copronymus at 2:40 PM on March 8, 2013

Can I starve in a garret? In the gutter? Suffer delirium?
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:50 PM on March 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

A decadent bronze self-portrait? I'm on it.
posted by brokkr at 3:24 PM on March 8, 2013

New strategy:

1. Allocate all initial points to anatomy.
2. Carefully avoid developing any skills.
3. Drink in the cafe until the invention of Pointillism, the first style which requires a total lack of talent. Nobody is ever going to ask about your bar tab.
4. Suddenly, you can create masterpiece Pointillist still lifes. Do this.
5. Enter your masterpiece in the salon. Savor the rejection.
6. Go drink with Van Gogh in the cafe until WWI.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 3:26 PM on March 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Um, Van Gogh died 24 years before WWI.

I mean, you could still drink with him until WWI, but he would probably be a bit ripe, and you might want to get a little help from Camille Claudel.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 3:41 PM on March 8, 2013

I am a big fan of this. It does seem to need more development to keep you engaged, but I found myself very much identifying - in a fun, emotional way - with some of the overly familiar learning points about art history.

I do think it loses something by not having more varied trajectories. Without the threat of dying broke in a gutter from syphilis, it just doesn't have the proper frisson.
posted by Miko at 4:30 PM on March 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Well, if he had stayed in a cafe drinking for 31 years prior to WWI, maybe he would have been too drunk to shoot himself.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 4:32 PM on March 8, 2013

I crafted a Jigglyist manifesto and cranked out nude after tawdry nude for top dollar. However, none of my Jigglyist masterpieces were ever accepted by the salon. I guess Jigglyism was ahead of its time.
posted by phooky at 4:32 PM on March 8, 2013 [3 favorites]

I take away the lesson that Realism is the only good style, because it's the one that makes me rich.

Realism is the only style of art accepted by the Paris Salon, which is somewhat historically accurate as far as I can tell. It's really easy to roleplay the game as a genius artist whose pieces are persistently rejected by the Salon and who dies in the war in relative obscurity. It's also easy to imagine that someone, some day, will be marveling at the masterpieces that I, Michelet Man, have crafted in my own image, in bronze, in the nude, with some amount of artistic license.
posted by dubusadus at 4:42 PM on March 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Can I starve in a garret? In the gutter? Suffer delirium?

I wish I hadn't said this...
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:50 PM on March 8, 2013

It's only in Alpha; I gather from the dedicated subreddit that the developer plans to add the Salon des Refusés and other galleries. I'm hoping for more extensive interactions with the other artists, myself. Converting Monet to Iridicisme (+composition, +form, -perspective), perhaps, or maybe advising Van Gogh that the lady would most likely prefer flowers.
posted by Iridic at 4:52 PM on March 8, 2013 [4 favorites]

So I spent way too long playing that, and now I feel faintly dirty for selling my artistic soul for filthy lucre. The money and accolades felt so good though. :(
posted by yasaman at 5:01 PM on March 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm hoping for more extensive interactions with the other artists, myself.

Me too. I think it'd be amazing if other artists offered scathing indictments of my shameless selling out to the Salon, or accused me of biting their style when adopting impressionism or something.
posted by juv3nal at 5:07 PM on March 8, 2013 [3 favorites]

So if you keep painting after World War I do you become some sort of immortal superpainter or does the game kick you off at some point?

Because the former possibility seems like it would be hilarious. Or possibly the concept behind a very weird comic book.

You could join the Brotherhood of Dada.

This sounds like a cheesy TV series about the pre-Raphelite Brotherhood called something like 'Young Romantics'. Lots of flouting convention and arguing with the Academy and seducing models.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 5:44 PM on March 8, 2013

Is there anyway to have access to material other than pen or ink on paper? Maybe it's the interface, but I just didn't see it... !
posted by markkraft at 9:29 PM on March 8, 2013

I had trouble with that too, markkraft. The way it works is that they're very expensive, but when you have enough money you can click on them and purchase them - even though they appear grayed out at first. That could use some tweaking to let you know when you can afford them.
posted by Miko at 9:35 PM on March 8, 2013

Okay I'm 5 seconds in and I want a "start a verbal slap fight with Whistler" option.

Everyone else got to do it! Why can't I?!
posted by The Whelk at 9:44 PM on March 8, 2013

So um, this maybe should be on "Ask Metafilter", but if your SO is an artist in real life, and has been playing for six hours, has made a manifesto called "Moar Bewbs", and is going to the acadamie just to pick up girls (nude drawing)...how do you get her to stop? I was kind of hoping to have sex this weekend.

Oh damn, she's cursing the Salon again. I need to get her more wine.
posted by happyroach at 11:16 PM on March 8, 2013 [5 favorites]

Convince her to role play Camille Claudel and smash her statues
posted by The Whelk at 11:25 PM on March 8, 2013

Post of the year as far as I'm concerned. Rage against the academia that didn't recognise the masterpieces of Menet.
posted by ersatz at 5:46 AM on March 9, 2013

So now I can make 'undefined' artworks. That sounds pretty avant-garde.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 6:45 AM on March 9, 2013

When I tried to write a manifesto rejecting all aspects of art: "It's too early for this movement. Try something less avant-garde for now."
posted by vibratory manner of working at 6:47 AM on March 9, 2013 [7 favorites]

3. Drink in the cafe until the invention of Pointillism, the first style which requires a total lack of talent.

What? Quite the opposite, especially in the work of Seurat and his interest in colour theory.
posted by whyareyouatriangle at 2:08 PM on March 10, 2013

Did you play the game? If you make art with the subject "Still Life" how good you do is based on two skills: Form and Perspective. Each art movement in the game modifies how the skills play out - each one can be valorized, ignored, or rejected. The in-game movement 'Pointillism' rejects both Form and Perspective, meaning that a lower rating in those skills makes for better art in that style.

So, as long as you stick to Still Life paintings, you produce the best pointillist art if you have no talent in those skills, and the others are irrelevant.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 8:14 PM on March 10, 2013 [1 favorite]