{"author_link":"\/users\/splitpainter","author_name":"SplitPainter","author_uid":"splitpainter","comments":[],"epoch":1633630667,"event":"LD49","format":"md","ldjam_node_id":273615,"likes":25,"metadata":{"p_key":"161497","p_author":"SplitPainter","p_authorkey":"1057198","p_urlkey":"384487","p_title":"The INTENSE task of creating a Van Gogh game... alone... in 3 days!","p_cat":"LDJam ","p_event":"LD49","p_time":"1633630667","p_likes":"25","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":"1057198","us_name":"SplitPainter","us_username":"splitpainter","event_start":"1633046400","event_key":"119","event_name":"Ludum Dare 49"},"node":{"_collation":{"body_sanitizer":"TextUtils::SanitizeHTML via existing importer","event":"LD49","removed_author":false},"_superparent":258323,"_trust":1,"author":57198,"body":"For this Ludum Dare, **I made a historically accurate [game about Van Gogh](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/49\/the-blue-bedroom)**, specifically about his stay in the city of Arles, France, **where in a matter of 450 days, he produced a staggering amount of more than 180 paintings**, including many masterpieces such as **The Sunflowers, The Bedroom, The Yellow House**, Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin, Terrace of a caf\u00e9 at night and The Night Caf\u00e9. But it's **also the period where one of his most critical mental breakdowns took place and he ended up cutting his ear off** - which he also turned into a masterpiece, Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear.\n\n![the-blue-bedroom-400.gif](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b67.gif)\n\n**What does it take to make a historically accurate game of the most beloved and most prolific artist in the whole world?** Going even further, what does it take to make such a game in just 3 days? \n\n- **Simple answer: it requires obsession about Van Gogh.**\n- Elaborate answer: you have to **have read all of his letters**, in order to be able to create a narrative that makes sense in a game. Almost 900 letters to be precise.\n\n# Van Gogh Letters?\nThe letters are the window to Van Gogh\u2019s universe. The letters express: as literature, as a chronicle of an artist\u2019s life, and Vincent\u2019s own sketches from his works and ideas.\n\n![van-gogh-letter-sample.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b70.jpg)\n\n**Vincent\u2019s correspondence falls into two parts: the letters he wrote himself \u2013 820 in all, 651 of them to his brother Theo** and 7 to Theo and his wife Jo \u2013 and those he received \u2013 83, including 39 from Theo and 2 from Theo and Jo. By far the **most letters are to his brother Theo, his best friend and loyal supporter**. Theo kept Vincent\u2019s letters with great care. Vincent was less careful \u2013 he threw lots of letters away, or burned them.\n\nSee more:\n- This website contains ALL LETTERS with sketches, paintings, and references all linked together. It also links letters that reference each other and other historical references. This website is probably **the most important and most complete website ever published about Van Gogh**: [http:\/\/vangoghletters.org\/vg\/](http:\/\/vangoghletters.org\/vg\/)\n- [https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Letters_of_Vincent_van_Gogh](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Letters_of_Vincent_van_Gogh)\n\n# My Process to make \"The Blue Bedroom\"\n## Visited the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam\nYou have to feel his paintings in person, you have to notice the passion of every stroke.\n\n![van-gogh-museum-the-bedroom-alfred-split-painter.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b69.jpg)\n\n** Of course I haven't done this happen during this Ludum Dare [part 1], but it's a requirement to make a game about Van Gogh.*\n\n## Watched all movies about Van Gogh\nAll movies, documentaries, and TV shows. The most relevant one for the context of this game is [Lust for Life](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lust_for_Life_(1956_film)):\n\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=k39hFQitHrE\n\n** Of course I haven't done this happen during this Ludum Dare [part 2], but it's also a requirement to make a game about Van Gogh.*\n\n## Read all of Van Gogh's letters... twice!\nHaving have read all of the letters twice was the most important step in the creation of the game. I knew where to go and what content to look for.\n\n![van-gogh-letters-book-game-brainstorm.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b6a.jpg)\n\nOf course, I wanted to make sure that I was getting the right material and the correct paintings, during all my time working in the jam I referenced [the website Vincent Van Gogh - The Letters](http:\/\/vangoghletters.org\/vg\/) and volume 4 of the 6-volume book collection [Vincent van Gogh \u2013 The Letters The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Vincent-van-Gogh-Illustrated-Annotated\/dp\/0500238650) multiple times.\n\n![van-gogh-completed-annotated-books-volumes.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b8b.jpg)\n\n** Of course I haven't done this happen during this Ludum Dare [part 3], but it's also [again] a requirement to make a game about Van Gogh.*\n\n## Brainstormed the narrative and the Game Design\nWith all the knowledge I acquired with the other steps, this is where I truly began working in the game...\n\n![van-gogh-game-ludum-dare-brainstorm.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b72.jpg)\n\nHaving the knowledge of all of Van Gogh's timeline and paintings, I then **brainstormed and sketched the storyline, the outline and the structure of the game**. I asked and answered **questions such as**:\n\n- What exactly from Van Gogh do I want to show with the game?\n- **What practical events and paintings** can I show from Van Gogh that are related to the theme \"Unstable\"?\n- From what letters can I extract **Van Gogh's own words to portray those events**?\n- **How can I exhibit his mood and his soul** by using both his paintings and his letters?\n- How to mix all of that together, while keeping it as accurate as possible, but **without making it boring and time-consuming?** I.e. how to make a game about that, after all?\n\n**I couldn't move forward before finishing this step**. Because I needed to know EXACTLY what to look for, to then go to the relevant letters and paintings, the ones that are part of my answers.\n\n## Selected and extracted the relevant letters\nIn [Joplin](https:\/\/joplinapp.org\/) (as I always use for EVERYTHING in my life), I copy and pasted all the relevant letters from Arles related to what I wanted to show in the game.\n\n## Downloaded high-resolution versions of the relevant paintings\nUsing [Dezoomify](https:\/\/dezoomify.ophir.dev\/) I downloaded the highest possible resolution of the relevant paintings from [Google Arts & Culture](https:\/\/artsandculture.google.com\/) and from the [Van Gogh Museum](https:\/\/www.vangoghmuseum.nl\/en) websites. \n\n![van-gogh-the-bedroom-google-arts-zoom.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b6f.jpg)\n\nSome of these files are 120MB JPGs! Huge! In the end, I needed only [The Bedroom](https:\/\/artsandculture.google.com\/culturalinstitute\/beta\/u\/1\/asset\/the-bedroom-vincent-van-gogh\/KwF-AdF1REQl6w) in its maximum resolution. For the others, a mere 1080p-resolution JPEG would do it.\n\n_* Some of the paintings in the game are not from the Arles period, such as The Starry Night and The Drinkers._\n\n## Summarized the content of the letters and created connections\nMost of Van Gogh's letters are very long, translated using language from the 1880s. I couldn't simply paste them into the game. Nobody would read and it would also be very boring and time-consuming.\n\n![summarized-letters-toc.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b6b.jpg)\n\nFor that reason, I invested a great deal of time, making simple and straight connections between the letters that I selected, and then, I took only the relevant parts, that tried to emphasize Vincent's mood and his plans. I won't go into detail here, play the game to see what I mean :)\n\nI also mixed and matched some letters, to make a more engaging connection between them. So while all of the content has historical accuracy, some of the letters were chronologically changed (but just a bit).\n\n![van-gogh-bold-relevant-words.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b74.jpg)\n\nWhen I had the first draft, I then stripped the content even more and added **bold** to the most important words and phrases.\n\nAll of this text work was also done inside Joplin, with Markdown.\n\n## Mood progression (or regression)\nSince **the game starts with Van Gogh in a very elevated mood and shows his moods degrading until his breakdown where his ear is cut off**, I tried to convey these emotions by combining:\n- The two most important items: **extracts from the letters** that pinpoint exactly that and all the **different self-portraits** when he looks into the mirror in the game.\n- Showing **different skies** outside of the bedroom window\n- Music\n- From colorful to darker paintings\n- And a surprise sound effect (play the game!)\n\n### Selected self-portraits to match the progression of his mood\nI actually solved this step when I was brainstorming, because I outlined scenes based on his self-portraits:\n\n- Just arrived from Paris: self-portrait with a Parisian hat.\n- Excitement about the arrival of his friend: Self-portrait with a palette.\n- Getting distressed: bald.\n- Play the game to see the rest :)\n\n![van-gogh-mood-bald-portrait.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b86.jpg)\n\nThe self-portraits aren't in chronological order either. They come from all his oeuvre. Otherwise, I wouldn't have much choice if I stuck only to Arles for this purpose.\n\n## Development\nAll of this was also done during the jam, all by me:\n- Created a simple but complete **point-and-click framework with Godot**, with object interactivity, UI, secrets, room and scene transition, and more.\n- **Sliced and layered paintings with Photoshop**. For example, I wanted to be able to open and close the window from his Bedroom, I also wanted to make objects clickable, so I sliced elements from the paintings.\n- **Animated Van Gogh mental breakdown**, broken mirror, **ear slicing** and more, with Godot's AnimationPlayer.\n- Music and sound were taken from [Zapsplat](https:\/\/www.zapsplat.com\/) and [Freesound](https:\/\/freesound.org\/).\n- Added the UI and the secrets\n\n![van-gogh-the-blue-bedroom-development-godot.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b76.jpg)\n\nOne of the most important rooms in the game is **the mirror**. In this case, I used the ultra-high-resolution version of The Bedroom and then **sliced the mirror and added the bedroom as a reflection. Then I layered the \"glass\"**, where I could show Van Gogh approaching the mirror and his different self-portraits appearing.\n\n![van-gogh-game-sliced-objects.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b7a.jpg)\n\n## Published it!\nExcitement! I turned out to be even better than I anticipated. I got emotional when playtesting it... Precisely because by reading the letters, feeling the music, and looking at the connected paintings, I can also feel Van Gogh... again.\n\n# Play the game!\n[![van-gogh-blue-bedroom-banner-ldjam.png](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b79.png)](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/49\/the-blue-bedroom)\nhttps:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/49\/the-blue-bedroom\n\n# Extras...\nLet's say... I'm a little over the top when it comes to Van Gogh, and I collect a lot of things and books related to him. But mostly important, I feel really connected to him after having read all of his letters. So this game is a small tribute.\n\n![van-gogh-museum-swag-tshirt-prints-charles-bargue-book.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b7e.jpg)\n\n","comments":6,"comments-timestamp":"2021-10-21T16:58:04Z","created":"2021-10-07T17:40:17Z","files":[],"files-timestamp":0,"id":273615,"love":25,"love-timestamp":"2021-10-22T13:19:31Z","meta":[],"modified":"2021-10-22T13:19:31Z","name":"The INTENSE task of creating a Van Gogh game... alone... in 3 days!","node-timestamp":"2021-10-08T06:08:16Z","parent":267830,"parents":[1,5,9,258323,267830],"path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/49\/the-blue-bedroom\/the-intense-task-of-creating-a-van-gogh-game-alone-in-3-days","published":"2021-10-07T18:17:47Z","scope":"public","slug":"the-intense-task-of-creating-a-van-gogh-game-alone-in-3-days","subsubtype":"","subtype":"","type":"post","version":845711},"node_metadata":{"n_key":"273615","n_urlkey":"384487","n_parent":"267830","n_path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/49\/the-blue-bedroom\/the-intense-task-of-creating-a-van-gogh-game-alone-in-3-days","n_slug":"the-intense-task-of-creating-a-v","n_type":"post","n_subtype":"","n_subsubtype":"","n_author":"57198","n_created":"1633628417","n_modified":"1634908771","n_version":"845711","n_status":"WAYBACK"},"source_url":"https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/49\/the-blue-bedroom\/the-intense-task-of-creating-a-van-gogh-game-alone-in-3-days","text":"For this Ludum Dare, **I made a historically accurate [game about Van Gogh](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/49\/the-blue-bedroom)**, specifically about his stay in the city of Arles, France, **where in a matter of 450 days, he produced a staggering amount of more than 180 paintings**, including many masterpieces such as **The Sunflowers, The Bedroom, The Yellow House**, Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin, Terrace of a caf\u00e9 at night and The Night Caf\u00e9. But it's **also the period where one of his most critical mental breakdowns took place and he ended up cutting his ear off** - which he also turned into a masterpiece, Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear.\n\n![the-blue-bedroom-400.gif](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b67.gif)\n\n**What does it take to make a historically accurate game of the most beloved and most prolific artist in the whole world?** Going even further, what does it take to make such a game in just 3 days? \n\n- **Simple answer: it requires obsession about Van Gogh.**\n- Elaborate answer: you have to **have read all of his letters**, in order to be able to create a narrative that makes sense in a game. Almost 900 letters to be precise.\n\n# Van Gogh Letters?\nThe letters are the window to Van Gogh\u2019s universe. The letters express: as literature, as a chronicle of an artist\u2019s life, and Vincent\u2019s own sketches from his works and ideas.\n\n![van-gogh-letter-sample.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b70.jpg)\n\n**Vincent\u2019s correspondence falls into two parts: the letters he wrote himself \u2013 820 in all, 651 of them to his brother Theo** and 7 to Theo and his wife Jo \u2013 and those he received \u2013 83, including 39 from Theo and 2 from Theo and Jo. By far the **most letters are to his brother Theo, his best friend and loyal supporter**. Theo kept Vincent\u2019s letters with great care. Vincent was less careful \u2013 he threw lots of letters away, or burned them.\n\nSee more:\n- This website contains ALL LETTERS with sketches, paintings, and references all linked together. It also links letters that reference each other and other historical references. This website is probably **the most important and most complete website ever published about Van Gogh**: [http:\/\/vangoghletters.org\/vg\/](http:\/\/vangoghletters.org\/vg\/)\n- [https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Letters_of_Vincent_van_Gogh](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Letters_of_Vincent_van_Gogh)\n\n# My Process to make \"The Blue Bedroom\"\n## Visited the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam\nYou have to feel his paintings in person, you have to notice the passion of every stroke.\n\n![van-gogh-museum-the-bedroom-alfred-split-painter.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b69.jpg)\n\n** Of course I haven't done this happen during this Ludum Dare [part 1], but it's a requirement to make a game about Van Gogh.*\n\n## Watched all movies about Van Gogh\nAll movies, documentaries, and TV shows. The most relevant one for the context of this game is [Lust for Life](https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lust_for_Life_(1956_film)):\n\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=k39hFQitHrE\n\n** Of course I haven't done this happen during this Ludum Dare [part 2], but it's also a requirement to make a game about Van Gogh.*\n\n## Read all of Van Gogh's letters... twice!\nHaving have read all of the letters twice was the most important step in the creation of the game. I knew where to go and what content to look for.\n\n![van-gogh-letters-book-game-brainstorm.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b6a.jpg)\n\nOf course, I wanted to make sure that I was getting the right material and the correct paintings, during all my time working in the jam I referenced [the website Vincent Van Gogh - The Letters](http:\/\/vangoghletters.org\/vg\/) and volume 4 of the 6-volume book collection [Vincent van Gogh \u2013 The Letters The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition](https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Vincent-van-Gogh-Illustrated-Annotated\/dp\/0500238650) multiple times.\n\n![van-gogh-completed-annotated-books-volumes.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b8b.jpg)\n\n** Of course I haven't done this happen during this Ludum Dare [part 3], but it's also [again] a requirement to make a game about Van Gogh.*\n\n## Brainstormed the narrative and the Game Design\nWith all the knowledge I acquired with the other steps, this is where I truly began working in the game...\n\n![van-gogh-game-ludum-dare-brainstorm.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b72.jpg)\n\nHaving the knowledge of all of Van Gogh's timeline and paintings, I then **brainstormed and sketched the storyline, the outline and the structure of the game**. I asked and answered **questions such as**:\n\n- What exactly from Van Gogh do I want to show with the game?\n- **What practical events and paintings** can I show from Van Gogh that are related to the theme \"Unstable\"?\n- From what letters can I extract **Van Gogh's own words to portray those events**?\n- **How can I exhibit his mood and his soul** by using both his paintings and his letters?\n- How to mix all of that together, while keeping it as accurate as possible, but **without making it boring and time-consuming?** I.e. how to make a game about that, after all?\n\n**I couldn't move forward before finishing this step**. Because I needed to know EXACTLY what to look for, to then go to the relevant letters and paintings, the ones that are part of my answers.\n\n## Selected and extracted the relevant letters\nIn [Joplin](https:\/\/joplinapp.org\/) (as I always use for EVERYTHING in my life), I copy and pasted all the relevant letters from Arles related to what I wanted to show in the game.\n\n## Downloaded high-resolution versions of the relevant paintings\nUsing [Dezoomify](https:\/\/dezoomify.ophir.dev\/) I downloaded the highest possible resolution of the relevant paintings from [Google Arts & Culture](https:\/\/artsandculture.google.com\/) and from the [Van Gogh Museum](https:\/\/www.vangoghmuseum.nl\/en) websites. \n\n![van-gogh-the-bedroom-google-arts-zoom.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b6f.jpg)\n\nSome of these files are 120MB JPGs! Huge! In the end, I needed only [The Bedroom](https:\/\/artsandculture.google.com\/culturalinstitute\/beta\/u\/1\/asset\/the-bedroom-vincent-van-gogh\/KwF-AdF1REQl6w) in its maximum resolution. For the others, a mere 1080p-resolution JPEG would do it.\n\n_* Some of the paintings in the game are not from the Arles period, such as The Starry Night and The Drinkers._\n\n## Summarized the content of the letters and created connections\nMost of Van Gogh's letters are very long, translated using language from the 1880s. I couldn't simply paste them into the game. Nobody would read and it would also be very boring and time-consuming.\n\n![summarized-letters-toc.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b6b.jpg)\n\nFor that reason, I invested a great deal of time, making simple and straight connections between the letters that I selected, and then, I took only the relevant parts, that tried to emphasize Vincent's mood and his plans. I won't go into detail here, play the game to see what I mean :)\n\nI also mixed and matched some letters, to make a more engaging connection between them. So while all of the content has historical accuracy, some of the letters were chronologically changed (but just a bit).\n\n![van-gogh-bold-relevant-words.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b74.jpg)\n\nWhen I had the first draft, I then stripped the content even more and added **bold** to the most important words and phrases.\n\nAll of this text work was also done inside Joplin, with Markdown.\n\n## Mood progression (or regression)\nSince **the game starts with Van Gogh in a very elevated mood and shows his moods degrading until his breakdown where his ear is cut off**, I tried to convey these emotions by combining:\n- The two most important items: **extracts from the letters** that pinpoint exactly that and all the **different self-portraits** when he looks into the mirror in the game.\n- Showing **different skies** outside of the bedroom window\n- Music\n- From colorful to darker paintings\n- And a surprise sound effect (play the game!)\n\n### Selected self-portraits to match the progression of his mood\nI actually solved this step when I was brainstorming, because I outlined scenes based on his self-portraits:\n\n- Just arrived from Paris: self-portrait with a Parisian hat.\n- Excitement about the arrival of his friend: Self-portrait with a palette.\n- Getting distressed: bald.\n- Play the game to see the rest :)\n\n![van-gogh-mood-bald-portrait.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b86.jpg)\n\nThe self-portraits aren't in chronological order either. They come from all his oeuvre. Otherwise, I wouldn't have much choice if I stuck only to Arles for this purpose.\n\n## Development\nAll of this was also done during the jam, all by me:\n- Created a simple but complete **point-and-click framework with Godot**, with object interactivity, UI, secrets, room and scene transition, and more.\n- **Sliced and layered paintings with Photoshop**. For example, I wanted to be able to open and close the window from his Bedroom, I also wanted to make objects clickable, so I sliced elements from the paintings.\n- **Animated Van Gogh mental breakdown**, broken mirror, **ear slicing** and more, with Godot's AnimationPlayer.\n- Music and sound were taken from [Zapsplat](https:\/\/www.zapsplat.com\/) and [Freesound](https:\/\/freesound.org\/).\n- Added the UI and the secrets\n\n![van-gogh-the-blue-bedroom-development-godot.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b76.jpg)\n\nOne of the most important rooms in the game is **the mirror**. In this case, I used the ultra-high-resolution version of The Bedroom and then **sliced the mirror and added the bedroom as a reflection. Then I layered the \"glass\"**, where I could show Van Gogh approaching the mirror and his different self-portraits appearing.\n\n![van-gogh-game-sliced-objects.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b7a.jpg)\n\n## Published it!\nExcitement! I turned out to be even better than I anticipated. I got emotional when playtesting it... Precisely because by reading the letters, feeling the music, and looking at the connected paintings, I can also feel Van Gogh... again.\n\n# Play the game!\n[![van-gogh-blue-bedroom-banner-ldjam.png](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b79.png)](https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/49\/the-blue-bedroom)\nhttps:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/49\/the-blue-bedroom\n\n# Extras...\nLet's say... I'm a little over the top when it comes to Van Gogh, and I collect a lot of things and books related to him. But mostly important, I feel really connected to him after having read all of his letters. So this game is a small tribute.\n\n![van-gogh-museum-swag-tshirt-prints-charles-bargue-book.jpg](\/\/\/raw\/e6f\/d\/z\/47b7e.jpg)\n\n","title":"The INTENSE task of creating a Van Gogh game... alone... in 3 days!","wayback_source":[]}