The Pinch Artist (or, Contributors and Symbiosis?)

After hearing Nathan Vella's talk at Indiecade this year, I reorganized my personal website into three distinct categories: creator projects, collaborator projects, and contributor projects. Contributor projects are projects that don't really reflect my vision, or whatever you would call it. My input was limited to simply helping it exist somehow. The team or project was missing a piece, and I could fill that role, or complete that section, and help realize someone else's vision.

This is something I used to do a lot of, but as a freelancer. There was some satisfaction there but it was different than what I've been doing lately. For the last few years, I've had the opportunity to work voluntarily as a contributor, or "pinch artist", on some high-profile projects, most notably Polytron's much-anticipated ambient-exploration platformer FEZ, but also on the iPad port of Aquaria that my company published (and a bunch of other small things too). It has been a massively rewarding experience, even though the work itself is not always particularly thrilling.

What is a "pinch artist" exactly? To me, it means a few different things. One, I am bringing all my skills to bear on this project, and all my sensibilities as an artist, but my goal is to realize someone else's vision. Sometimes this means emulating or manipulating another style (Derek's gorgeous backgrounds and sprite work in Aquaria), or helping to design a new approach to something that suits everyone involved (like square water for FEZ). But the pinch artist is there as an assistant, a facilitator, an enabler. A pinch artist is not a critic, and a pinch artist never makes a suggestion they don't want to personally commit to implementing (unless they are specifically asked for feedback of course).

A pinch artist is not a full-time contributor. A pinch artist may not even contribute a full person-month of hours even at the end of a multi-year project. A pinch artist may not be an "artist" in the traditional sense at all - maybe they are a web guru, or a database genius.

A pinch artist may not even be a "specialist", even if that's their role on your project. But generally speaking, the pinch artist is a part-time helper with a specific focus and a specific ability that helps get the project into the air with just a little less friction and terror, and a little more quality and attention to detail.

Part of the power of being a contributor is the 80-20 rule, or the idea that sometimes a lot of the value or appeal of a finished work can be created with relatively little time and effort. Inviting contributors to work on your game or getting the opportunity to contribute to someone else's game improves the likelihood that you'll find more of those little gems that have a big impact.

In games, though, maybe the most common manifestation of the 80-20 rule is that the first 80% of a project takes just 20% of the overall effort, and the last 20% takes 80% of the effort. Pinch artists can help chip away at that latter 20% in a way that is psychologically and objectively meaningful, remaining fresh and excited about a project that may have lost some of its luster for the core team.

Haha, this is starting to sound like a public service announcement isn't it? "Help change a life; become a pinch artist today!" That makes it sound like charity work or something, which isn't quite how it works or feels. But it is a scale of collaboration that was new to me a couple years ago, and I've been noticing more and more is a really positive thing, especially for smaller studios. Even as a relative control freak obsessed with my own ideas, I've really enjoyed making contributions to my friends' games over the last couple years.

For game makers who are looking for a way to blow off some creative steam, donating a little bit of your time to helping someone else's game exist is a great way make the world better and still expand your own gameography and experience at the same time.