I’ll have more on Defcon later, but the word “stylish” keeps popping up in conversations I am having about it. Introversion is the king of style and in my review of Darwinia (now lost in the death of DIY Games) I mentioned how its sense of style almost overwhelmed the real substance.

And that’s not a bad thing. I’m astonished that people still post on forums and message boards that they prefer gameplay over graphics (like that tells us anything useful). They are “video games” for a reason, but saying that bad games suck even when they are pretty doesn’t get you extra street cred. A well designed game marries powerful visuals with a compelling rule set and interesting AI or multiplayer experience.

Defcon shows that simple graphics can still be very impressive; it’s the triumph of art design over photorealism. If there is an Introversion art motif, it is that you should never hide your influences. Darwinia looks like virtual worlds as seen through bad movies and teleplays of the early nineties. Glowing colors, simple forms, repetition after repetition. Defcon steals directly from the 80s Cold War classic Wargames, though sort of misses the moral lesson of the movie in favor of encouraging people to make the perfect air defence system.

As much as people love to complain about the lack of originality in games today, familiarity is important – especially in the indie game scene. The best independent games take something you already know and adapt it. Armadillo Run is one of many Rube Goldberg games, but works because of the physics and crashing things. Gish is a platform game, but, once again, tied to the physics of blobs.

Style happens when you take the familiar and make it look new. I’ve been playing a lot of Age of Empires III lately and it’s not big on style. It looks great, but it’s the good looks of a chrome and steel kitchen. It has reflective water, pretty trees, grazing bison and all the other stuff to remind you that this is the real world you are settling. Rise of Legends has style. It’s just another RTS after all, with a rock/paper/scissors mechanic and minerals to mine. It also has sights that you recognize, but the familiar musketeers, dragons and flying saucers are ripped from their normal context. The juxtaposition of diverse familiar elements leads to a jarring sense of exploring a world you thought you had mapped out in your head.

Photorealism can be stylish. Silent Hunter III is stylish because of its faithful recreation of World War II submarine warfare. The constraints of the underwater life, the exhausting schedule, the techonological limits – all are made effective though a convincing rendering of industrial, utilitarian shipwork.

Introversion never fails to surprise. Instead of churning out match three games or real physics stuff, they take images and sensibilities that our generation (late 20s to early 40s) shares and make a great game out of it. Style doesn’t just unite material and art; it marries material and audience.