What does the term avant garde mean?:

From what I learnt in contextual studies when I did games development at college, the term is someone or something that is not accepted as normal. “Avant-garde is originally a French term, meaning in English vanguard or advance guard (the part of an army that goes forward ahead of the rest).” (Tate, 2017)
To me, it seems that people who produced avant garde creations were simple just people creating something knew, and unseen before. This forced a shocked response from people, which then generated this avant garde term from them.

Is it still possible to be truly ‘avant garde’? and if so provide game examples:

In the games industry, I don’t think it is. There is no game anyone can make that will be totally unique. It will always have similar parts to another game, such as and RPG will have the same leveling system, any shooter will have the same gun mechanics, etc. However, I think there are some areas where people can be unique to an extent. Art styles, lore and game mechanics are the biggest three that stand out to me. For example, Doom 2016 plays like any other shooter, however you have to perform finishing moves on the enemies to gain health picks ups, and you have to kill enemies with a chainsaw to gain ammo for your weapons that require no reloading. This added a level of avant garde to the game, as it is something that has never been seen in a shooter before.

Bibliography:

Tate. (2017). Avant-garde – Art Term | Tate. [online] Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/a/avant-garde [Accessed 6 Dec. 2017].