Phase 1 - Good Start/Bad Start
Week 1-3
This week I have been assigned the task to come up with 4 themes. These themes will be presented at the end of Week 3, showing a condensed variety of information around those possible ideas. To get to these 4 themes, I need to start broad, look at anything and everything in life that I find; interesting, intriguing, offensive, endearing; anything that'll trigger an emotion within me that I feel passionate about.
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In our Friday workshop (05-10-19), I started off with brainstorming ideas around a number of questions. What makes you cry? What makes you laugh? What makes you angry? What stimulates you intellectually? What interests you? What makes you excited? Initially, with a peer, we started filling these out with not a whole lot coming to mind at that moment, but having someone to discussed thoughts with and a different mind who experiences these types of questions differently opened me up to a number of answers I may not have come up with myself. For many of these questions, being asked all in one go and on the stop, not many thoughts instantly came to mind so the brainstorming sheets are fairly empty. With a night to reflect on the questions, more answers came and are listed below.
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Picking out a number of these ideas and topics from the lists, I have created a page entierly for that theme with a quick look into further details on where that might lead. How this inspires me and where else it might even take me. These chosen have hyperlinks indicated by the underlined in the lists.
What Makes You Cry?
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Music
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Loved ones passing away
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Seeing a parent cry for a particular reason
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Military Stories/soldier's sacrifices
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Emotional nights with alcohol
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Depression after injury
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The release after an intense anger
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Breakups
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Getting hit on the nose (Intense eye-watering)
What Makes You Laugh?
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People falling over
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Mockery
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Wit
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Slap-stick
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Banter (Insults directed at me)
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Memes (Internet imagery/short video clips)
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Movies/Film
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Music
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TV Shows
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Sarcasm
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Awkward situations
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Pranks
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Animals doing silly things/cute things
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Some violent situations
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Jokes
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Flattery
What Gets You Excited?
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Achievements
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Learning
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Progress
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A Great plot in a film
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New ideas
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Energetic music
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Overcoming obstacles
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New experiences
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Boxing
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Rugby
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Close competitive gameplay (Competition)
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Role-play
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Arriving on holiday
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Waiting on something like a film or new album
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Love
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Passion
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A good book
What Simulates You Intellectually?
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Research
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Progress
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Failure
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Coffee
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Stepping out of my comfort zone
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Communication on designing
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Passion
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Breakthroughs (Sciences/History)
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Music
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Natural History
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Learning something new
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Success
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Motivational speakers
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Food
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Self-improvement
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Research
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Progress
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Failure
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Mindfulness
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Self Reliance
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History
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Animals
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Travelling
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Coastal life/sea life
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Art
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Military
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Environment Conservation
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Culture
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Boxing
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Snooker
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Rugby
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Co-operation games
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Variety of music
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Human being's progression
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Physical Health
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Sex
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Intellectual communication
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Game Design
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Serial Killers
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Police interrogations
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Creativity/creative people working
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Physical labour
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Gardening/nature
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DIY
What Interests You?
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Story writing
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New experiences
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Neatness/cleanliness
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Cooking
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Board games
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Stationary
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Organisation
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Space
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Making money
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Documentaries
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Exploring new spaces
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Movies/Film
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Independence
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Podcasts
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Model making
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Whiskey
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Ancient Civilisations
What Makes You Angry?
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Far sided political parties
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Bad manners
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Messy people
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Slow drivers
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Bad scripts in film
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Pop culture
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Slow walkers
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Poor gameplay mechanics
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Micro-transactions
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Trends
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Stubbing my toe
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Close-minded morons
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Human rights
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Health and safety
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Loss of natural selection
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No euthanasia
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Pronouns
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Lack of common sense
With a large number of starting points, its time to start whittling out the bad starting points and some of the topics which I feel more passionate about. Considering I have mentioned passion in a number of these questions, I feel it is important that whatever I am researching and ultimately create into a game experience, without passion, my designs will lack. So instead of exploring passion further, I will use it as the core decision-maker for the themes I will dive into with my research.
In the session Friday, I asked a number of questions toward a selection of the topics I had written out on the first brainstorms.
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Ancient Civilisations - In terms of research, this opens up a multitude of avenues to branch down and has many options for art and themes to take on. Exploring into this area further, however, could also leave me with too many options that I'd like to continue with. For now, it's a spark of interest.
Self Reliance - Comes from a passion for the outdoors and the skills it would take to survive on the land that we live in rather than convenience stores. This would become a theme for the purpose of teaching and sending a message about the loss of survival knowledge.
Coastal Life - Choosing this theme to expand with research questions because of the romance of living by the sea, the lifestyle that brings and the different hardships that one might have to overcome there. Also considering the UK is surrounded by coast, we are a nation with a history of coastal life deeply rooted in us.
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Animal Habitats
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Education on conservation
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Awareness of self and surroundings
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Accepting Failure
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Cultures
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Finding out something completely new
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Historical Stories
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Natural pathways/streams/rivers
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Sounds of nature
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Peaceful Views
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When nature takes over
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Planet conservation
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Coast erosion/lost lands
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Micro Climates
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Bee conservation
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Healthy Diet
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Personal farming
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Ancient religions/pagans
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Ancient Aztecs/Mayans
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Ancient Egypt
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Vikings
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Ancient farming
With all my brainstorming completed, I wanted to narrow down many of the topics to things that interest me. So from a list of questions to my passions, to what I find interesting(marked by the red dot stickers), I found a few common interests within the brainstorming. Mainly focusing on internal growth of the mind, conservation, environment and farming seemed to appear most. I am tempted to create a document to visualise what themes relate to each other and find common ground but I fear that will keep me from exploring a little further with these interests.
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Pinning the mood boards up alongside the brainstorms, I intend to discover new areas related to the points on the list of these new interests. Using the techniques from Friday's (05-10) session, I spent some time writing down questions about the topics to get a sense for where the research could take me as a theme.
When putting up the sheets, I immediately decided against Film and Laughing at myself. These two topics just didn't shout out any inspiration for possible themes to venture into and find future game experiences. I do however cling to the idea of implementing self-awareness or some form of meditative experience into a game but don't see a great way to carry that into a researchable theme.
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Other than those two, I have been able to narrow my focus onto a selection of 4 themes from many of the questions that I had been asking. Looking at it all in a bigger picture allowed me to see connections and running themes that were really standing out to my interest.
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The next step is researching the 4 themes to an extent where I can answer some of the questions posed, and list more questions. Also looking out for anything in particular which might take that theme into another direction.
Failure - [Research Page]
Failure derives from the competitions in life that we either choose to enter into or stumble across out of natural occurrences. I've chosen this as a theme to research because I believe in the simple theory that without failure, we can't experience success. There is also the elements of personal growth involved with failing at something, allowing for the chance to learn from mistakes and also allowing yourself to failure can help character building on a personal level.
Questions:
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What helps us grow as individuals?
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Does failure in the natural world improve on DNA?
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What types of failure are there?
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How do we (as people) react to failure?
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What ways can we grow from failure?
Pagan Gods - [Research Page]
I've chosen pagan gods mainly through the topic of the ancient civilisations (A-Civs) from our history. With many different types of civilisations that have existed in a wide variety of periods, many of which I am interested in, I wanted to find common ground within them that I could focus on as a theme and a research topic. From personal and background knowledge of ancient history, I know of many of these A-Civs would worship multiple gods and goddess, often based on the night's sky and star constellations. So using the theme of Pagan Gods as a focus, I can look into the areas around the differences and commonalities between the different A-Civs and the source of them and their stories, from the night sky. The night sky being something which many people in the modern-day missing out on due to light pollution.
Questions:
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What did ancient night skies look like?
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What were the different gods/goddess within each A-Civs?
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Are there any similarities between these different A-Civs Gods?
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What was the God's and Goddess's purpose within the day to day life?
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How were the Gods worshipped?
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What constellations are there?
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What is the relationship between humans and the stars?
Steams - [Research Page]
The interest in streams as stemmed from the concept of a journey, specifically a journey through nature. Streams I feel represent a journey rooted from their source down towards their end, the oceans. The movements of water, the flux and flow found within the changing contours of the land. With a lot of science to be understood and a more philosophical approach to the natural aspects around the stream; what it might do for the wildlife, the way it can affect the senses and the way in which a flow of water won't be stopped. Much of this also relates to my interests in mindfulness, how on a journey, the mind seems to wander off away from the problems of the industrial and technological world.
Questions:
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What do the sounds of running water trigger in the mind?
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How does water literally flow in a natural world?
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What is the structure of streams, one leading into another?
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When does a stream become a river?
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Common grounds for water sources?
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What wildlife is often found around running water?
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Streams appear in what biomes?
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Natural dams, how do they affect streams?
Self-Sufficiency - [Research Page]
With the world drastically moving forward with industrial and technological advances, I feel the human race is drifting further and further away from our origins, how we could be thinking of ourselves as more than animals with a certain type of arrogance. So, looking into how as an individual I can stop or minimise my dependence on the infrastructure of society and become more connected to any possibility of a natural link through our past and DNA. An example might be how we still have primal instincts.
Questions:
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What does an individual require dietary wise?
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What would be the basic tools required?
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The core needs of humans?
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Skills required?
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What knowledge must be obtained?
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Is creativity required?
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What is the general process of maintaining and cultivating?
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How does weather and environment affect growth?
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What areas come under self sufficiency?