Creating a Utopia (16/4/2013)

In today's session we looked at the learning outcomes for this module that can be found on Moodle alongside the grading matrix.

In relation to the above I took the following notes:

• Make sure I back up my answers/opinions with quotes so as to show my understanding of the module and the contents we have talked about. Referencing is really important, therefore should be included. 
• Do more of my own research and add it my blog otherwise I'm just forwarding what the lecturer has told me. Therefore I need to show my own skills at producing my own research, otherwise I risk a low mark. 
• Perhaps look back over my previous work and see if I still agree with what I wrote. If I do or don't then say why. That way I demonstrate an ability to analyse and develop/improve my work. I can also use previous written work to back up my future posts, therefore showing an increasing understanding and personal opinions. 
• Maybe look over my blog and see where I am in the grading matrix. Thus I can improve it if need be.

We then reminded ourselves of what we talked about last week before discussing the choices we had made on the Utopia and Dystopia.

• Is a utopia in a dystopian setting a utopia or not? For example, a fortified building in a zombie genre or the vaults in the 'Fallout' series may not be ideal looking locations, but I believe they would be considered utopias given the circumstances of the dangers outside.  

• 'Minecraft' and 'Little Big Planet' may be considered utopias since you can make your own creations within them (thus being your own utopia). Sport games and musical games may also count as utopias as since the only goal in them is to perhaps participate in some of your favorite pastimes. 

• Maybe look up the old vector game 'The Sentinel' as in that the player must try and create their world. However, the tower in the middle on a hill known as the sentinel will shoot the player if it sees them. Therefore its the idea of trying to build a utopia, but with an outside force trying to stop the player.  

After talking about the above we then worked in a group of five (myself, Adam, Bonnie, Jim and James). We were asked to create a game idea. The genre and game play could be what ever we wanted it to be, but for us it had to be set in a utopia whereas some other groups had dystopians.
We shared ideas and came up with the following.

• Before we came up with any ideas we thought about examples of gameplay we would want in our game. Therefore we used 'Journey' and 'Flower' as examples for the type of gameplay we wanted e.g. beautiful worlds and music with a sense of freedom accompanying them.  
• First of all we messed around with the idea of tribes that lived together in harmony, but needed certain items. Therefore it is up to the player to be a good neighbor as it were and provide the tribes with basic items such as materials and fish. 
• Another idea that I shared was of a young child's imagination in which their dreams are their kind of utopia as they want to roam free and don't know the concept of death. Therefore the child would explore, discover and collect objects in beautiful areas that included a vast ocean, forest, desert and snowy mountain.  
• We then wanted to introduce game concepts that included 'laps' / tasks that would need to be repeated on a regular basis, such as maintaining somewhere or something. 
• We then thought that since it tends to be the difference in each human's ideology and control that led to the collapse of all the other utopias we had researched in the previous session we decided to remove them and governments from our ideas. Instead we messed around with the concept of either aliens or animals. 
• We played around with the idea of animals and then animals with powers before finally deciding on elementals. This last option we felt was best as that way we could link each element to a different controller trigger and bumper, thus allowing for quick swapping between them and easy combining of powers by pressing two of these buttons at once. Granted the Xbox remote, which was the controller we were referring to has coloured buttons on the front, but we felt that these needed to be reserved for jumping and other such abilities since they are more easily accessed than the back ones referred to previously.
• We decided that it should be kept to only one planet and not a universe so as to clearly identify the world as a utopia and one that has a mix of environments. If we had introduced other planets with only one type of environment then it would be debatable which ones were truly utopias, for example a lush forest is more likely to be a utopia than an arctic environment.
• We were originally going to make the game multiplayer since they would be four playable elementals. However, we decided against this since we thought some players may try and mess around with other player's experiences and as a result the utopian atmosphere wouldn't work. 
• Even though it will be a single player game, all the elementals must be on the screen at the same time, otherwise it would be far too easy a game. For example, if the fire elemental came across a river and just simply changed to the water elemental the player would be able to cross with no problems. Therefore no challenge is presented to the player and they would breeze through the game. Having the elementals work together to get past obstacles would help further demonstrate the game's utopian ideals of working with one another. 

Our final idea will need to be ready in two weeks time when we will present our idea to the group through a power point presentation.

Harvard Referencing: 

• Long, N. (2013) 'Minecraft' Screen shot [Online image]. Available at: http://www.edge-online.com/news/minecraft-xbox-360-edition-headed-to-retail/ (Accessed: 16/4/2013).
• Unknown. (2007) 'Fallout 3' Vault 101 Screen shot [Online image]. Available at: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/File:Vault_101.jpg (Accessed: 16/4/2013).
• Unknown. (2010) 'The Sentinel' Screen shot [Online image]. Available at: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/51340-the-sentinel-game-mode-or-creature/ (Accessed: 16/4/2013). 
• Unknown. (Unknown) 'Little Big Planet' Picture [Online image]. Available at: http://uk.playstation.com/littlebigplanetpsv/ (Accessed: 16/4/2013).

My Chosen Utopia and Dystopia Examples (15/4/2013)

For this task we were asked to bring in an example of an Utopia and a Dystopia. You can find my choices below. 

Utopia - The Prisoner:

Set on an island, merely known as ‘The Island’ which is home to all the secret agents that have left or retired from the business for one reason or another. They are now forced to live in a community so they can’t betray their organisations. Outwardly the island looks ideal as everyone is provided with their own home, regular events occur and they can participate in a number of activities to live out the rest of their days in apparent harmony. However, the island hides darker secrets as agents who won’t divulge why they left their organisation are interrogated drugged and put under physical and mental challenges to try and break them. Some accept this new existence whilst those who try and escape the island are met with force either by security or a mysterious gigantic floating ball named ‘Rover’ which seems unstoppable and deadly.

Dystopia - The Walking Dead:

Set in a world where the dead walk the Earth, this follows the trails of a group of survivors who must find a way to live in a world which is no longer what they remember and have come accustomed too. This is a dystopian world where the humans can turn on one another, food is scarce, the power is down and danger lurks around every corner. The characters try to keep their humanity throughout, but it becomes obvious over time who feels the pressure more than others as the characters become fear stricken and full of grief. When the characters find locations that seem to be perfect for them (thus a Utopia) there always seems to be something dark hidden within its otherwise idyllic appearance. Whether that be ‘Woodbury’, where the evil mad man ‘The Governor’ rules with an iron fist over a community of people who either believe his lies or are too scared to stand up to him.

Harvard Referencing:  

• Donahue T. A (2013) The Walking Dead Screenshot [Online image]. Available at: http://www.bite.ca/bitedaily/2013/04/10-things-i-learned-from-the-walking-dead/ (Accessed: 15/4/2013). 
• Gerber, J (2010) The Prisoner Screenshot [Online image]. Available at: http://consequenceofsound.net/2010/02/rock-history-101-iron-maiden-the-prisoner/ (Accessed: 15/4/2013).

Utopia and Dystopia (9/4/2013)

For this session we discussed the difference between a utopia and a dystopia.

First we made a list of the words we associated with these two worlds.

Utopia:

• Joined society. 
• Perfect.
• Paradise. 
• Easy.

Dystopia:

• Broken society.
• Horrible. 
• Chaos. 
• Difficult. 

I then made the following notes for the background and development of Utopian ideals.

• Utopia is a Greek meaning that is a pun on words as it stands for 'no place' and 'good place'.
• Looked at Fred T's picture 'Street Lights' as it was a 1894 representation of the year 2000. This was rather cool and interesting, especially since it looked rather steampunk and was made before the trend existed. 
• Looked at Plato's republic (c.380BC) and Sir Thomas More's Utopia (1516).
• You may need a power structure of some sort to keep a Utopian government together. After all, human greed and lust for power is what kills such societies. For example, in an ideal world where everything is free one man may ask for one car and another ten! Therefore the two may fight and that ideal may grow out of control. 
• Surprisingly, even in the oldest adaptions of Utopia it appears that slaves were still used and in one such example wives who betrayed their husbands were made slaves. This is interesting as perhaps the recent game to be released 'Bioshock Infinite' took these examples of  Utopian society for their city floating in the sky. The city is based on older morals since it was launched in 1901 and therefore even when the players visits it in 1912 it still uses black workers as waiters and cleaners.
• Utilitarianism = 'Seeking happiness in the form of pleasure'. This includes phyical and intellectual.
• Looked at John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873). Just because we want something doesn't make it good. 
• And Rubens, The Garden of Eden, C.1600. 
• Adam and Eve - The idea of Utopia before man was cast out. 
• Utopias are built on ideals, therefore others will disagree with them and will want to do what they believe is right.
• Looked at the painting by Hieronymus Bosch named 'Garden of Earthly Delights' (1510). This is described as an incredibly important piece of art.

• Utopian designs for houses have also been designed in the belief that everyone would like the design. Such a design was created by De Stiji Manifesto in 1980. However these 'everyday houses' never got built as ironically the artists spent too long trying to design them to be bigger for themselves. 
• Looked at artwork by Piet Mondrain as it appeared simple in design and therefore was meant to appeal to everyone.
• We also looked at one of the first attempts at building a Utopia in the form of an American town called 'Levittown' which was built by a man named Levit in 1948. Everyone owned identical houses and furniture and came from a similar background in order to make sure they had no complaints and fitted in. However, this idea fell apart when the families started a riot when the first black family tried to move in.  
• We then looked at video game examples under the name Sim-Utopias. In 'The Sims' you are able to create Sims with the personalities and ideals you want. Therefore you could in theory create your idea of a perfect world. However, this doesn't always work due to the game's programming. For example, Sims need to socialise otherwise they get unhappy and can become depressed. Therefore, having a happy Sim that lives on his own isn't always possible as your Sims may have to get married to fulfill their needs. 
• Nowadays the word Utopia is refereed to as 'falls to dystopia' since it always seems to fail in one way or another.

After discussing Utopian ideals we then moved onto Dystopian ideals. See my notes below.

• A Dystopia always seems worse when it is hidden under the good intentions or ideals of a Utopia.
• Looked at the opening to the movie 'Blue Velvet' in which it plays cheery music and shows an idealistic American town before a man has an accident and loses his ear which is then covered by crawling insects. 
• Looked at the themes presented in Aldous Huxley's 1962 book 'Island'. 
• We then made a note on all the Utopia/Dystopia ideas that existed including The Truman Show, The Matrix, The Prisoner, The Island, Bioshock etc. 
• After the above we then made notes on purely dystopian ones which include Fallout, Mad Max, Children of Men, The Road, Terminator etc.  

Personal tasks I have set for myself include the following:

• Look up the 'Venus project' as I remembered someone talking about it in relation to today's subject and it sounded interesting.
• Look up the game 'Second Life' as it has received a bad reputation in the news. This is because it was first created to be a virtual utopia and a place everyone would go to before the existence of Facebook. However, with the ability to create their own worlds and avatars the players ended up ruining the Utopian ideals of this 'perfect world' game as they started to abuse the resources and do things you couldn't do in real life. Thus perversion has also spread into the game.

Overall I look forward to the next couple of weeks as we should hopefully be getting into groups in order to come up with the ideas for a Utopia of our own creation. This should prove interesting as it doesn't seem to have been successfully done before.

Harvard Referencing: 

• Bosch, H (1510) Garden of Earthly Delights Painting [Online image]. Available at: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Garden_of_Earthly_Delights_by_Bosch_High_Resolution_2.jpg (Accessed: 9/4/2013).

Book Reports (19/3/2013)

Today we were told that we would be presenting our book reports to the group, however our lecturer put us into three groups and had us explain our findings to the members of them instead.

Before the above however, we looked at both Harvard Referencing and annotated bibliographies in the power point 'Using an annotated bibliography'. An annotated bibliography includes a summary after each source as well as an assessment and reflection on the text.      

My group members reported on the books 'Watching the Watchmen', 'Mythology, An Illustrated Encyclopedia' and 'Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl'.

I plan to report upon my book 'The Encyclopedia of Mythology' in a annotated bibliography in a future post.

We were told that next term we would be looking at nostalgia and what it means to be retro in gaming terms which is something I really look forward to as not only do I love retro graphics and music, but we may also get the opportunity to play some retro games in the name of research.

Finally our lecturer challenged us with finding the game 'Ghosts and Goblins' online and seeing how far we can get considering it is meant to be one of the most hardest retro games around.

Reminder on what needs to be in our book reports (12/3/2013)

As deadlines are approaching I asked what our book discussion had to contain in order to make sure what I had planned was on the right lines, thus making the following notes before cracking on with other work.

• Not too long and not too short e.g. roughly 400-500 words spoken. 
• Add why I chose the book?
• Add what it is about?

We were also reminded that we had to have the book on us and that this task is just meant to be an enjoyable and informative one so we don't need to present it on a power point. 

Micro Report on Heroic Quests (5/3/2013)

For this Micro Report I decided to use pages 156 to 157 in 'The Encyclopedia of Mythology' in relation to the section known as 'Heroic Quests'. I decided to pick this subject as not only have heroic quests stood the test of time and helped shaped the foundations of our modern medium, but it is also one of my favourite genres which will become obvious during the rest of this report.   

The pages themselves talked about a variety of quests including Owain's search for the Castle of the Fountain in which he beat the Black Knight and got married, and Cullhwch's quest that included 39 tasks that the heroes had to complete! The pages also referred to the ideas and themes which make up the definition of a 'heroic quest'.

Heroic quests do not just involve mythological tales however. Stories such as the search for the Holy Grail have helped structure not only recent stories, but have also influenced video games, movies and even the adventures told in the role playing game 'Dungeons and Dragons'. This is definitely true as the foundation for heroic quests is similar to the hero's journey. For example, the adventurer/s will accept a quest (sometimes willingly, sometimes not), meet people who may or may not be a hindrance to them before finally reaching the climax of the story in which the hero/s may or may not resolve their quest.

I strongly agree with a quote from the Encyclopedia which stated "Whatever the goal, the quest usually takes on a magic of its own, leading the hero down unexpected bypaths of adventure and discovery." (Cotterell, 1996, p. 156). This is definitely true as there is a sort of 'magic' to be had in the adventure genre. For example, even though the hero has a primary goal they will often meet new comrades and fulfil tasks for others that may be considered trivial side quests compared to the main quest e.g. the search for the Holy Grail. These side quests however may provide the hero with either an item or information that will prove useful in their main quest. Sometimes it is not even the original goal that the hero is rewarded with, sometimes it is the lessons learned and the friends made that is the true reward, a journey of discovery, enlightenment and change of character if you will.

The idea of a quest in order to find something is identical to a video game or a game of 'Dungeons and Dragons' as the players are given an overall goal, but it is the allies they meet and the tasks they complete that are similar to side quests which the players can choose to accept or not. Sometimes the player/s may want to focus on the overall goal, but by doing these side tasks they set themselves up with rewards and the satisfaction similar to those that the heroes would have received in mythological stories of the past.

Harvard Referencing: 

• Burne-Jones, E, D. (1890-4) 'The Aiming and Departure of the Knights of the Round Table and the Quest for the Holy Grail' Painting [Online image]. Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/they-shook-me (Accessed: 5/3/2013).
• Cotterell, A. (1996) The Encyclopedia of Mythology, London: Anness Publishing Limited.
• Unknown. (2010) 'Dungeons and Dragons' heroes [Online image]. Available at: http://my.mmosite.com/2425229/blog/item/c4d5e6eb6e9f07cbfecb4d4b19f7421b.html (Accessed: 5/3/2013).

One to one session (5/3/2013)

One to one session:

During my one to one session my lecturer and I spoke about the following points.

• My concern that my writing style is becoming too casual - shouldn't be a concern during the first year, however during the second year I may wish to go back to a formal style. 
• I should be backing up my notes and paragraphs with quotes from the individuals / references we have looked at as not only does this demonstrates my understanding of examples we have talked about, but it also backs up my arguments and makes my statements convincing. This is especially important as so far my lecturer says he has found my writing very interesting and likes it when 'my voice' shows on the page. However, 'my voice' is not backed up by enough (if any) references that I can choose to agree with or not. Adding these will assist me in getting me a higher grade.
• Write more about my own opinions on each session as so far what I have written has not always been detailed enough.
• Obviously need to make sure that all my references are fully recorded which I recognise is something I need to do.