Research

SEMESTER 2


Fingerbobs:                                                                                                                              24th Jan 2012


This was brought to my attention due to a discussion in class. its about handmade animals being used as finger puppets and then telling stories and putting them into scenarios. There are animals like the mouse, the shrimp, the turtle and few more. I really like the idea of creating a character and once made up using them to either tell stories or to play with other people. so there this could be related into my work to make something with lots of creativity and imagination.


The Mouse and the shrimp (1985)

Readymechs:                                                                                                                      24th Jan 2012

After talking about some of my ideas i came across a product named "Readymechs" this was another version of a paper toy, it consists of the basic block shape and at the side it has very long arms in thin strips that looks like its holding the box up, to be honest the thing that drew me too this wasn't actually the shape it was more about the hand painted texture and the arms that connect to it. i feel that the arms look a bit out of place to the rest of the model because it doesn't match the structure of the body design and i think they could be two totally different parts from separate paper toys. so on this occasion i think the key thing is still to have a simple unique shape but you need that  likable factor and don't starting adding bits that aren't necessary ( in this case i believe it would look much better without the arms.

Skeleton texture

Czech Toys:                                                                                                                        10th Feb 2012

After taking a small break from Uni i went to "Prague for a couple of days and it turned out i hot the jack pot with some of the ideas and inspiration from the city. First of all the biggest thing for me was the old fashioned Czech Toys which were in every shop and on the market stalls. These are hand painted and made out of wood. The thing that got my attention was yet again the shape of the actual figures, they were mainly made up of spheres, Cubes, Rectangles and cylinders. This just shows that simple design and shape doesn't have to go to complicated to be successful. From this i have taken a few designs of my own and made them into small characters based on the shapes.


Czech market stall ( Full of Toys)

Lego Museum:                                                                                                                   10th Feb 2012


After taking a break from the main sights of the city I decided to explore a bit more and discovered the "Lego Museum", I knew I've talked about Lego previously but i went to see if there were any interesting facts that i didn't know about or how i could use some in my own work, it just so happens there was a which balances the argument about having simple shaped toys. First of all Lego started with really small sets and a limited amount of block shapes, This means to me that obviously it was cool to build and it was something different but you were limited to these basic shapes and when making things they didn't look like much. As the years got on it look like Lego reduced the sizes of the block and eventually added more bits such as rounded shapes, wheels, flags magnets and many more. So the Lego world was expanding and they then went on to create themed sets such as War, castles, Western, Star Wars and much more. So on this occasion going that extra bit further and making it more complex isn't always a bad thing as Lego have shown. Possibly i could make my designs slightly technical and a bit more complicated. Any way just ideas for future designs.

Lots and lots of Lego


Pylones:                                                                                                                               11th Feb 2012


During the first day of Prague we decided to look around the shopping center and this is when i came across a designer shop named "Pylones" unfortunately I couldn't take photos inside so there are only a few from the outside. Any way this was a huge interest to me due to the designer merchandise inside such as Diarys, Kitchen equipment, pencil cases and many more. The thing i liked most is the designs which are in your face with their bright colours, cute characters and the simple drawing techniques used on these items. In the future I could possibly use this as a guide to help expand "Pixel Me" from a merchandise point of view.


Outside "Pylones" in prague

Meg & Mog:                                                                                                                      15th Feb 2012


I used to watch this when i was really young and it was brought up recently in a discussion about my work. So i decided to have a look, it was interesting to see the very simple shapes of the characters and environments, i love the way its got the real kids feel with the hand drawings and how its presented to get kids involved in what Meg and Mog are doing, it kind of feels like your learning something from them.

  Very simple hand drawn shapes


Squiggle Game:                                                                                                                  23rd Feb 2012

After several discussions about my work to date, I then started to look around for the best type of squiggles, this is when I stumbled across the game "Squiggle" which involves templates, drawing and creativity, I was annoyed because the idea was very similar. However i realized that my idea came from somewhere else for inspiration, the fact I'm pushing my squiggle game to its full potential and to put a nail in it, this shows that the squiggle me mechanic is proven to be popular and successful. ( So I'm defiantly heading in the right direction!)


Squiggle Game


( TTCT ) Torrance Test for Creative Thinking:                                                          20th March 2012


This test is the nearest thing to date that has come close to my game idea. This actually measures creative thinking where me on the other hand want to push creative thinking and have the idea of having fun and being turned into a game and the other plus points are to create something that can be educational through the story making and telling. My game has so many possibilities in where it can go. another plus side is that the shapes and squiggles used for the creative thinking test are too big and too complex. This is another plus side for my game idea and at the moment I believe its in my favor its just getting it out there with the right people.


Creative thinking process


Gloom Card Game:                                                                                                          4th April 2012


This game was brought to by one of the tutors and this game is about  taking control of an eccentric family. The object of the game is to lower the self-worth points of the player's own family with cards that cause negative events, and attempt to raise the points of the opponent's family with cards that cause positive events, such as marriage. The player with the lowest Family Value is the winner of the game. From here the game takes role of story telling through the events card so this gives the player choices and to explain their own way in what happened to their character so this makes the game more enjoyable and personal.



Gloom Character cards

Shut the box:                                                                                                                   18th April 2012

This is a game from  about the 1700's and has been revamped into today's market and its proving quite popular and addictive i started to have a go myself and i ended up wanting to keep playing till i got better or shut the box the game can be played on your own but is better with someone else. This can be made into a gambling game also but the most important thing for me is that rules could be added to this and taken away because it is very simple game but in a professional manner.


wooden version 


SEMESTER 3

Traditional drawing vs digital :                                                                                      22nd May 2012


One of the first things that came to mind of the creativity and technology, was to look into good old pen and paper and also look at the likes of digital sketching with the likes of things like photoshop and there are a few things which are good and bad for each one.
Traditional: cheaper, faster than working on computers, get ideas down quicker, handy can be taken anywhere, the route to the basics of drawing and being creativity, clearer design decisions and many more. there are also some negative points such as: bad for the environment and can get quite messy and be smudged at times so there are these other options to consider.
Digital: better presentation skills and finished pieces, clean in terms of layers and tools, more freedom, experiment easier and much more the negatives are its quite expensive, more practice to be good, work can be corrupt or lost due to saving.
Overall: Both have their uniqueness in terms of creating masterpieces or generating new ideas but I believe the best thing is to concentrate on the basics of sketching then move to finalize your drawings because if not its like your learning too much at once. So a great way it to test, experiment, and have a play around with different things to see what works then move onto digital so for me traditional is the key.

                                       
hand drawn

Digital drawing

                                                                              
Kinect:                                                                                                                             24th May 2012

The Kinect is a great way that combines a lot of elements into a tiny package so I thought this would be a great way to look into the creativity and technology point of view. First of all the pros of the Kinect are that it has that social value of bringing people together and having fun. another is that certain games from the Kinect do keep you fit and active so this can give you the exercise you need whilst having fun. This can also improve reactions and knowledge but again it depends on what type of game your playing. This also increases attention span and possibly can teach you with educational and simulator games such as, Pets and trains this could become a key factor and a new way of learning.
The negatives are that this could get people staying indoors too much when you could be outside playing, making and doing. secondly the players can become unsocial in some aspect because they are fixed on playing and winning instead of having banter, This can also become too expensive for people and if bought some people maybe coming addicted and possibly end up not working or going to school. Again some games have no physical workout and some people may use copy cat violence with games like "Rise of Nightmares which involves a lot of bloody violence. Finally some people get too attached which can result false expectations of life as well as having no social life.
So taking the comments from the article and a few of my own I believe that the Kinect can be a good thing in terms of the start of motion capture being in homes and the fact its a  new genre of gaming and can give you the exercise you need from particular games. However some of the games don't respond as well as they should do and so the mechanics and game play become challenging and frustrating for the player. Again some of the games lack the creativity of doing certain movements because most of these games feel like your on a track and most of the game you feel its the same old so this can become boring for the user. The game that I feel works best is "Kinect Sports" because again it brings people together, everyone can have breaks every so often, more banter and chat beacause the users want to beat each others scores and again gives you that physical work out. This is great example of using the Kinect to its full potential not just for games but for social values as well.

The Kinect Xbox 360

Technology killing creativity:                                                                                         25th May 2012                                                              

This is straight to my dissertation question and is about whether the tech we have today is affecting imagination and originality within the games industry. After having a scout of around one there was the debate of technology isn't killing creativity as such but rather shrinking the creative freedom to fewer and less people. Most creative people in the industry are like robots and do what the company wants them to do in terms of creating something that's going to make money from a business angle. Unfortunately making money comes first and creativity comes second because most companies will go for safe bets and what I mean by that is games like "Call of Duty and Guitar Hero" where they will keep on hammering the game out because its popular at the time and the audience will defiantly buy it. So even if the games not up to scratch people will get it just for the name and having the latest one. However someone will always have an idea whether its in the company or on their own but it just getting that break and whether or not an investor would put money into that idea so again its a bit of stick with what you know.
From a marketing point of view most companies will put a load of money into franchises that have made a name for themselves again " Call of Duty, Gears of war, Halo and many more" this then will turn into action figures, films, clothing, comics, soundtracks and so making more money on the side apart from the gaming side of things.
Going back the the creativity and technology research some people believe that the creative side of things come first to generate design and ideas via spider diagrams, sketching, exploration and much more even tho these people and companies come first the ideas on paper need to come first to reach that goal. However using the technology will engage people faster and better to get the idea across more so the tech can help in terms of contacts, networking, the media and advertisement to give you that break.
So overall there is a balance between the two but from my perspective I think that creativity should come first and have its chance because yes its a risk in terms of working and money put into it but if researched and pitched properly I cant see why not that new, unique and imaginative ideas can succeed in the gaming, marketing and business world on a global scale.

Technology vs Creativity

Plagiarism killing creativity:                                                                                          25th May 2012

This was quite interesting because its about companies re skinning games that are already out there and how this can become a problem when releasing similar games. Some believe that if we didn't copy or take big elements from particular areas we wouldn't have games like "Call of Duty and Battlefield" In this article most people would assume that its the money making that hurts the most but really its the time and effort and having that idea that can make a difference either to games or to the world. So in the past over the years there have been several court cases of companies taking their rival to the courts due to plagiarism. such as 1976 Ralf Baer which designed the game Ping - Pong then soon after Atari released Pong which became a massive hit and so things like stolen concepts and ideas was a few of the thing brought up at the courts.
One of the best things at the moment is the App store because this is the best way to express creativity within in games, the fact that its all low budget costs, shorter and quicker time to develop games, so being a small based company is the place to be at the moment. However if somebody clones your game to re skin and change the name it can be come devastating for that company because all the hard work and effort, the hours of research and marketing has all gone to waist and on top of that these small companies are made of small teams and cant afford to take other companies to court. so the best thing would be to get your ideas copyrighted so this never happens again.
From my point of view I think the best bet is to work in a small company to create games that can be more creative and have wacky ideas which can be taken as risk onto the app store, where these sort of games only cost 69p or if you want to pilot it you should put it out for free. On the other hand if someone brings out a similar game this can affect getting paid and bringing income in but if your working on a game that has already been released and is kind of similar in terms on triple (AAA) titles and you know that it will sell but again its the lack of creativity. So its trying to find that balance between the two and from my point of view good solid research and testing is the key to successful new ideas.

Modern Warfare 3

call of duty
  

Simple drawings could predict strokes:                                                                         29th May 2012


After looking around BBC news i discovered an article that was very interesting and could be related to what I have been doing with "Squiggle Me". A study has found that this particular drawing exercise could possibly help predict and reduce the risk of strokes within men. First of all the participants are all in a healthy state and the test involves them drawing a line in the right order to connect all the numbers as fast as possible. It showed Men who came in the bottom third would be likely to die after a stroke unlike the men in the top third. The study was based on 1000 men between the ages of 67 and 75. The tests came back that of the 155 men, 22 had a stroke and died within a month and people that scored average died within two and a half years. This maybe just a coincidence but Dr Clare Watson for the stroke association believes that the test could find hidden damage withing brain blood cells when there are no obvious signs of symptoms. In the long run this test could prevent people from having a stroke and if treated early and correctly this could possibly expand their life expectancy.
Comparing this to "Squiggle Me" this could defiantly be up there in terms of my game getting out there to help people via therapy, focus groups, using it as test scores and most important trying to involve fun and creativity while getting well again.

   
Drawing number ascending test

The importance of creativity:                                                                                         30th May 2012

I discovered this article online and was very interesting to see the whole concept about a man named Sir Ken Robinson and his theory on why the education system should be teaching more on creativity and broaden the set of skills and methods that you learn form schools and colleges. First of all Ken mentions that this is the up an up and coming for graduates and students to seek jobs in the future. He sees the problem of schools and education don't aspire to teaching these sort of skills and thinks that they are just as important as  literacy, and numeracy. He defines creativeness through generating ideas and new concepts by having the imagination to solve problems and putting them into practice. secondly creativity can be shown in all different types of things in life such as jobs and everyday to day things, so there is always a need for it. The third is he mentions that you are either born with the talent or you just don't have it. However people can be taught and cultivated in some form of way. Another area Ken discusses is that the set skills we have in schools, English, Maths and science isn't a bad thing but these subjects should be taught in a creative manner or even better to   form some sort of creative teaching methods. He does believe that using IT and modern technology will start to open possibilities in terms of new ideas and jobs but his overall conclusion shows that teachers and students should be broken down into smaller classes and teachers should help the students push to the strengths and peruse what they want in terms of jobs and education. "Creativity is helping people, students, teachers and employees to find their talents"
The inspiration I get from this is the fact that there is a market out there to push creative ideas and games within the education system and make learning fun while discovering peoples full potential, in my case from the games I have created so far there is the likes of literacy, Generating ideas, confidence in speaking, story telling and designing. The great thing is both students and teachers can really connect in terms of expressing themselves and fun cool way of learning.


Sir Ken Robinson
Creativity and Eduaction:                                                                                               31st May 2012

This book just enhances and strengthens the ideas and theories of getting more creativity into schools. Again Ken Robinson pops up and mentions again about creativity, culture and education is our future. despite having creative teachers and headmasters. He believes that the schools of today have a narrow set of skills and the creative side of things is common to excel in certain environments such as schools, museums, or even  round the house and to give it that extra boost whether or not using a rewards system will help children improve their learning. This is a really interesting point in trying to get my own product out there to help kids learn while the most important thing for it would be to be cool and fun. I believe that the education system need to bring in certain modules and games than can enhance not just creativity but core subjects such as Maths, English and Science. 


Anna, Craft, Creativity in Education


Creativity methods the business way :                                                                          31st May 2012

This is a book I found on the generating ideas side of things on why companies won't push towards certain ideas in terms of business and what creative methods really mean. First of all certain managers will say that new ideas are either too radical, simple, complex, expensive, ridiculous, some times play the card our organisation is doing well without it, don't have enough time to try it and higher management won't buy it. These sort of remarks within companies is defiantly killing creativity and to be honest a good manager will always avoid such negatives responses to obtain positive results through creative results for their company. This book then goes into the different types of creative thinking that has happened over the years such as; Group brainstorming which is to gather new thoughts and the term comes from storming a problem using the brain and how to overcome it. The second is the checklist method which involves a list of questions to ask which assumes the problem already exists such as; can stuff be rearranged?, can it be modified?, what are the benefits? and is it possible to combine with other things?. This is just a small overview of designing ideas and how new unique thoughts and process can be a real asset to either a company or you a person. Taking these relevant points it can then become handy when your learning in schools, university, business plans, or even inventing something.

Creative Methods and thinking


Computer games gameplay and creativity for students :                                             31st May 2012

This was a great book I've found that actually has taken figures and studied the relationship of video games and creativity and how that affects children. First of all the book talks about the pros of video games in children and how the effects can influence patterns of thought but the disagreement comes whether the thoughts and process are negative, positive or neutral. The study shows that children who play a lot of video games are not necessarily less creative as other students that don't play them but this is what most people believe. In fact some kids are more creativity when they play certain types of games. The book then goes into trying to find different points of view on how the creativity and games effects the likes of students habbits, is it harmful or beneficial?, defining and assessing creativity and finally a discussion on related games, research and activity with a summary. Overall this is a quick overview through the book and when it come to my dissertation i will indeed go into a lot more detail and I think this is a great book to analyze both sides of the arguments for the pros and cons of creativity and the effects it has on students who play video games.

Creativity and the effects of gameplay within students
    

Videogames within Education :                                                                                        1st June 2012

After having a look around I found a journal article on getting videogames into the education system again this is another look into the benefits and negatives and it just builds up more research to increase the knowledge about my subject area. Any way this article talks about how games challenge, creativity, moral values and can provide a new way of learning and teaching. There are brief things on how computer games have influenced the world through religion, politically and culture. This mainly shows how this so far has helped teaching to date. The most relevant area for me is how the author talks about videogames being a form of story telling and the engagement with other users. This really applies to what I have been doing and what I want to continue with in terms of creating games that are defiantly fun for all ages and families, has those social values of fun, entertainment and can help others in a way that's not boring and appeals not just to kids through learning but adults in the working world.


Teaching new methods of learning through computer games.

Social values within making games :                                                                               3rd June 2012

This is a small article I found on small overview on creating games for change from an academic perspective. This mainly focuses on development of educational computer games and address big issues such as the cultural importance within computer games and the difficulties of why girls don't play these games or if they find them too difficult. On top of this it starts to discuss how designing games with diverse play can bring in new learning styles. Through these kind of design process, students can use the skills, methods and techniques and bring that into work within the media. This is great way to get students to learn and be creative, while bringing new products into society. This can also benefit from getting people involves, networking, great communication and much more.


social skills and learning

Dissertation

Creativity Overview:                                                                                                        13th July 2012

This is a book i discovered on creativity within education and had a few relevant points on the basics of creativity and how one of the points mentions a long time ago people used to think that imagination and being creative was a artistic approach so drawing, painting and anything related to a design and artist field. Now creativity can be seen through different subjects such as mathematics, and natural sciences. (Helson,1983, Roe,1952). Just from this first point I believe that it is possible to create a unique learning product/ tool that can improve learning while being fun and enjoyable. Finally another area which this can fall into is sport which promotes creativity through physical fitness, part of a team and being a leader these are all relevant skills which can be broaden into playing creative activities, inventing your own games from in the classroom to being in the school yard, This is just a base outline of creativity but just proves that it can be used in all areas of education but how it is applied is another thing.


Creative education and learning

Creativity briefly:                                                                                                             13th July 2012


This website was very useful to get a small overview on creativity with academic learning and questions the likes of exercises and activities to enhance creativity and whether it can be trained or taught. it explains how using creative flare can acquire skills and knowledge and people can carry out tasks more promptly but the main area lies with the freedom to explore ideas, thoughts, experiment and cool fun ways of breaking the rules and from my point of view bringing a new fresh look such as my related work of bringing pixels back into a modern marketable trend. F. David Peat mentions that "Creativity is not a skill, it is not a sort of muscle of the brain, or a technology of the mind. Creativity makes use of knowledge and skill but that is not where its roots lie." I do understand where Peat, F is coming from in the sense of creativity can come from anybody at anywhere at any time but going down the path of being taught creativity via modules and the school curriculum may not enhance students art skills but can defiantly aid them to create something new and unique by really thinking about the process of coming up with ideas and how to apply them in the right fashion.

F, David Peat creative educational learnings


pre - school curriculum :                                                                                                   18th July 2012


This was a the newest pre school curriculum that i managed to get hold of from a teacher and this sums up what teachers and the education system are looking for in terms of learning. such as creative thinking, ideas, relationships and culture. It also shows the structure of how to get children and student to learn through challenges and playful games. so mainly consists of fun learning to encourage and enhance students ways of learning and thinking. This can really benefit me because of the hard evidence what the school of education want so if i can stick with these areas i should be able to have a fun game idea that will aid in learning while being fun and having that social connection.



curriculum of 2012 - 2013 education


Negative aspects of creativity:                                                                                        18th July 2012


This was a very interesting paper i found on the negative aspects within creativity and what this can cause. First of all one of the main issues show that when teachers try and motivate students to think creatively it can lead for more people to cheat and be dishonest about ideas and answers. The paper starts to question whether or not creativity is really beneficial?! This article tries to say the more you have with creative freedom the more independent you become the more dishonest people can become such as; the environments they are working within or the the influences that other peers may have that individual. The fact that there is too much freedom and flexibility can sometimes lead people to become stressed, tired, frustrated  , if what there doing is right or wrong, telling lies or passing work off to other people. This can be due to not enough tuition, no proper boundaries and no direction. This is a negative field of creativity but to help prevent this, proper teaching structures need to be in place while using fun and creativeness accordingly to educational learning.


Dvd Headrests can kill:                                                                                                   20th July 2012


The top and bottom is yes dvds are great to quiet the kids in the back and prevent them from nagging and becoming fidgety, it even lets them watch their favorite tv shows, films and play games. this may relax the parents and be an easy option but even at 18mph these can kill a child if not fixed correctly or built into the back of the chair and again expense comes into play. The problem with the Dvd headrest being an accessory is firstly the fact its a danger, its flimsy and can easily fly off and hit rear passengers. Secondly this is really boring and i believe this should only be used if your going on a very long car journey but in car games are very fun. useful, educational and gets everybody involved and so more of these games should be played instead of taking the easy option and just letting the kids get zapped by TV.


Dvd headrests for children

Toys and play:                                                                                                                  20th July 2012

There was a great book that i en counted on how children view themselves through their toys and how children develop language skills, imagination and the sense of achievement. A brilliant example of this is the opening scene in toy story 3 where andys toys are acted out of his imagination into a full blown scenario in the desert and then there's a car and pirates to get the treasure and buzz has to save the day by stopping the train but little does he know he runs into slinky with a force field. This eventually goes back into andys room where he is playing with his toys as his mums filming. This is where molly walks into his toys that his set up and thinking he would get upset or angry he doesn't he changes the scenario there and then and the whole world starts to change in the space of a minute. This is a prime example of how children use their imagination and how changing the slightest things can alter there mood, personality and theme of what they have created.



Opening scene to Toy Story 3


Negative aspects of communication:                                                                               24th July 2012


This was an online article that mentioned about the lack of communication between parents and children and how children only talk to their children and don't listen to them. sometimes parents get distracted by work and jobs at home. Parents sometimes will then use their time in front of the television, mobile phones and the web. This can affect children learning and even copy habits from the parents and so have mobiles and go on social websites at a very young age. This in the long could effect opportunistic for jobs and gaining cultural knowledge to see the world in a new light.


lack of communication


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