Preface:
Would readers please note that any actual backlogging of my work began on the 22nd of November 2019, and not from the outset of Week 1. Therefore, any work before this on my blog will be somewhat lacking in recollection, advanced information, description and developer insight. I apologise for this, but thank you sincerely for reading.
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The first ever workshop of year 3 games design and art was initiated on Friday the 04th of October 2019. From pure memory alone, I can recall that Adam first instructed the class to get into groups of two, gather some A1-size paper and write upon it a series of questions.
Although I didn't backlog everything from this first session, I did, thankfully, remember to write down both the questions asked and my personal answers onto a Microsoft Word document on Tuesday the 08th October 2019. I am glad that I remembered to do this, as there is more information and evidence of my work to place on my blog.
Since this work was technically done in Week 2, this extensive list can be viewed and read under the same category as this post under 'Week 2: Questions and My Answers from Week 1 (Tuesday 08th October 2019) (07/10/2019 - 13/10/2019)' I would insist you read this list as it will give you a lot more context and insight as to what went on in this workshop.
Here is the full list of proposed questions from the first session:
What makes you laugh?
What makes you cry?
What stimulates you intellectually?
What makes you angry?
What gets you excited?
What do you think is innovative/groundbreaking?
What is yet to be discovered?
Whatever lengthy answers we extracted were then refined into a large variety of keywords. Obviously, the answers we each gave were quite personal, and so emerged the true nature of this research exercise; to extract subjects each of us were interested in and could talk about easily and freely.
Near the end of the workshop, we were told to narrow down the number of our keywords to a final four. We were then told that our task for the next two weeks was to take these four keywords, turn them into research subjects, research each of them in depth and present what we had found back to the class at the end of week 3, Friday the 18th October 2019. We were already somewhat familiar with our subject matter, and so it had been made easier for us to go away and research these subjects.
At the end of this session, I personally narrowed down my keywords into these four topics:
The American West/Frontier
Characters in Fiction with Interesting Disabilities (simplified, Fictional Disabilities)
Dams
Fight Scenes in the Media
I chose the subject of the American Frontier because I have, since my early teens, been an absolute avid aficionado of the American Frontier. Not only have I spent years studying the actual time period itself, but in college I researched thoroughly into the Western genre for my A-Level Film Studies course and have watched many, many Westerns. I know practically everything there is about the subject, and my hunger for more knowledge on it cannot be satisfied. Therefore, it would be stupid not to research into it for my final year of games design and art.
TALK ABOUT THE OTHERS
As the first session drew to a close, we were given a rudimentary brief and some homework tasks to complete over Weeks 2 and 3:
Come up with four starting points for research (ideas, case studies, reading material)
These should be explored over the next two weeks
After presenting back research from your four starting points, you will then choose one for a 'deep-dive' research project over Weeks 4 and 5. These starting points can be related, but they don't have to be
Friday 4th October 2019
Week 1: 30/09/2019 - 06/10/2019