Beginning Phase 2:

Tuesday 18th October 2022

What does phase 2 entail?

- Visual Exploration

- Brainstorming

- Visual Research

- Reading

- Discussion

- Surveys

- Presentation

My 4 starting themes:

Philosophy

Growing up

Parkour

Meditation

My Presentation

Suggestions and feedback:

Philosophy

Very broad topic
Where will philosophy end up in the future?
Pick one or two philosophies to dive into deeper?
Explore Alan Watts in more detail
Speak to philosopher?
Card game with philosophy quotes

Linked to what we see, what we interact with on a daily basis
Curiosity is lost as brain develops?
ADHD, Autism
Why do we crave nostalgia?
Do we ever lose our inner-child?
Rewatch favourite childhood movies and note down what response they trigger

Growing Up

Free Running/parkour - movement
Climbing up tower?
Spider-verse good for portraying movement
Mirror's edge
Youtube groups

Parkour

Demon slayer - different breathing
Stahdr - form of yoga
Mindfulness therapy
Very broad topic
More important and relevant now than it was historically

Meditation

My Chosen Theme

Today on the 18th of October 2022, we presented our 4 research topics and selected one of them to carry on further researching into more depth. We received feedback from our classmates to support our choice.

I have begun by evaluating the suggestions and feedback I received from the class. This is to help me create a more informed decision whilst also generating ideas to continue taking forward.

On the 8th of November, I will then present back my final topic with everything I have learned/collected. From this presentation, I will receive further feedback which will assist me to swiftly move into phase 3.

I think that generally everyone felt that philosophy was too big of a topic to attempt to cover. I agree with that thought. One of the popular suggestions was to look into a specific branch of philosophy - which is logical, however would require me to have some form of bias (interest in one deeper in order to research it more thoroughly). This is where I struggle, as I enjoy the open-minded approach of looking at all the options. I do not have a single philosophy that I feel I can relate to most currently. Alan Watts is an interesting figure and one that I would enjoy finding out more about.

For this topic, there were a lot of different ideas, and subtopics that I could jump across to as the specific questions I was researching did not have answers. Rewatching favourite childhood movies and noting down my response sounds like an interesting and provocative idea generation method. I think the topic has to be taken down another avenue, but I am not sure which one.

Parkour did not have a huge amount of possible research topics that I could look into. This is because it is very niche as a topic (being a sport means that it has little information answering very specific questions). It is a tricky topic to find "deeper meaning" behind. I think if I want to find deeper meaning, I can only find it in people's personal experiences.

Meditation, similar to philosophy, was labelled as a broad topic and once more I would need to put my focus into something more specific. The ideas surrounding therapy - mindfulness or similar were ones I did not want to look at, as I have previously conducted research on mindfulness and music therapy during previous projects that I have worked on. Studying breathing further could be an interesting pathway, as well as why meditation is becoming more relevant now.

Looking through all the suggestions and feedback, the choice of which topic to take further was tricky. Growing up had interesting pathways that I could investigate - but they would deviate away too much from my initial research. Additionally, when looking into specific questions, I run the risk of getting stuck in a "dead end". Philosophy and meditation are too broad, and narrowing down I cannot seem to do whilst keeping as much of an interest within the subject. For that reason, I am unlikely to chose them. It is important to remain interested and passionate about a topic, otherwise research will be difficult. That leaves parkour and Growing Up as possible topics.

A vote was conducted within my class, these were the results :

Growing up: 4

Parkour : 2

Philosophy : 1 4 not voting

Meditation: 0

I think "growing up" is certainly one that could be interesting to explore however as I have already run into dead ends, Parkour is less of a risk when it comes to researching. I feel more confident sticking with Parkour as there are many different small subtopics I can cover which directly link to parkour - allowing me to create a bigger and clearer picture. Furthermore, parkour is a topic that will be easier to use in phase 3, when creating and generating game ideas. As someone who generally enjoys complexity, I think for my own benefit it makes sense here to select Parkour.

Where to go next?

I will continue developing my research for parkour, see parkour for research on the topic. I will look into the more social aspects of the sport (competition, culture and the community). Additionally, look into games that focus around parkour to get a picture of what is possible and what has not been attempted yet. I think finding sources that are more academically inclined will be challenging, however beneficial if successful.

I have also began coming up with a list of ideas. See Game ideas to view a list of ideas and my breakdown of each one. Ideas have been generated through a variety of activities, talking to peers, family, friends and people who have a place within the gaming industry.