Lecture Review:
Much to my annoyance, I was unable to attend many of the guest lectures available during the unit. However, one of the few I did attend was during week 4 and was primarily focused on what values we held most prominent in our creative industry.
Your core values are always apparent in creativity. What you like, what you dislike, what drives you, what inspires you. This has always been present for me during all units in the course, with me taking inspiration from genres such as cyberpunk, and shows and games such as ‘RWBY’ and ‘Persona’ that I personally enjoy. Values always shape who you are and where you’ll end up and what you will be doing, even if you don’t realize it.
We went through a lot of different concepts during our lecture with Zoe. One of these was the Japanese concept of Ikigai, which referred to the intersection of four elements – what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what can be paid for. It represents a person’s reason for being and their purpose in life, and finding the best place to be with the most overlap of these core areas is the best way to find yourself doing a job you enjoy and doing it well enough to get paid.
This concept did stick with me a lot. I always have had trouble finding a place where I could see myself going where these values are balanced. True, I did start this course hoping to go into VR development, but have on occasion always questioned it, wondering whether I will truly end up using my degree in the end, or end up going elsewhere to find the perfect job for me.
Zoe had two tasks for us during the lecture. This was already a welcome change, as sitting in a chair for hours simply listening and not engaging has never been much fun to me. The first activity involved a set of character cards, created free hand by an artist to represent concept, people, and objects. After looking these over, we were tasked to create our own, ignoring our possible lack of artistic skill. I drew a card I labeled ‘the storyteller’ as I have always loved telling stories of people and places, even doing so in my own free time online with books and fanfiction.
The second task involved a personality test created by Adobe Create. The questions were a bit weird, but in the end, I got paired up with ‘The Visionary’ described as:
‘Full of big ideas, ability to see potential and possibility everywhere’ – a nice compliment to start. Very nice
‘Using your visions to fuel consistent daily action’ – not sure how accurate this is. Procrasination IS my middle name practically.
‘You live in a world of infinite possibilities, preferring to see things not as they are but as they could be. You know that life is limited only by the boundaries of your own beliefs, and you’re driven to push the limits of, well, everything.’ – I did start studying VR for a reason. I’ve always hoped I could push the boundary of the medium and begin creating storytelling experiences for VR that are able to emit the same level of emotion from TV, movies, and games I’ve experienced…if not even more emotion.
‘Emotional, passion-driven, and full of ideas, the VISIONARY combines a vivid imagination with a desire for practical solutions. Your introspective and intuitive nature is balanced by a keen interest in the world around you and a desire to contribute to society.’ – Again, quite accurate. I enjoy seeing how people enjoy things I’ve created, having a following online from art, fanfiction, and stories I’ve made.
‘Charismatic and expressive, you love sharing your ideas and visions with others and creating community around shared values and ideals. Your greatest gift? The ability to see the spark of potential in everything and everyone, and to inspire others to see it, too. You’re able to guide people toward an invisible horizon with a rare generosity of spirit and strength of conviction.’ – I do have some experience in this area. I have friends I like to help a lot with things in hopes I can set them on their right path. I’ve also worked on group projects before, and have ran multiple tabletop games for many years much to the enjoyment of others.
‘Don’t get stuck in the dreaming stage, VISIONARY. Your greatest challenge—and true power—lies in learning to take consistent daily action to create the future you envision.’ – I have always had trouble with getting ideas out of the dreaming stage, having a massive list of ideas I’ve thought up on my phone, but never getting close to creating them. I hope to work on this, learning more techniques to bring the ideas to life and learning how to incentivize myself more towards pushing these ideas out of the dream stage and into reality.
‘Seek out the “voice of reason” of the THINKER type to help you take a grounded, rational approach to your creative work. The THINKER’s deep perception and probing intellect lend a powerful clarity that can bring your visions into sharper focus’ – I guess I now know who to look out for!.
I honestly was disturbed by how accurate some of these points hit.
Zoe also talked about the importance of values in terms of their worth in money, expertise, voice, and more. The skills cycle involves answering questions about where we are now, where we want to be, and how we can get there. During the workshop, we reflected on past projects, our contributions to group work, and extra-curricular impacts on our studies. I realized that I struggle with communicating my work to others and tend to keep it hidden, as well as having a hard time selling myself in any capacity, which might make it tough to find a place in this industry. I also – much like my classmates – can sometimes feel overwhelmed with the amount of work I have to do and the limited time I have to do it. The time goes by too fast
We also briefly discussed the 9 attributes in the Creative Attributes Framework by UAL, which include proactivity, communication, curiosity, and resilience. The CAF is a reference point for developing enterprise and employability, and the MyCAF tool allows us to download a report and action plan. I’ve yet to do this since I’ve been quite busy working, but it might be worth looking into down the road.
Overall, the session with Zoe was informative and almost TOO thought-provoking. Her hands on approach involving getting us more invested into the session practically worked like a charm and had me thinking about the lecture long after she left. I will take the advice she gave to heart.
Showcase Reflection:
Im excited for the showcase.
The possibility of showing off a piece of work I’ve put so much time into to others seems really exciting to me, and while I admit I didn’t have much input into setting things up outside of the project itself, I will share what I did do.
The logistics of our booth are pretty simple. Our game is set in the office, so we want to make an office booth. It works pretty well in theory. Booth walls, a VR ready PC running our title on a desk, and obviously enough central space to allow any users to play without fear of injury.
I did however, add that I was hoping for one…unorthodox item.
I wanted a giant llama statue.
It would be nearby the booth and act as the main selling point towards getting people to try the experience. Its thematically useful too, as the core idea of our title is the llama being in a place it CLEARLY shouldn’t be. An office, or a uni event? Both are equally crazy. I’m not sure if in the end we will be able to add this item into our booth area, but if I ever had the chance, I would certainly jump at it.
Outside of that though, most of my efforts towards getting us ready to showcase involved getting the game ready. I’m the narrative lead so I got to write out a pretty lengthy storyline AND also the environment designer, so I’m spending plenty of my free time modeling everything up by hand.
Fingers crossed we can get it all done right on time.