Week 19 Task

“Some game companies want highly trained graduate artists and programmers. Some claim they really prefer creative individuals with a good Liberal Arts background. They can’t both be right can they?

How can education meet these opposing views and yet provide a valid and fulfilling experience to students?”

I’ve never really thought of creativity as something that can be taught in the first place. You can teach people how to tap into their creativity but at the end of the day if you’re not creative you’re not creative. If that is the case then an educational course would simply need to include a number of exercises that teach the student to keep an open mind and look at things from as many different perspectives as possible. Basically anything that will change a persons interpretations from “it’s a tree” to “it’s a tree, a climbing frame, a lookout, a hiding place, looks like it has a face, shaped like an out stretched hand ,etc.”. If those exercises are added to a course that teaches how to use a decent sized variety of materials and techniques or develop whatever skills are necessary for a good programmer and improve the skill of the student to a point where they are producing industry standard work then the course should succeed in producing graduates that are what the employers are looking for (assuming they admit capable and willing students on to the course).

As far as which is right well trained or good creative minds who are capable of producing good work I’m not entirely sure there is an argument. Of all the advertisements I’ve looked at they all seem to say either “we want skilled applicants” or “we want skilled applicants who can come up with good creative ideas”. I’m yet to see anything saying “we want applicants who have gone to university and got X grade or higher”. All the employers seem to be looking for is skill in a relevant area and not level of training with creativity seeming to only be necessary for the slightly more advanced jobs. As long as you can produce work that is of the calibre the employer desires, work as part of a team, be able to communicate well, keep to work deadlines and at least have some idea of what your doing they don’t seem to care much about how you came to possess those skills. There probably are exceptions or I may have just been looking at the wrong websites but that’s my interpretation of what employers are looking for judging from job advertisements.

Week 18 Task

Sound and music ranges from being there for the sake of not leaving silence in some games to being essential to the whole gameing experience in the best games. When used to its full potential the music and sound can give feelings of suspense, excitement, urgency, calmness and pretty much set an appropriate mood for whatever the situation happens to be at the time.

As far as game music is concerned some of my favourite music comes from most Final Fantasy games (Particularly 7 and its movie. The boss battle theme and the Jenova fight theme being my favourites and in my opinion the best boss music I’ve ever heard. (Nobuo Uematsu)), Beyond Good And Evil (Christophe Heral) and Zone Of The Enders: Fist Of Mars (can’t find anywhere that says who did the sound and I don’t have a save anywhere near the credits on the game).

“Is it true that the Nile Rodgers/Bernard Edwards composition 'Good Times' is the most influential recording made in the 20th Century?”

Never heard of them and I had to go on yahoo music to find out if I knew the song. I do know the song and I think it’s fairly famous but I’m not so sure about it being influential.

Week 18 Task

Sound and music ranges from being there for the sake of not leaving silence in some games to being essential to the whole gameing experience in the best games. When used to its full potential the music and sound can give feelings of suspense, excitement, urgency, calmness and pretty much set an appropriate mood for whatever the situation happens to be at the time.

As far as game music is concerned some of my favourite music comes from most Final Fantasy games (Particularly 7 and its movie. The boss battle theme and the Jenova fight theme being my favourites and in my opinion the best boss music I’ve ever heard. (Nobuo Uematsu)), Beyond Good And Evil (Christophe Heral) and Zone Of The Enders: Fist Of Mars (can’t find anywhere that says who did the sound and I don’t have a save anywhere near the credits on the game).

“Is it true that the Nile Rodgers/Bernard Edwards composition 'Good Times' is the most influential recording made in the 20th Century?”

Never heard of them and I had to go on yahoo music to find out if I knew the song. I do know the song and I think it’s fairly famous but I’m not so sure about it being influential.

SNOW!!!!!!!!

Its been two years since I last saw snow, three since I last saw snow that actually settled and four or five years since I saw enough snow to actually do something fun with. So when I noticed everything outside was white at around 12:30am on Wednesday 24th of January (I wanted to post this with pictures and I'v only just found the cable to enable me to do so) I was somewhat excited. I then proceded to alert everyone I knew was still awake and text a few people I thought might be interested (the plan being to alert them to the snow but not wake them up if they were asleep) and then head on out into the snow.

We (myself and two of my flat mates) weren't the first people to notice the snow and had to leave my flat in a relatively coutious way in order to avoid getting hit with a number of snowballs. Soon after we were all armed with snowballs and awaiting some friends who were on their way out of their flats. A merry time was had by all as we dodged and ducked low flying snowballs comming from every direction.

girlfriends showed up. Fortunately the girlfriends deceided to join us after awhile but they soonBefore we knew it we wer getting pelted from the other end of the car park we were in by a load of guys from another flat and a war began. We were outnumbered five to seven and then their decided they didn't need us and we found ourselves surrounded. The snow had been starting to get slightly slushy and we were rappidly running out of ammunition when the night staff of our halls of residence came and ordered us out of the car park before any damage was caused to the cars.


I found myself alone as my flat mates and friends headed in to get warm but I wasn't as willing to give up on the snow so soon. I leaft the confines of the car park to find a new patch of snow to begin construction of a snow man. Unfortunately the balls of snow I was slowly building up did contain a reasonable amount of grit, mud and pebbles but beggers can't be choosers. I used some stones and what I think was part of a wing mirror to give him some features (I forgot to give him a mouth!) and a couple of very thin sticks for arms.


I had only just finished him when a group of guys showed up looking to smash him to pieces but I convinced them to leave him be until I had some photoes of him, they even offered to take a photo of me with him (they gave me a rather expensive looking phone to hold while the photo was taken so they couldn't run off with my rather cheap looking camera).

When I woke up the next day practicly all the snow had vanished and there was a van parked where my snowman used to be. All in all it was good night despite the fact I ended up getting to bed around 5am when I needed to get up at 9am for an art lesson/assesment.