Social games - Digital games

Social Games History - Digital Games

I have been tasked with researching the history of social games as a part of a group which will then lead to the creation of a poster presentation on the history and progression of social games throughout history.

      Social games are games in which more than one player exists at any given time, even to the point of the game requires more than one player for the game to work well sufficiently; although most social games boardgame or otherwise mostly make the players act competitvly, they will still be socialising whilst in the midst of playing the game. With this in mind, this gives my group an extremly large assignment as most games are social as a basis which makes them a popular choice for various groups of people.

      After our first group discussion it was decided that we will categorise the workload into three managable groups; social boardgames, social physical games and finally social digital games. After deciding on which group each of us will be persuing I was chosen to look up Social Digital games; I personally find this to be the most simple of the three groups as it is the group that I am most familiar with as well as I have a lot of experience playing social digital games.

Diablo

Diablo was one of the first games to appear on the PC that had access to "network play", this allowed players from anywhere to access an online world wherein they would be able to play with other players, battle them or otherwise just converse with others.
     Diablo was developed by Blizzard North, who have also brought out the world renown World of Warcraft title.
     Diablo was released to the European market on December 31st 1997, just a year after its first release in the US.
     The initial reactions to Diablo was exceptional as it recieved near perfect scoring from all critics; the main parts that were enjoyed were the almost endless amounts of weapons, armour, items, etc. the player could obtain by playing through multiple times, also th replaybility was appluaded because of how addictive the game became. Finally the multiplayer option was a huge success as critics "for anyone who enjoys a good multiplayer dungeon crawl, Diablo can’t be beat"

World of Warcraft

World of warcraft was the game that started a long lasting craze for MMORPG games as its hertiage to the well known Warcraft franchise gave it a good grounding as familiar players of the Warcraft games would be intrigued by this new game. Although it wasn't the first MMO to be released to the public it was extremley well recieved and was seen as the "the best-selling PC game of 2005 and 2006".
     World of warcraft was developed by Blizzard Entertainment and then released in the UK in 2005.
     As stated previously World of warcraft recieved world wide acclaim for itself as it was the winner of many awards and critics had practically nothing significant to complain about, as practically all aspects of the game were appealing and inviting to all players.

Farmville

Farmville was once an online phenomenon as in 2010 it recieved an award from "the Game Developers Conference as The Best New/Social Online Game of 2010". The game is recent years has been in decline due to lowering interest from players. A big reason as to its success was due to the fact that it was released primarily on the social networking website Facebook in 2009, but it was later released as an app for the Ipod touch and Ipad in 2011.
     Farmville was one of the more popular Facebook games that used a social style gameplay, as players would be able to achieve more far quicker if they had more of their friends on Facebook playing as well, this made players request more and more of their friends to start playing on it just so that they would be able to get far more out of the game without having to wait as long as others would have to.

Angry Birds

First released in December 2009, Angry birds was and still is a very well known and recognised game; having stayed at the top position of the Apple App Store for about 275 days in 2011. The game is indirectly social as it uses a scoring system which gives it large replayability for an app game; the scoring system has allows the players to get a score out of three stars and this makes players want to to compete to see how many start they can achieve throughout the game in comparison to other games.

Wii Sports

Wii sports is one of the most successful Wii games to come out since the consoles release; Wii sports includes five separate games that all require the players to use the Wii remotes in some way. All of the sports that the player can choose from are simplified to the point that any age group can get to grips with the controls with ease, this has given the Wii sports games a large boost in reputation as it has become known as one of the most sociable video games in recent years due to its flexibility in the age of its players.
     Wii sports was first released in November 19th 2006 in North America, and then released across the world a month later.

Expressionism Research Page

Expressionism - research resources

For the main overview and history of Expressionism I will be using Wikipedia coupled with various other websites resources and research.

 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressionism

 - http://www.theartstory.org/movement-expressionism.htm

 - http://www.artinthepicture.com/styles/Expressionism/

 - http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/history-of-art/expressionism.htm

 - http://www.artmovements.co.uk/expressionism.htm

 - http://artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/art_movements/expressionism.htm

 - http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/198740/Expressionism

 - http://www.talktalk.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0097410.html


The main parts of expressionism I will be exploring will be:

     - Its origins and overall history
     - An overview of its main creators
     - I will look at the other art movements that influenced expressionism to become what it was
     - how expressionism influenced more than just painters, and how other forms of art have utilised expressionism
     - A quick overview of some of the mre famous expressionism painters or artists
     - I will also be giving a short explanation of what expression is

These are the kind of pictures I will be showing throughout my essay to give visual reference to the expressionism style as well as give examples of the more famous and less well known expressionist artists.

Synchronism: The Art movement of visually portraying sound

Synchronism: The Art movement of visually portraying sound

I have chosen to write my essay on the art movement Synchronism; this is mainly because I am interested in what the artists are actually trying to portray: using shapes and colours to show the emotion and movement of music.

        Synchronism seems really interesting as it focuses on give image to something that can’t be seen, the fact that synchronism is so closely related to music and sound intrigues me because when I draw or paint, I am always listening to music, because it helps me to feel more creative, and in turn, in my opinion makes my artwork better.

        The free style of Synchronism is very interesting as it does not rely on lines or restrictions; they rely on just colour and shape to form their paintings. The lack of perspective in the paintings makes them feel abstract, yet familiar due to what emotions they are showing.
        Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Morgan Russell were the founding fathers of synchronism; they took influence from their teacher, Percyval Tudor-Hart who taught his own colour theory which connects music and colour. The Impressionists also inspired MacDonald-Wright and Russell due to their heavy use of colour.

Research Areas:

-      Where Synchronism originated from

-      Which art movements that take influence or give influence to Synchronism

-      The psychological relevance to Synchronism

 

Research materials:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchromism

http://ezinearticles.com/?Western-Art---Synchromism---An-American-Twist-to-Pure-Abstraction&id=3503265

Chosen Art Movement: Synchronism

Synchronism

I have chosen to write my essay on the art movement Synchronism; this is mainly because I am interested in what the artists are acctually trying to portray: using shapes and colours to show the emotion and movement of music.
     I have also learned that Synchronism is linked to a neurological condition called Synesthesia; this condition makes people react with a single sensory or cognitive pathway, e.g. sight, hearing, taste; which then leads onto an involuntary reaction from another sense. For some people this means that when music is playing, they can acctually "see" the music moving through the air, or when people read words they inherently associate particular words with certain colours, etc. I find this very interesting as well because Synchronism is in part trying to replicate the effects of a mental condition.

Mood Boards on Selected Art Movements

Mood Boards on Selected Art Movements
 
 This is the mood board I have created on Expressionism, I was most interested in the use of bright colours as well as the way that the artists twisted the reality they saw to paint the pictures they did. 

 



This is the mood board that I created for Synchronism, I especially liked Synchronism because of its use of curves and shapes to represent sound, that coupled with the use of bold colours allows people to understand the music the paintings represent.

Art Movements (part 3): Synchronism

Art Movements

Synchronism:

Synchronism was founded in 1912 by artists Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Morgan Russell. Their paintings were some of the first abstract paintings in America as well as it being the first Avant guard to receive international attention; synchronism is the idea of using colour to visualise sound or music.

        Synchronism uses the personal visualisation of what someone believes music to look like, depending on what kind of music it is and what emotions it is trying to evoke; through the use of bright colours and patterns the artists can create a harmonious mix between the sound of music and the visuals of painting; and although the paintings are abstract the shapes and movement of the painting still try to put across the complex emotion that the music portrays.

        Stanton MacDonald-Wright dismissed speculation that Synchronism was related or even based off of Orphism saying that, "it has nothing to do with orphism and anybody who has read the first catalogue of synchronism ... would realize that we poked fun at Orphism". Fauvism has similarities to the earliest Synchronism paintings.



















Historical Information, pictures and quotes; Wikipedia's page on Synchronism. (n.d.). Retrieved from:
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchromism

Art Movements (part 2): Expressionism

Art Movements

Expressionism:

Expressionism was an art movement that originated in Germany from the 1890's-1930's, it was a Modernism movement that initially focused on poetry and painting. After the First World War expressionism grew to encapsulate most of the arts, such as: literature, dance, theatre, film, architecture and music.

        In 1905 a four man group of German artists formed “The Bridge” in the city Dresden, it was made up of Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff; this was arguably the start of German Expressionism although the four did not use the term.

Then again in 1911 another group of younger artists called themselves “The Blue Rider”, up until 1913 the group didn’t officially use the term expressionism.

        Artwork that was produced with expressionism in mind was always created from a subjective perspective that would express meaning or emotional experience. Expressionism has been seen as a response or reaction to Positivism and other art movements like: naturalism or impressionism.

There has been debate as to what expressionism is, due to its overlapping of various main art movements, but one phrase that describes it well is, “artistic style in which the artist seeks to depict not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse within a person”.

I took an immediate liking to this art style due to the largely free style of the works that I have seen, all of the artists’ works give an exceptional show of emotion and feeling, the main complimentary feature of the works being the somewhat abstract colouring used, as well as the mostly twisted visualisation of their own world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Historical Information; Wikipedia's page on Expressionism. (n.d.). Retrieved from:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressionism

Quotes from; Wikipedia's page on Expressionism. (n.d.). Retrieved from:
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressionism

Pictures from; Wikipedia's page on Expressionism. (n.d). and Osnat Fine Art website. (n.d.). Retrieved from:
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressionism
     http://www.osnatfineart.com/expressionism.jsp