Ludic. Denouement. Siumlacrum. Ludodiegesis. Oroborous. Hyperneutics. Bifurcating. ‘In media res’.

These are just some of the new words I learnt whilst reading Chapter 4 of Dr. Douglas William Brown’s 2012 thesis “The Suspension of Disbelief in Videogames”.

A new approach

At least 90% of my entire academic career to date has been based around practical, project work, rather than written academic reports. Even my professional design career has focused on working on ‘disposable’ projects in digital agencies. I still don’t properly understand referencing (as is evident in this blog post).

However, I spend a huge amount of time researching; not traditional academic literature as such, but rather anything and everything informative on YouTube such as the wonderful Game Maker’s Toolkit by Mark Brown, Josh Wallen’s The Geek Critique, Snoman Gaming, even 8-bit Music Theory (which I admit is a bit beyond me) and many others. I watch many Game Developer’s Conference (GDC) talks, and have books such as Masters of Doom (Kushner, David S. Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture. Piatkus, 2013.) and am constantly reading articles on sites such as Gamasutra.

Yet I rarely, if ever, reflect upon my research. Any notes I take are hidden away partly in my brain and partly in my mess of a Google Keep library.

Moving forward

I found it difficult to concentrate whilst reading Dr. Brown’s thesis, not because of it’s quality or my ability to understand, but because I am simply not used to absorbing such complex language. Visual learning from YouTube videos and even from reading more informal articles and books is totally different so I need to practice this skill regularly over the remainder of this course, and beyond.

To achieve this I am going to read at least one piece of relevant academic writing each month, and write a professional critical reflection of it.