#expriences

In a fit of insomnia, which isn’t uncommon, I decided to watch a documentary on Netflix called “The Institute” about an art project/alternate reality game that took place in San Francisco in 2009. While some of the people they interviewed, especially one particular person, really took it too far I found it fascinating towards something I obsess over, creating truly unique and memorable experiences.

I’m a facilitator. I get the most enjoyment, not by experiencing something myself, but facilitating someone else’s experience. I DJ, I’ve bar-tended, I ran a round of a fairly common ARG called Assassins and I’m interested in game design. The problem I run into though is how does one create a truly memorable experience? I think there’s a few elements we can find in truly memorable experiences and can apply them to how we facilitators go about designing those experiences.

First, it has to be interactive. Think of a memory of going to a museum. I’ve been lucky enough to have visited the large variety of museums in Washington DC. I have recollections of going and having a variety of emotions, mostly awe, at what I saw but it felt distant. It wasn’t awe of something I experienced, it was the awe of something someone else experienced. On the other hand, the RPG nerds out there will recognize the more realistic senses of awe, panic, fear and many other emotions from particularly tense moments in a well constructed campaign. Maybe that one time the dice rolled just right and you averted certain death for your party. I know for myself, at least, those moments in a fantasy land in my head feel more emotionally relevant simply because I was a part of them rather than simply admiring what someone else achieved.

Second, it has to be engrossing. When I ran Assassins, it was definitely a rough road, I lost a couple friends over it, I botched my target selection process (made the mistake of going random instead of round-robin which led to people not having targets) and some other problems I had to fix on the fly. I also ran into the problem where some of the participants didn’t take it very seriously. However, for a few people, they told me it was one of the best experiences they had in their entire lives. One participant who was in his mid-30s told me that. What a compliment, to have created an environment where someone in their 30s had an experience that they’ll never forget. 

The problem with modern society is we get up, we go to work, we come home. If we’re lucky, we have a few friends who are great to hang out with. We have plenty of distraction when we have the time, there’s movies, there’s TV, there’s games, both digital and physical, but for the most part they’re forgettable. By creating something engrossing, an experience the players can completely immerse themselves in, it not only breaks up the monotony of daily life but allows people to escape it.

Third, it has to be rare. My vacation every year is to go to Defcon. This last August was my 8th Defcon and what I’ve found is, while it’s my favorite weekend each year, my years are blurring together. The emotion and experience of each year just kind of blurs with the rest of the years. Talking about that with my friends who have been going just as long, or longer, agreed there are definitely things they remember from past Defcons but they can’t always pin down what year it happened.

Unique experiences are like almost like heroin. You’ll never have the same high as you did the first time. If the experience is recreated often, the veterans will enjoy it, but it won’t be like first time. Furthermore, the more they participate the less impact the current and past experiences will have.

As for what I personally will do, I won’t do Assassins again. The competitive nature of it is just too much for some people and in Salt Lake City, the potential participation is too high. I would be interested in working on an ARG, but I would probably want it within a limited population of some sort. There are other problems that would need to be solved as well, such as, how to weed out people who don’t want to participate on the minimum required level.

How do I start…? Okay... My expectations of this course were high to begin with, very high even. So when I got here nothing really overwhelmed me to the point where I could even consider, giving this up without even submitting a piece of work. I felt confident going into this course and was raring to get started, I was particularly interested in getting into website design.

My experiences on this course so far have been pleasant and I have already submitted one assignment and awaiting feedback after the half term soon upcoming.

As for the other subjects, they interest me (at the ones to do with computing!) and are keeping me motivated to take my learning to the next level, in database design we are learning about what a database is and how a relational database combined with a DBMS can make for a very effective database. I’m very much looking forward to designing a database of my own now!  

Both programming lessons are also extremely interesting and are challenging me in different ways, the main reason being that I’m learning Python in procedural programming (line-by-line). The other programming lesson is challenging because it has been a while since using a familiar language (C#), with that said I’m definitely looking forward to what they can bring!

Computer Systems, my-oh-my how I enjoy this lesson, it’s right up my alley and I’m ever learning. I have always had a keen interest in computing hardware and I really want to get into the nitty-gritty of building a system and installing some software. I guess you could say my experiences of this subject have been very good and caters to my learning style.

[NOTE: THE FOLLOWING ARE MY OPINIONS AND ARE NOT DIRECTED AT THE MEMBERS OF STAFF TEACHING THESE SUBJECTS]

Now onto the, what I consider useless subjects, these are Employability and Professional Development, E-Commerce and Research Skills. Well what can I say? I died a little inside when I found out these subjects were included on the COMPUTING HNC course. I mean who actually thinks these having anything to do with Computing Systems Development? Not me! I guess I should say that I don’t enjoy these subjects and I’m only doing them out necessity, not want. My experiences with all that said have been OK but I don’t look to strive for a very high grade in these subjects.