Because we will talk about Demon’s Souls pretty soon on the show, I’ve been looking into doing some reading about people’s opinions about the game, their experiences and how intentional the difficulty of that game might be. I encourage you write about it in contrast to flOw if only because I’m interested in what you might mean by it “[setting] the right expectations.” There is certainly a case to be made about the contract of expectations between the developer and player in both games.

But I think your article touched on the bigger point that the game just gives players the wrong expectations going in. It asks you to be meditative and contemplative, but the core mechanics are about timing, speed, and accuracy, which goes straight against that. I noticed myself increasingly frustrated the further I progressed into the game, because I was constantly being brought out of my “no-thought” state. Meanwhile Demon Soul’s, while being way more difficult, was way more conductive to flow states because it set the right expectations.

If you are saying that the actualization of the ruleset may produce an aesthetically pleasing effect, yet be different from how the game judges you, that is certainly possible. You can perform something well, according to one criteria, and still fail in regard to the ruleset that you are currently playing within at that moment. Making music and playing a music game are two different rulesets, aren’t they?

Also, playing songs on the guitar last night and comparing that with how Rock Band 3 scores me on those same songs makes me wonder if it makes sense in some contexts to separate a performance space from some sort of rule-based possibility space, at least in some sorts of games.

There is, and it might just be my perception of it, this myth everywhere I look in what I would loosely call my virtual community. For me, as I said, it’s never been that way. To get better at writing, I have had to work very hard at it. There have been many days when I did not feel like writing when I have anyway.

If I step away from those virtual voices, I don’t get that same push though. In my day to day life, most people talk about grades, code or classes. They don’t talk about writing with me and I don’t mention it to them. There is a strange situation where, online, I am thought of as a writer (in some fashion) but, in real life, I’m a programmer and grader. The worlds don’t mix.

They see this as a waste of time, but the arts are a building process. Every story I write makes me a better writer. Every article I write does, too. I tend to market them because every time I do, I learn more about that. And I think a lot of people engaged in work besides the arts (even some people engaged in the arts!) think it’s an immediate thing. There’s a lot of reasons for this, but in the end, it’s important to stop some times and realize, “I’m not where I want to be, but I am where I realistically should be.”