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What the future may hold for our production of material, I don’t think any of us can say for sure. We do intend, once everything calms down a bit, to get back to podcasting, so be on the lookout for that. I don’t want to make this long and drawn out, but again, thank you all.

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Runtime: 0:50:55
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Hosts: Evan Killham (@EvanKillham)

Did you enjoy what you saw here today? Questions and comments are not only welcome, but encouraged!

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Buy Sequence on Steam – http://store.steampowered.com/app/200910/

I picked the Soldier class, because I liked how he looked on the cover of the box. In hindsight, probably not my best decision.

Prior to me going into this kind of gaming hibernation, I was well aware of the industry’s echo chamber. If you’re reading this then you are probably well aware of Demon’s Souls unabashed difficulty. Or, I should say, you are privy to what reviews and gaming personalities have said about the game’s flaws and triumphs. Here’s the thing, I’m not finding Demon’s Souls difficult. This isn’t to say that I don’t recognize how the game could be difficult. Due to the game’s design, time has changed Demon’s Souls. The odd thing is, I don’t know if it’s for the better, or for worse — but I’m playing a different game.

The well-known systems in Demon’s Souls are provoking the games environment to change over time. The game I’m playing now is littered with hundreds of messages from previous players. They warn me to “proceed with caution” or “it’s safe here.” Some of the messages could be traps, but the game allows players to rate or recommend messages. See a low rated, “this guy is a friend.” I’ll tend to stay on my guard. If I want to be helpful — or sadistic — I could leave a message for other brave participants. I can leave a mark and it means something.

Among a litany of lessons, this game that has caused me equal amounts of frustration as it has immutable joy, Demon’s Souls is a kind of teaching tool. The most recent lesson came from a five hour romp the night before writing this article. I spent a great deal of time grinding and raising the stats of my Soldier-type character. Enemies that gave me such sweaty palms prior to a first blow being exchanged are effortlessly ousted.

Arguments over punitive death versus learning the battle system continue to rage on. The detractors and enthusiasts have probably functioned as a form of advertising. In doing so, we may have discovered a new system of word-of-mouth marketing.

However, I thought I was playing another game. I thought I was playing a first-person shooter, where the enemies are locked into a drone-like script. If I hurt them, they don’t feel it. In Demon’s Souls, a more intelligent enemy backs off, assesses range. They even heal themselves. I thought I was playing an action adventure game. I ran out of healing items at one point, but I was in a room with foes with laughable health. So laughable, I ran forward. Slicing and stabbing my way to the top of a staircase — looking cool while doing so. In the process, wasting my endurance and in the process, dying for reasons I could attribute to a current generation of games pre-programming me to always value the killing, as opposed to value being killed.

It isn’t that Demon’s Souls is a throwback to a forgotten generation of games. There are games then and now that don’t care about how the player perceives the world they play in. There are JRPGs that just want you have fun [hence, pressing "X" in just about any Final Fantasy game to win]. This game, much like any other, is a form of reality escapism which has me totally enraptured. However, I can’t help but think what would it have been like had I have played the game when it initially was released.

Valuing death is a subject that isn’t tread upon in this current generation of games. We want, we need, to have the player consistently rewarded. We need to feel like we are escaping to a word with minimal consequences, because the actual world we live in has plenty. This is why Demon’s Souls functions [also] as a survivor horror simulator. If you die, you are sent to a hub world with other meandering souls. Your only chance of redemption is, while in soul form, to journey through the world again with all the enemies back where they were. You lose all the souls you’ve collected and you have half of your health [wear the Cling Ring, it helps]. You must touch the blood puddle from whence you previously died, and if you die prior to getting to said puddle, you lose those previous souls as well. This is where I agree with Demon’s Souls detractors.

The Nexus -- Consider it to be like Limbo or Purgatory, only there's a possibility everyone you're talking to in this world, isn't your friend.

A game centered around punishing the player for their mistakes isn’t inviting. It could almost be misconstrued as a means of snobbish rejection. Another lesson. The current climate of games is almost wholly reliant on the money made within it’s first couple months of release. These games, even the small experiments that don’t get much advertising cost hundreds, if not millions to make. Disc-based games and media of any kind take a great deal of marketing and savvy to make it onto a store shelf. Especially in the age of rising digital and mobile media. It’s completely vexing as to how Demon’s Souls ended up on store shelves. The game is figuratively seen as a dare to play. As games become more expensive to produce, less chances will be taken. Demon’s Souls teaches us to value these chances. Even if the chance taken, is at odds with what you really want.

I’m thirty-two  hours into Demon’s Souls and I’m not even halfway through the game. One of the reasons why I wrote this was centered around post-mortem perception. How we look at games and how games grow. Not many perceptions change and not many games grow over time. This isn’t meant to be a fanboy letter to Demon’s Souls enthusiasts. To be honest, the melee combat isn’t that great and the targeting system is just as unwieldy as the camera controls. These words aren’t meant to be taken as yet another, “if you don’t like it then you don’t get it.”

I found something here. It isn’t perfect, but it feels special. It’s been a while since I felt a game, a film or piece of literature carried some sort of weight — magnitude. I found a world here that is just as inviting as it is revolting. I’ll tell you more about it when I’m finished learning about this place.

Runtime: 35:00
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Contact: @ExplodingBarrel

Hosts: Mike Minotti (@Tolkoto) and AJ Minotti (@AJGuy)

Runtime: 1:32:55
Download: [MP3]
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Hosts: Evan Killham (@EvanKillham) and Daniel Feit (@feitclub)

Did you like what you saw here today? Questions and comments are not just welcome… they’re encouraged!