Best not wait to put off what can be done today by waiting till tomorrow…unless one is like, really tired.


I’m of the mind courage is the best policy, though I have to admit, staying in bed is quite comfy, too

Yesterday ended up being a nice little detour of an article; I say detour, as it was in no way, shape or form the article I thought I was going to write when I first sat down to bang out some thoughts. One thing led to another, however, and twenty minutes later, I realized I had already amassed over a thousand words on dictating the overall relevancy of games via qualitative temporal standards in which they were spawned from, and in some cases transcended. As I made mention by articles end, cheers to happy accidents, which are bound to happen when one’s creative process largely relies on a shoot from the hip mentality, and where stream of consciousness reigns supreme.

I’m definitely approaching the end of Mina The Hollower, and I may even be in one of the last major final areas of the game. I didn’t have enough time to push through to the final boss and credits, though in an honesty, Sunday nights are usually me at my most depleted. This represents the end of my work week, and not only that., but I work overnights, and usually sacrifice sleep most days to maintain both a physical regiment and a creative one as well, so by the time Sunday evening rolls around, I’ve already burned the candle at both ends…and that’s before I even clock into my actual work. As my proclivities in gaming have shown me, and if nothing else, I seem to be both a glutton for punishment, and never like doing things the easy way, so a game like Mina being such an engaging experience for me tracks just right, me thinks

Mina has reminded me of one of my cardinal rules when playing Soulslikes, however, and it is simply ‘don’t play tired’, for a number of robustly rationale reasons, the biggest of which is that due to the nature of the overall design ethics of the genre, the whole logic the games are built upon, are highly predatory in nature, and are more or less custom built from the ground up to oppress your ass whenever the chance arises, and to make a mockery of the impatient and the desperate in perversely short working order. It’s really not even something as simple as keeping a calm demeanor and a cool head when approaching such a high ratioed death environment, as even in the vein of not having a strong emotional reaction in the face of lost progress or where repetitive gameplay is concerned; you’re just not going to make much progress stating at the screen with one and a half eyes shut and the remaining one totally bloodshot with abject misery. More than any other genre out there, Soulslikes demand of you to be bright eyed and bushy tailed in order to hang, and to defy them in such a manner will see you suffer as a fool within a mere instance of tired hesitation.

I’m not sure if my next assertion is due to the fact that I have not been the most pragmatic with my perusal of the internet in the past week or two, or if the cold reality is that not enough people are talking about Mina, that I have missed most conversations about the title all together, but I feel as if I’m missing out on a much larger perspective, by not keeping my finger on the pulse of the majority collectives trials and tribulations with the title as I progress, something I usually make a habit of while I work my way through the any given game for quite obvious reasons. Not only does it give me great writing material, in considering how I differ from the common ties that bind other players, but I also get to consider new ideas in an other wise insulated experience the game would have granted me, which is no good way to develop theories and or cultivate philosophical musings, with which better to understand both the game, and the medium at large by days end, both worthy goals.

As I’ve made mention of in my myriad of articles detailing some of the more profound enjoyments of the Mina experience, I will say that the whole Hollowing bit pays for its importance as titular line in title immediately and throughout the games entirety. What it represents is in indeed transcendence to another realm of quality, so much so its astonishingly shocking to me no one else had stumbled upon such a gameplay mechanic before. The Hollowing provides such an ample standard of diversity for gameplay, I’m always raring for another boss battle with which to test my mighty evasive spirits again and again, as I feel as if there is a real difficulty curve associated with the combat encounters of the game due to the ridiculous degree hollowing fundamentally transforms the experience of self-refinement one may enjoy through rigorous standard and ardent measurement where accuracy and self-application is concerned.

Which is why the hollowing ability does kind of represent a small miracle of innovation of sorts, as its inclusion, without the proper oversight, design refinement, and overall stress testing where quality of control need be, and hollowing could have come off as a cheap novelty throw away, one totally perverting the experience instead of thoroughly cultivating it in all of the right ways. This was something I wanted to articulate more about today if I had the time or energy (neither seemingly the case), as there is an essence of “mode switching” going on with Hollowing that is worth exploring with more detail, as I think meaningful mode switching represents a fine line between genuinely brilliant design methodology, and a cheap gimmick that spoils the entire notion of the gameplay loop and that all important “30 seconds of fun” I am so fond of hearkening back to.



As is often (and strangely so) the case, my approach to the end of yet another game will be interrupted at the last second by a need to write a Words of Wisdom for tomorrow, so finishing up Mina will likely have to wait until Tuesday. This may be for the best though, as I think the exhaustively dour state I’m in now would have made for a not so spectacular finale where last words were concerned, especially for an experience as engaging as Mina has been, so perhaps for the best we put the end of the world on hold for the time being.



If only all apocalyptic scenarios were as easy to put off.

~Pashford