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sinecurve9999
7 days ago
As a bard once wrote, "The space between the tears we cry is the laughter that keeps us coming
back for more."
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Aaron Loosen
8 days ago
I always wondered as to why after repeating certain points over and over again I started getting
worse at the parts I've been doing for a long time so it was really interesting hearing that the
reason why this might be is because your mind starts treating it like something unimportant like
us walking or what we wear.
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parchment Engineer
7 days ago
I feel like the best walk back in Hollow Knight, at least to me, is the one before the Broken
Vessel. It gives us time to reflect, lets us do a Crystal Dash (which is always fun), and has two
small enemies to recharge soul.
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Robert Mouse
8 days ago
It's important to note that the gap can be a core part of the game or it can be completely divorced
from the main gameplay. The time before a boss in a roguelike can be just as important if not
more important than the boss itself. In Hades I finally managed to defeat the titular boss himself
not because I mastered his patterns, but because I mastered everything before him. I had enough
skill to play the early game well, get lots of resources, and pick the right boons for a powerful
build. On the opposite side of the spectrum is Dark Souls elevators. All they do is make the
player wait. It's essentially just a loading screen; there's no gameplay to be had. It's just Ornstein
and Smough putting you in the timeout chair for being bad at the game. The rest of the run back
to the boss is fine; it's a test of how many resources you can save for the boss fight. Mastering
the area before the boss can mean the difference between going into the fight with 10 flasks and
going into the fight with a quarter health and zero flasks. If you're a mage, how many spell
slots/FP can you save for the boss? The Celeste example you mentioned is a great example of
why gaps can be good. I experienced the same issue where I just got worse and worse each
attempt until I finally gave up. Without anything to break up the space between attempts you just
keep getting more and more tense and never take a breath. Maybe in the end this is just a
question of pacing in a game. Too much of the same type of gameplay for a long stretch of time
can be bad regardless of its intentions. Ideally we want to give the player some control over the
pacing; let them put their nose to the grindstone if they want. If they're having fun trying to learn
the boss why punish them? If they need a break give them some alternative activities to do; let
them go shopping, do a sidequest, take in a scenic view, or listen to some of the game's music.
Gaps are just another tool in the game designer's toolbox. It's up to the designer to decide when
and where they're needed. In the end it's just one more thing to improve a game, or one more
thing to mess it up.
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Nomal
7 days ago
Finally someone else to share the pain of having read a love triangle romance manga and getting
over invested in it just for it to hurt you by having a terrible ending. I never read ichigo but I very
much relate to the thought "not a day goes by where I don't regret reading that manga." Good vid
btw keep it up.
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Ikcatcher
7 days ago
I would like to call this void of space between respawn and boss room “tension space”
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RPGgrenade
8 days ago
I've always wondered about this ever since starting making games. Checkpoints have always
been a struggle because of that. because it depends so much on the person. But it seems like
ultimately as long as it's not too taxing a treck back isn't so bad? I personally adored how it
worked in Ori and the Blind Forest where you set your OWN save spots which were checpoints.
Used up some magic but that was the price for having a checkpoint where you liked, and
forgetting to do so forced the long trek on yourself.
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José David Guerra Hinestroza

7 days ago
Bug Fables is one of the games that best manage this "gap" by making you choice whether you
want to start the battle all over again or go back to your last checkpoint. And you can even
change your loadout and then try again right away too, if you so feel inclined. So it's the player's
choice if they want to jump right back into the action or take a few steps back to reflect on things
before trying again. The catch is that this only happens during important fights, so if you die to a
random encounter then it's back to the last save point, so it's not really coddling you, either. It's
just quality of life.
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Saddemilad
7 days ago
For me personally, I've found there's a sweet spot. That usually comes in the form of a decently
lengthy loading screen, plus a brief walk. I know, that sounds odd, but this sort of setup is always
where I do my best improvement. The loading screen is the "take a breath and think" moment,
while the walk back keeps you working at the controls in a lower stakes environment. Don't like
a bunch of enemies in the way, though. Not for me.
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From The Attic
7 days ago
Initially, I forgot you had a sponsored segment so I was like : "How the hell is he going to

transition from the topic of baldness to the most important place in gaming"
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Micah Stewart
7 days ago
I think the “vigilance decrement” section of the video taught me a lot about how I play video
games. I once got so tunnel-visioned and stressed in hollow knight that I haven’t played it in
months. I think this video will make me give it a second chance, just with quite a few breaks in
between.
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Chaosrunepownage
7 days ago
"Do you feel the shirt on your back?" As a person with sensory processing issues, dear gods do I
wish I didn't! It's gotten better with age but for the longest time I couldn't wear wool or wool
blends because the texture was so distracting. Even now I can only wear wool as an outer layer
for any significant length of time. It's always interesting to think about how different reality is for
every individual person. The jabber of a quarter-filled office isn't much to most people, but for
me to get anything done, I have to put on instrumental music with earplug style earbuds. This is
probably part why I can't get into roguelikes or action-oriented games. I die thanks to garbage
reflexes, I notice the space between too much, get discouraged, and go back to something purely
turn-based or slow-paced to give me time to think everything through. FTL is the main exception
thanks to the pause button making battles able to be played practically turn-based.
Hypersensitivity and hyperfocus are like well-written superpowers since they're both a blessing
and a curse. I can be amazing in a laboratory and terrible in a crowd. I like to make art but tend
to perseverate on not-fully-erased lines too much.
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Daniel Ayers
7 days ago
Was the first study on the coins replicated in other countries? Or different age groups? I'm
curious if participants would be more or less willing to wait depending on
personality/experience/upbringing.
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sodium Plate
7 days ago
Do you think you could do a video on self-imposed challenges, like the player restricting
themself to one type of weapon, one element of magic, not leveling up, and so on? I've done a
few of these in various games (mostly in the dark souls trilogy), and I think that would make for
an interesting video.
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Groovy
7 days ago
I definitely experienced that fading in focus with repetition during Celeste. I reached the summit
segment super late at night and was pushing through to try to finish since I was so very close, but
there was one extended segment that absolutely stopped me. I was locked there for 30 minutes of
continuous deaths over and over, until I eventually gave up because I knew I wasn't gonna make
it. So I stopped, headed to bed, and then tried again in the morning. Did it first try. Later stuff
killed me a bit, but I blazed through the entire rest of it with minimal issues. It just goes to show
that sometimes a break really is all you need. Another notable thing is how that gap is populated.
Fromsoft has been getting better at this with their boss shortcuts, most notably in Bloodborne
from my experience. Getting to Ornstein and Smough in DS1 is a pain in the ass both due to the
sheer length of the gap but also because there's a non-negligible threat along that path, meaning
you could be killed and lose the souls left in their room or just have to make the trek all over
again. A huge pain in the ass for minimal benefit because you don't get a "break" during the
traversal back, you have to fight your way there. And that can be valuable as well, for what its
worth, as mentioned with roguelikes, but it's tedious when combined with the length of the trek
there. Compare Bloodborne, where I found basically all of the treks to bosses once you found the
areas core shortcut to be decently lengthy but rarely especially treacherous, and I would
appreciate the short break for allowing my mind a bit of time to chill. It allowed me to think
about and anticipate the boss I was about to face, without adding much in the way of extra stress
to the experience of getting there.
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Danger Donkey
7 days ago
I'm new here and just wanted to say I really enjoy your content. It's so rare for people to jus
simply discuss things anymore. I like how you break down complex themes and apply to video
games which are often deceptively simple in there presentation. Personally the space between for
me is a love hate relationship. Looking forward to more great content!
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A Bad Idea
7 days ago
I think I experienced this very recently while playing FFXIV. I was trying to clear Endwalker's
Trial 2 EX and I've gotten to the point where I've effectively mastered the fight; I've internalized
all the mechanics, my rotation is solid, and I've even successfully hit the enrage timer without
dying a single time. Essentially, I had hit my own personal ceiling for the fight and there was
nothing more I could do to improve or contribute more towards the group's success, so my
chances of winning the fight had nothing more to do with my personal input, but largely
depended on the other seven players to perform well enough as well. After several nights of
party finder groups failing to clear the trial, I was getting extremely frustrated; after all, I already
know the fight, so how is it that I can make absolutely zero mistakes and still fail? And with each
wipe my face kept sinking deeper into my palms until the frustration started getting to me; I
started making mistakes I shouldn't have, and I start contributing to the group's failure.
Obviously taking a break sounds like it should be the best option, but it would just continue to
happen night after night and start to wear me down. On the night I finally succeeded, I rejoined
with my static that I had first learned the fight with. Again as usual, I was going through the
motions and doing my best to play out the routine I've become so intimately familiar with. And
after shaking off some rust, I'm back to my normal stride. Even though the rest of the group
hadn't quite hit my level of mastery with this fight, I somehow did not feel my patience and skill
deteriorating with each wipe like I had earlier in the week with party finder groups. Instead, I
could feel the rest of the group improving little by little, and that possibility of victory actually
getting closer and closer. So I stayed determined, and even found ways to raise the ceiling for
myself and improve even more (I started working Tinctures into my openers; it was getting
REALLY sweaty). Just feeling those inches of progress was more than enough motivation to
continue, and we eventually cleared the fight together, within milliseconds of the enrage. So I
guess the moral of the story is that the feeling of change and progress really did help push me out
of a rut.
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Ricky Stephens
7 days ago (edited)
Metroidvanias really are the best kind of games for the space between. Their whole jam is the
world around you and how you can interact with it. As you said, they allow you the opportunity
to try something else for now and come back to this later. The thing most people don't realize is
that Dark Souls is a Metroidvania. The story is told through the world and its state. The whole
map is interconnected and by progressing you find shortcuts that let you return to some places
faster or to earlier locations without a second thought. Dark Souls also asks its players to take
their time and meet the game at its pace, rather than their own, and that's what made them so
refreshing when they were new and what made "souls-like" the genre it is today. Whether you
call it the space between or the salty runback, it all depends on perspective.
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Pablo Quijada Salazar

7 days ago (edited)
0:18 What I’ve heard is that it gets passed from mother to son. So your grandpa is bald cause it
ran his mom’s side, your dad isn’t bald cause it didn’t run on his mom’s side. 7:06 1st) I believe
in duality. 2nd) The body prefers now, always, because the body has 0% certainty it will still be
alive for the later reward. We, the soul or meat-AI, are what provides the body with probabilistic
certainty, we can say to ourselves “nah we’re not gonna die in the 3 sec/min/day/year wait.” We
experience the body’s desire as our own though, so it takes having certain perspectives to realize
we can wait. That’s my take at least. 17:19 Dude, yes, always. That’s not normal is it? For me,
the walk back depends on my mental state in the moment; the first time, no props; after 20
deaths, “ugh I’ll come back and play this later.”
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Seth Bogue
7 days ago
22:34 as someone who has gotten the golden strawberry on that level, seeing you dash up-left
instantly triggered my mind to go “what are you doing you’re supposed to go up, up-right!”