Daryl Talks Games

There are a lot of… places in gaming. A lot of spaces. But the one space that I think is so often thought about but rarely talked about is the space between the respawn point and the boss or even where you are currently stuck at. Today on Psych of Play, let’s dive into that gap and talk about how our minds handle when that space is small and when it is vast.

Inscryption is a normal game… until it isn’t. Today on Psych of Play, we’ll be discussing the deep dish madness of Inscryption, a concept known as the magic circle, and how inscryption plays with what a “normal” game is to create something truly feverish.

Until 2 months ago, I was a stranger to souls games. As an outsider looking in, I understood two things… they are extremely difficult and they change you as a person. Time after time I saw people say that Miyazaki’s work, in one way or another, has saved them. Depression, anxiety, and the like are something that we all often deal with, but how could such a brutally unrelenting series remedy the mental health of so many? Today on Psych of Play, we dive into the psychology of how exactly this happens.

Here it is, after all this time ;)

Have you ever gone shiny hunting before? Have you ever caught a shiny Pokemon? If so, you’ll know that it’s an absolute adrenaline rush like no other. Shiny hunting, to some people, might seem like an incredibly strange way to spend one’s time but to others, it is worth every single reroll. Today on Psych of Play, we’ll look at the weird psychology of shiny hunting and video game collectibles.

Losing is not fun. It is not sexy, it is not exciting, it is not what you want . We admire winners, losers are forgotten with time. Losing is an activity we will all do on NUMEROUS occasions in our lives but the response to these losses is what sets us apart from those around us. What is the psychology of losing? How do we respond to a loss on a cognitive level and does our personality affect how we bounce back or IF we bounce back from a loss? Let’s dive in :)

13 years ago, I began a journey that I often wondered if I would ever finish. Along the way, I played a lot of games and began to notice that whether or not a game ends is actually a huge factor in my gaming preference. Today on Psych of Play, we’ll talk about that journey I took and how it is oddly intertwined with a need we all have to some degree, a need for closure.

Are you a fan of being told “No”? Do you like it when a person keeps you from doing what you want to do, do you enjoy when a game limits your options? Probably not. In fact if anything, being told no likely makes you want that thing even more. Today on Psych of Play, were going to take a look at Psychological Reactance and how it affects our time with a game. And more specifically, we’ll take a look at how it influences your time with open world games. Buckle up, this is gonna be a good one.

Anime is a source of media that I rarely talk about. But one thing that has always struck me as strangely unique about it is how emotions manifest. We’ve all seen a character be sad in movies and television, we’ve all seen characters affect each other through grand acts of love, hatred, jealousy, desperation, etc. But in most cases, only anime has those emotions, whether they be positive or negative, physically manifest in the real world. Today on Psych of Pl… Psych of ANIME, we’ll be discussing the Conversion Disorder, the ideas of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung and Japanese psychologist Hayao Kawai in a video that frankly… I’ve been both deeply longing to make yet afraid to make for quite some time now. So… thanks for being here for it :)

Hey, the clock is ticking. No time for a description, just watch ;)

Video games provide a unique opportunity in bad endings because very rarely does a story in any other medium allow for the chance to receive an alternative conclusion based on how you influenced that story. Today on Psych of Play, we will be talking about what makes these bad endings so fascinating, why we find ourselves watching them out of curiosity, and how we use a similar cognition in our everyday lives.

Everyone's days on earth are limited. The amount of video games out there, however, are seemingly unlimited. And for those of us that are obsessed with the medium, this causes a bit of a problem. A weird existential dread that comes from a looming video game backlog. How will we ever beat it all? Should we beat it all? And if we were to actually try to do it in a timely manner, how would we? That’s the type of question I approach today and in fact… the very challenge I’ll be taking on in 2023.

As the years have gone by, I have aged and the wonder of Pokemon battles has dissipated. Strangely, this same wonder for sports has not. And after doing a LOT of watching Pokemon battle film from pretty much… every 3D Pokemon game created… I think the reason for this change is less to do with my age and more to do with camerawork. Today, we’re talking cinematography. Today, we’re talking about why older pokemon games seem to hit harder.