Week 7 Run: Difficulty as Communication

Flow theory against "resilient flow" — what a Soulslike is actually telling you when it kills you

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5 April 2027

Classical flow theory says challenge and skill should track each other closely, or a player gets bored or anxious. Soulslikes seem to violate that on purpose and players love them for it — which is either a hole in flow theory or evidence that failure itself can be part of the message a difficulty curve sends.

Before the session#

Bring a difficulty spike from a game you’ve played that you think was trying to tell you something, rather than just being hard.

In the session#

We test “resilient flow” — the idea that repeated, informative failure can itself sustain engagement — against the examples people bring.

Afterwards#

Difficulty-as-communication is the last theory week before the course turns fully toward case studies and the capstone.