After every death, one line. Attempt number, then the sentence:
This time I died because ______, so next time I will ______.
That is it. Fifteen seconds, written on the walk back, before you go through the
fog again. It has to be short enough to do on the walk back or you will stop
doing it around attempt six.
Most people’s first ten lines are unfalsifiable and it is worth catching early.
I died because I was impatient — not testable. There is no next attempt that
confirms or denies it.
I died because I attacked after the second swing instead of rolling —
testable. One attempt settles it.
The difference is not effort, it is aim. The first sentence is about your
character; the second is about the fight. You already know you are impatient and
it has never once helped you.
This is the same distinction as week 3’s: an observation about the machine beats
an opinion about yourself. It shows up again here because it is the single
transferable habit in the whole course.
Somewhere between attempt eight and attempt twenty-five, a fight flips. Before
the flip, deaths feel like things that happen to you. After it, deaths feel like
mistakes you made, and you can usually say which one before the death animation
finishes.
Mark that attempt in your log. Nothing about the boss changed at that point. The
flip is the arrival of a model, and the whole point of the attempt log is that
it makes the model visible while it is being built rather than only afterwards.
In week 8 you build the same thing for a subject, and knowing what the flip felt
like is how you will recognise it when it happens over a fortnight instead of an
hour.
One boss, properly. Twenty-plus attempts on a single fight is worth far more
here than a tour of the first area. If you kill it in six, find a harder one —
a fight you beat before you needed a model teaches you nothing about models.
Bring the log to week 8.
The slides, as text
Every slide in order, with a description of each figure. Generated from the deck source, so it cannot fall behind it.
1
Playing a Souls game, and writing down every death
SLOP3733 · Week 7
FigureA fog gate: a stone archway with gold mist standing in it
2
The deaths are the data
An undocumented death is not data. It is an evening.
So the protocol has to be small enough that it survives attempt six, which is where every protocol I have written got abandoned.
3
One line per attempt
After every death, before you go back through the fog:
Attempt 12. This time I died because ______, so next time I will ______.
Fifteen seconds, written on the walk back.
If it cannot be done on the walk back, you will stop doing it.
4
Most people's first ten lines are unfalsifiable
5
Two lines, and only one of them is worth writing
I died because I was impatient. Not testable. There is no next attempt that confirms or denies it.
I died because I attacked after the second swing instead of rolling. Testable. One attempt settles it.
The difference is not effort. It is aim: the first sentence is about your character, the second is about the fight.
You already know you are impatient, and it has never once helped you.
6
Somewhere in here, the fight stops feeling random
FigureAn attempt log for one boss, eighteen lines. The first nine are dim and are about the player: I was impatient, too greedy, unlucky, I panicked, I am not good enough, tired. A marker across the middle reads: attempt 10, and nothing about the boss changed here. The nine lines below it are lit and are about the fight, and they get more specific as they go: it always sweeps after the second swing, the sweep is one roll not two, phase two starts at half health, the delayed sweep is about a second later, the grab only comes if I am on its left. A label on the left of the upper block reads about me; on the lower block, about the fight.
7
Mark that attempt in your log
Before the flip, deaths feel like things that happen to you.
After it, deaths feel like mistakes you made — and you can usually say which one before the death animation has finished.
The log is what makes the model visible while it is being built, instead of only afterwards.
8
In week 8 the same flip takes a fortnight instead of an hour.
Which is exactly why it is worth knowing what it felt like at this speed first.
9
What counts
One boss, properly. Twenty-plus attempts on a single fight is worth far more than a tour of the first area.
If you kill it in six, find a harder one. A fight you beat before you needed a model teaches you nothing about models.
10
This week you play
One boss. Twenty deaths. One written line each.
FigureTwenty tally marks scratched into dark stone in four groups of five, counting deaths rather than wins
11
What to bring to week 8
The log, with the flip marked.
Next week you build the same apparatus for a subject, where the flip takes a fortnight instead of an hour and is correspondingly easier to miss.
There is nothing to do in that lecture with an empty log.