As someone who grew up playing mostly single player games and having bonded with several close friends through shared experiences of single player games, I have had to adapt as my friends have spread out across the country. We can no longer get together often and play a Shared Playthrough or easily coach one another […]
Guided Playthroughs
How many games have you mastered? In which you know where every item is, know how to complete every quest, or where the regular difficulty has become boringly easy? Sure, maybe you’re out of practice, but games you could jump right back in and get up to speed in a session or two. And how […]
Shared Playthroughs
While there are many ways to play single-player games together with others, such as playing parallel playthroughs or serving as a guide to other players, playing a shared playthrough of a single-player game with another person is one of the potent bonding experiences I have known. Since there is only one player character (PC), the players […]
Solidary Souls – How the Souls Series Connects Players
Perhaps it seems an odd choice to begin an exploration of how single-player games connect people by looking at a multiplayer-enabled series, but the Dark Souls games and their “spiritual predecessor”, Demon’s Souls, truly embody the concept of playing alone, together. I would argue that the Souls games, as they are known, can be […]
Alone, Together
Blog #0 – Introduction Welcome to Alone Together, a blog where we explore the ways that single-player games can bring people together and the gaming cultures that form around them. Throughout my life as a gamer, playing games has again and again brought me closer to many of the most important people in my life. […]
Alone Together 