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Wednesday 3 July 2013

One Piece Mansion


Why do we play stressful games? I find this sort of question is both easy to answer and still a bit puzzling. Of course stress can help to give a sense of accomplishment to completing a game's challenges - giving the player adrenaline enough to feel as if they've just made it, just managed to get through and time everything perfectly. But it still seems strange to me to fill  one's past-time with, not just adrenaline, but irritation, frustration, and sometimes breathless moments of panic. One Piece Mansion, a PS1 oddity I recently found in a 2nd hand games shop, seems to courts this type of stress like it were the essence of life. One Piece Mansion (which strangely has no affiliation with the Manga and anime series One Piece) is a puzzle/management game which, to all intents and purposes, is driving me mad.