Dark Souls 2 and Laryngitis

I lost my voice a day ago, and have yet to regain it. As a result, I stayed in my room for much of the day playing Dark Souls 2. Some of my friends have been playing as well, and it shows.

You see, in Dark Souls games, you can cooperate with other players against the monsters and warriors of the game. You can't talk though. Communication is limited to gestures and clunky messages left between players that fade in and out saying things like "Liar ahead" and "Beware but hole!" The messages are cobbled out of a few preset phrases and words that can be fit into them like a hellish game of Mad Libs scrawled on the cobblestones of the game's dungeons. Gestures are even more limited. When you summon the phantom of another player, they join your game temporarily and may silently communicate by pointing, waving, bowing, shaking their head or performing a number of other gestures.

A wave: less formal than a bow and often reserved for goodbyes rather than hellos.

Often times they just raise their arms in a Sun Salute. But you'd be surprised how often they get their messages across. Repeatedly pointing at a blank wall? It's probably an illusion to be investigated.

Inevitably I was required to leave my room and greet people, as one of our friends was in town. I communicated by gestures. It felt pretty natural after six hours of jolly cooperation in Dark Souls. My friends who had also played recently picked up pretty quick and would gather my meaning after a guess or two, if that. My girlfriend doesn't play though. She and a few others struggled, having not been trained by the rigors of limited communication.

Now, I suppose there is a difference between videogame communication and real-work communication. In Dark Souls there's very little to intuit from the gestures, since your only real interactions with the world are to kill things, walk around, and click on loot or levers. In meatspace there are a few more concepts to grapple with. Try telling someone to be patient with your hands. Or asking for two more minutes.