# The Best Indie Games of 2026 (So Far)

An episode of [The Game Informer Show](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/335246945), 1 Aug 2026, 1 h 35 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/73323610/778.mp3

In this week's episode of The Game Informer Show, the crew highlights the best indie games of 2026 so far. No, this isn't an exhaustive list, but after listening, you'll likely have several new video game recommendations to play. Highlights include The Mermaid Mask, Into The Grid, Super Battle Golf, and Helix: Descent N Ascent. Are there a couple of games that are technically not indie on this list? Yes, but they embody the spirit of small games made by smaller teams. The Game Informer Show is a weekly podcast covering the video game industry. Join us every Friday for chats about video game reviews, news, and exclusive reveals alongside Game Informer staff and special guests from around the industry. Support the show by subscribing to our physical video game magazine! Watch the video version: YouTube Follow our hosts online: • Alex Van Aken (@itsVanAken) • Marcus Stewart (@MarcusStewart7) • Wesley LeBlanc (@WesleyLeBlanc) Jump ahead using these timestamps: • 00:00 – Intro • 03:15 – Best Indie Games of 2026 • 54:35 – Small Teams, Big Potential (Upcoming Indie Games) • 58:18 - Ad Break • 58:19 - Scarlet Deer Inn (Adventure Game Made of Embroidery) • 01:06:00 - Helix: Descent N Ascent (Monochrome 2D Puzzler) • 01:11:00 - Listener Questions

## Transcript

[0:06] Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Game Informer Show.
[0:08] Speaker 2: Everyone.
[0:09] Speaker 1: This is a weekly podcast covering the video game industry.
[0:12] Speaker 1: Join us every Friday for discussion about the latest gaming news, reviews,
[0:15] Speaker 1: and exclusive reveals, alongside Game and Former staff and special
[0:19] Speaker 1: guests from around the industry. I'm one of your hosts
[0:21] Speaker 1: today Alex van Aiken, and today I'm joined by Marcus Stewart.
[0:25] Speaker 3: Hello. Hello, I am back. I've been away. I can't
[0:30] Speaker 3: talk about where I was. I was on a fun
[0:32] Speaker 3: little work trip recently overseas, but you'll learn about that soon.
[0:35] Speaker 3: But you know, it feels good to be you know,
[0:38] Speaker 3: have you guys ever had this when you travel for
[0:40] Speaker 3: a while and then you're like, I need to almost
[0:42] Speaker 3: become an American again, And I do that by eating
[0:44] Speaker 3: like the most American food.
[0:45] Speaker 1: I gu yes, I do. Actually, it's so funny that way.
[0:51] Speaker 2: I come home to the States, I'm like, yeah, we
[0:54] Speaker 2: nailed this ac and ice in my drinks.
[0:57] Speaker 1: Let's go. Yeah, that's that's I think. An atrocity overseas
[1:02] Speaker 1: is just like your drinks don't always have ice in them, Like,
[1:05] Speaker 1: what are we dealing here?
[1:06] Speaker 2: No, it's crazy.
[1:07] Speaker 3: It's still in sparkling, but not ice.
[1:11] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. That other voice you heard is the voice
[1:15] Speaker 1: that's rounding out the show this week. Wesley LeBlanc. How
[1:18] Speaker 1: you doing Wes?
[1:20] Speaker 2: Hello, Hello, I'm doing great.
[1:22] Speaker 4: Uh.
[1:22] Speaker 2: The number one reason why is Pumpkin spice creamer is
[1:25] Speaker 2: back in stores. Ladies and gentlemen, get those.
[1:28] Speaker 1: Ice made wow already early July.
[1:33] Speaker 2: It is, it is very early, but I saw it
[1:35] Speaker 2: and I was like, I have to have it. I
[1:37] Speaker 2: gotta get it.
[1:37] Speaker 3: Are Christmas decorations being sold already? Are we? Are we doing.
[1:40] Speaker 2: This after Halloween? They will? Yeah?
[1:43] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Well before we get into the show, I
[1:46] Speaker 1: do just want to say if you are a fan
[1:48] Speaker 1: of Game Informer, please consider picking up a copy of
[1:51] Speaker 1: our print magazine. You can head over to Game Informer
[1:55] Speaker 1: dot com slash subscribe to pick up your year long subscription,
[2:01] Speaker 1: or if you're not in the US and you want
[2:03] Speaker 1: to pick up the magazine, you can find us at bookstands,
[2:07] Speaker 1: news stands around the world, or in places like Barnes
[2:10] Speaker 1: and Noble Books, a million chapters, Indigo, all tg Jones,
[2:16] Speaker 1: all sorts of places across the world. But yeah, we thought, hey,
[2:21] Speaker 1: there's a lot of games that have come out this year.
[2:23] Speaker 1: We've covered a lot of the big ones so far,
[2:25] Speaker 1: and we've covered some of the you know, the smaller
[2:27] Speaker 1: hits like Cairn. You know, I've talked about Mina a lot,
[2:31] Speaker 1: but there's plenty of other games that we play that
[2:34] Speaker 1: we might not you know, have talked about in like
[2:40] Speaker 1: either on here, or maybe we talked about it on
[2:43] Speaker 1: here early and didn't get a chance to go back
[2:46] Speaker 1: to it and talk about it and why we loved
[2:48] Speaker 1: it so much. So yeah, this episode's going to be
[2:51] Speaker 1: about the unmissible small games of twenty twenty six, which
[2:54] Speaker 1: we're going to get into in just a second. I
[2:57] Speaker 1: do want to say thank you. If you are a
[2:59] Speaker 1: magazine subscriber, a podcast listener, you watch our YouTube videos.
[3:03] Speaker 1: If you're here, we just want to say thank you,
[3:06] Speaker 1: and we we can't do it without you. If you're
[3:08] Speaker 1: if you're new around here, please click that like button
[3:11] Speaker 1: and subscribe. If you're listening on podcasts, share the show
[3:14] Speaker 1: with a friend. We'd really appreciate that. Okay, So Michael
[3:18] Speaker 1: wrote in on our discord when Marcus put out a
[3:21] Speaker 1: call for listener questions, Marcus said, what are your unmissable
[3:25] Speaker 1: indie games so far this year? I've got two months
[3:28] Speaker 1: with nothing to play, and I want to catch up
[3:31] Speaker 1: on some non Triple A titles from this year. Also,
[3:34] Speaker 1: I do genuinely want some pirate book recommendations from Wes
[3:38] Speaker 1: whenever he's next on, So I will I'll put that.
[3:42] Speaker 1: We'll come back to that that second part Wes about
[3:46] Speaker 1: the Pirate books during the listening I got I got
[3:48] Speaker 1: a segment that'll be at the end of the show.
[3:52] Speaker 1: But yeah, guys, let's get into I think you know
[3:56] Speaker 1: non Triple A. I think I think we just say
[3:58] Speaker 1: small games, you know, small teams, small games. What are
[4:02] Speaker 1: the unmissible ones? I want to go through first what
[4:04] Speaker 1: we've played, and then get into maybe some of the
[4:08] Speaker 1: ones we're looking forward to, which is more of the
[4:10] Speaker 1: spirit of the magazine article I mentioned. So Marcus, can
[4:15] Speaker 1: I toss it to you first and you run us
[4:18] Speaker 1: through some of your picks?
[4:21] Speaker 3: Uh? Most recently, I will shout out the incident of
[4:25] Speaker 3: gal The incident at Galley House game I spoke about
[4:29] Speaker 3: a couple of weeks ago. I have since published my
[4:31] Speaker 3: full review. This is a narrative puzzle game by William
[4:35] Speaker 3: Rouse as well as Evil Trout, who the latter of
[4:38] Speaker 3: which was responsible for the Root Trees are Dead which
[4:40] Speaker 3: is one of my favorite games of twenty twenty five.
[4:43] Speaker 3: This is very much in the same vein of like
[4:45] Speaker 3: Root Trees or something like a Return to Overden Return
[4:48] Speaker 3: of the Overden, where you are investigating a decades long
[4:53] Speaker 3: cold case of a series of deaths at a house.
[4:56] Speaker 3: It's got a really inventive kind of like puzzle solving
[4:58] Speaker 3: system where you're sort of like creating scenes, trying to
[5:02] Speaker 3: figure out where people were at what time and in
[5:04] Speaker 3: what room of this house and sort of like basically
[5:08] Speaker 3: constructing the events leading up to the demises of these
[5:12] Speaker 3: like eleven or twelve people. But it's really really good.
[5:15] Speaker 3: It's a great sort of like time sync, because once
[5:19] Speaker 3: you get on a roll of like finding clues and
[5:21] Speaker 3: realizing how to search for new scenes that sort of
[5:24] Speaker 3: like piece together more and more of this really good mystery,
[5:26] Speaker 3: it really just like consumes. It just consumed you.
[5:31] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[5:31] Speaker 3: So, yeah, like much in the way that Root Trees
[5:33] Speaker 3: did last year. I think it's awesome and people should
[5:36] Speaker 3: go out and play it.
[5:37] Speaker 1: Is Yeah, you're a big fan of these kind of games.
[5:40] Speaker 3: Is it is it scary? Not scary? It is like eerie,
[5:45] Speaker 3: Like it's got like an eerie vibe to it, and
[5:48] Speaker 3: there's like I was actually talking to Charles about this,
[5:50] Speaker 3: who also finished this game and liked it, but he
[5:53] Speaker 3: was kind of expressing sort of like, oh, there's a
[5:55] Speaker 3: couple of moments that really kind of basically like raise
[5:58] Speaker 3: my hairs of just like whoa. Okay, but I wouldn't
[6:01] Speaker 3: say it's like explicit. It's scary in the way and
[6:05] Speaker 3: maybe to a lesser degree that immortality was okay, Okay,
[6:09] Speaker 3: that's fair. Yeah, like maybe a rung below that.
[6:14] Speaker 2: Okay, I can play it. Then I used to get
[6:16] Speaker 2: nightmares from like the local news and my grandparents. So
[6:19] Speaker 2: like anything with crime or murders or anything, I just don't.
[6:22] Speaker 2: I just am like it needs to be like so
[6:24] Speaker 2: far fetched that like demons or ghosts or something that
[6:28] Speaker 2: I'm like, that's not gonna happen. But whenever it's just.
[6:32] Speaker 1: Yeah, true, I can handle every day murder. It's the
[6:35] Speaker 1: supernatural that that scares me.
[6:38] Speaker 3: Yeah, whenever you hear about a murder on the news,
[6:40] Speaker 3: you just sort of yawned, Alex.
[6:41] Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm like, oh that's old hat.
[6:44] Speaker 3: Another one.
[6:47] Speaker 1: They gotta get on that, Okay. So incident at the
[6:53] Speaker 1: Galley House Wes do you have one that's jump at you.
[6:59] Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna go with a game that I recently
[7:01] Speaker 2: beat called as Send to Zero. Not quite indy, but
[7:05] Speaker 2: it's definitely got an indie feel because it's published by
[7:08] Speaker 2: kraft On, which is a very large South Korean game
[7:11] Speaker 2: developer corporation. So definitely not indy, but when you play it,
[7:14] Speaker 2: you'll understand why I'm including it here on this little
[7:17] Speaker 2: small games list. It is a game where you're trying
[7:21] Speaker 2: to you're going back in time to save the world
[7:24] Speaker 2: from ending, and you only have at first thirty seconds
[7:28] Speaker 2: to do it. And it's a roguelike, so you need
[7:30] Speaker 2: to get from the beginning stage to the very final
[7:33] Speaker 2: boss and defeating all the bosses in between and thirty seconds.
[7:36] Speaker 2: Of course, you have all kinds of power ups and
[7:40] Speaker 2: abilities to unlock that eventually extend how much time you have,
[7:43] Speaker 2: extend how much damage you can do. But it is
[7:46] Speaker 2: a really fascinating twist on the progression, the extreme progression
[7:53] Speaker 2: that I think games like Vampire Survivors have. It has
[7:56] Speaker 2: that kind of Survivors like feel to it, where just
[8:00] Speaker 2: numbers go up and the screen goes crazy and you're
[8:02] Speaker 2: just looking at chaos and it's cool. I remember beating
[8:06] Speaker 2: this and I'm like, how on earth am I ever
[8:08] Speaker 2: going to get through this run in thirty seconds? And
[8:11] Speaker 2: then it turns out it's not just thirty seconds, but
[8:15] Speaker 2: you're defeating enemies in the beginning like instantly, and those
[8:19] Speaker 2: enemies used to take me ten seconds at one point,
[8:22] Speaker 2: and it's just a really like.
[8:23] Speaker 3: Is this all combat? There's no like I was thinking
[8:26] Speaker 3: like if it would be something like did you ever
[8:27] Speaker 3: play a minute the game called minute, where you have
[8:29] Speaker 3: like I did, yes, one minute to finish the game,
[8:32] Speaker 3: but it was a little more like puzzly adventury.
[8:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, I know this is this is exclusive combat, but
[8:37] Speaker 2: it is. It does have that something I really like
[8:40] Speaker 2: in combat is when the combat itself feels like a
[8:42] Speaker 2: puzzle where it's like, there's an optimal way to defeat
[8:45] Speaker 2: XYZ enemies so that you can get to the room faster.
[8:48] Speaker 2: So it does have that feel where you're kind of
[8:50] Speaker 2: analyzing a combat arena as a puzzle, but ultimately it's
[8:54] Speaker 2: just about like making numbers go up and just bashing
[8:58] Speaker 2: your way through rooms. Like the first stage took me
[9:02] Speaker 2: hours to get through, like finally reach the next stage
[9:07] Speaker 2: and then now When I play the game, I'm through
[9:09] Speaker 2: that first stage in like probably forty seconds. Like I'm
[9:12] Speaker 2: just I'm so powerful now that I can blitz right
[9:15] Speaker 2: through it, pick up the rewards, and head on to
[9:16] Speaker 2: the next stage. It's just a really fascinating mix of
[9:21] Speaker 2: survivors like gameplay, although you are like still moving around
[9:25] Speaker 2: in this three D space and roguelike progression, and it's
[9:28] Speaker 2: perfect for like a handhoult I've played exclusively on handheld.
[9:33] Speaker 1: Oh cool, my first pick is going to be a
[9:36] Speaker 1: super battle golf. Are you guys familiar with this one?
[9:40] Speaker 3: I've heard the name, I don't think I've really seen
[9:42] Speaker 3: too much of it.
[9:43] Speaker 1: So it's a multiplayer golf game. Like you're walking around
[9:47] Speaker 1: in three D space, like think about like a very style,
[9:50] Speaker 1: think about like the the art style of like Peak,
[9:52] Speaker 1: like the color palette of like Peak from last year,
[9:55] Speaker 1: with like like a very stylized and cartoony shape. But
[10:01] Speaker 1: you're running around. Yeah, you're running around the golf course
[10:04] Speaker 1: sort of in in three D space, controlling your golfer,
[10:08] Speaker 1: and essentially in the modes that I play, you're like
[10:12] Speaker 1: rushing to see who can get to the hole and
[10:16] Speaker 1: not in the hole. In one but to like finish
[10:18] Speaker 1: the course fastest and then under par on par whatever.
[10:23] Speaker 1: So typical golf rules. If you get a hole in one,
[10:26] Speaker 1: you're getting a bunch of points, right. However, if you
[10:30] Speaker 1: you know, you're three over par, you're gonna be like
[10:33] Speaker 1: ranked last. But it's really fun because there's like all
[10:35] Speaker 1: sorts of power ups, almost like Mario Kart style spread
[10:41] Speaker 1: throughout this course that you're running through. You can you
[10:43] Speaker 1: can get access to golf carts and like run people over.
[10:47] Speaker 1: You can get guns and like snipe people from you know,
[10:50] Speaker 1: across the map. It's it's it's very chaotic, but it's
[10:54] Speaker 1: a ton of fun. It's the developer's Brimstone. It's published
[10:58] Speaker 1: by Orro Interactive. But this has been one that has
[11:03] Speaker 1: just been like when I want to kind of you know,
[11:07] Speaker 1: burn off some some some time of my evening and
[11:10] Speaker 1: I just want to want to play with some friends. Uh.
[11:13] Speaker 1: It's really fun. It's really really polished as well. And
[11:18] Speaker 1: importantly I think for this list, you can jump in
[11:21] Speaker 1: and play around and probably twenty minutes smacks that if
[11:26] Speaker 1: you want to do like you can kind of customize
[11:28] Speaker 1: how many holes you want to do. So I really
[11:31] Speaker 1: really like it again. It's super Battle Golf. It's probably
[11:34] Speaker 1: on my top ten list right now out of what
[11:36] Speaker 1: I've played this year, granted or time.
[11:42] Speaker 2: Okay, okay, that's cool.
[11:43] Speaker 1: So it's like, yeah, it's a real time, very frantic. Yeah,
[11:47] Speaker 1: it reminds me of like, you know, Mario Golf, Like
[11:49] Speaker 1: they're the most recent one had like the Battle Golf
[11:52] Speaker 1: or I think was it Aces or Fever they had
[11:55] Speaker 1: like a Battle Golf kind of. I guess that those
[11:58] Speaker 1: are both tennis games. Sorry, but the kind of the
[12:01] Speaker 1: point stands like a lot of those games have like
[12:03] Speaker 1: those zany modes where like it's just chaos. That's kind
[12:07] Speaker 1: of what this game is as well. But I think
[12:09] Speaker 1: it kind of takes it to the next level in
[12:12] Speaker 1: a really fun way. But yeah, Marcus, what's your what's
[12:15] Speaker 1: your next one?
[12:17] Speaker 3: My next one is Titanium Court, which is by ap Thompson, who, uh,
[12:25] Speaker 3: the last game they worked on was Consumed Me from
[12:28] Speaker 3: last year, which is a collaboration with Oh my Goodness
[12:32] Speaker 3: forgot there, the woman they were with on that game,
[12:36] Speaker 3: but doesn't say that ap Thompson is kind of a
[12:38] Speaker 3: Titanium Court is like a solo project by EP and
[12:42] Speaker 3: it's what I love about it is basically a combination
[12:45] Speaker 3: of like a match three kind of game combined with
[12:49] Speaker 3: a bit of like tower defense slash like city building
[12:55] Speaker 3: sort of where like you're you're like this almost like
[13:00] Speaker 3: into this weird kingdom that is like a medieval camdom,
[13:04] Speaker 3: but also everyone there is really weird. It's like a
[13:06] Speaker 3: really just bizarre game, and you're kind of tasked with
[13:09] Speaker 3: sort of protecting everyone. So the first stage of the game,
[13:13] Speaker 3: you're playing this match three style game where you're sliding
[13:15] Speaker 3: tiles and each tile is like a different sort of
[13:18] Speaker 3: resource of like forests and wood and castles, and depending
[13:22] Speaker 3: on what you match, it sort of feeds into like
[13:24] Speaker 3: an inventory that you're sort of accumulating, and then once
[13:28] Speaker 3: that portion's over, you get into like the sort of
[13:31] Speaker 3: like explorations last defense. And by exploration, I mean you
[13:35] Speaker 3: get a bunch of soldiers that you can send out
[13:37] Speaker 3: into a field, and then they can either some of
[13:39] Speaker 3: them can be sent to gather crops, and then others
[13:42] Speaker 3: can be sent to either attack enemy castles or defend them,
[13:47] Speaker 3: and sort of like the way they play out it
[13:50] Speaker 3: depends on how the board shapes up at the end
[13:54] Speaker 3: of the match three part, because the match three part
[13:57] Speaker 3: also kind of serves as the battlefield for the second part,
[14:00] Speaker 3: depending on how you arrange things of like, oh, I
[14:01] Speaker 3: was sliding things in such a way to where there's
[14:03] Speaker 3: an enemy castle right next to our home castle. So
[14:05] Speaker 3: now that means we have to defend it. So you
[14:07] Speaker 3: kind of have to have like you have to be
[14:09] Speaker 3: extra thoughtful of like, oh, I want to match these,
[14:11] Speaker 3: but do I want to match these if it means
[14:13] Speaker 3: this sort of like tile ends up really close over here,
[14:16] Speaker 3: do I want that? So you're always kind of wing
[14:18] Speaker 3: those decisions. But it reminds me a lot of I'm
[14:21] Speaker 3: a huge fan of eighty eight games. Is mobile games
[14:23] Speaker 3: like a ten million and you must build a boat?
[14:26] Speaker 1: Ye adore those.
[14:27] Speaker 3: Games, and so this kind of scratches some of that
[14:32] Speaker 3: itch because it's been so long since that we've gotten
[14:35] Speaker 3: a game from them. So that's kind of why I'm jelly,
[14:37] Speaker 3: like I haven't beaten it. It's become one. It's games
[14:40] Speaker 3: where I fire up and do like a couple of
[14:42] Speaker 3: rounds every now and then I'm just like in between
[14:45] Speaker 3: a bigger thing. But it's like I'm always.
[14:47] Speaker 1: Is it easy to kind of keep up with what's
[14:49] Speaker 1: happening in the game, even though you're doing that.
[14:53] Speaker 3: Yeah, at least for me, like, I think maybe the
[14:56] Speaker 3: the part that's a little more complicated is probably the
[14:59] Speaker 3: second sting where you're just kind of sending soldiers out
[15:01] Speaker 3: and doing the like non match three stuff. But even that,
[15:04] Speaker 3: at least from what I've played, isn't like crazy complicated.
[15:08] Speaker 3: But the two sort of like formats bleed into each
[15:12] Speaker 3: other in a really interesting way. And yeah, it's and
[15:16] Speaker 3: it's also just like I mentioned before, it's just weird,
[15:19] Speaker 3: Like there's some funny writing. The characters were all just
[15:21] Speaker 3: like just weird, bizarre, just just weirdo's basically, So it's
[15:26] Speaker 3: got a fun vibe to it on top of the
[15:29] Speaker 3: actual gameplay being pretty fun.
[15:31] Speaker 2: I got a lot of like early I mean early
[15:33] Speaker 2: game of the year praise. Is kind of a silly
[15:35] Speaker 2: thing to say, but I remember when this came out
[15:37] Speaker 2: because it was like near the top of twenty twenty
[15:39] Speaker 2: six if I recall correctly, and people were really stoked
[15:43] Speaker 2: about it, like within you know games media circles.
[15:47] Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember the demo hit and people really latched
[15:50] Speaker 1: onto it. And then I think it was in like
[15:54] Speaker 1: one of the early Steam Next fests this year, it
[15:56] Speaker 1: kind of was in there and got a lot of attention.
[16:00] Speaker 1: What's your next pick?
[16:02] Speaker 2: My next game is another roguelike. So if this question
[16:05] Speaker 2: was for somebody who does not like roguel likes, I'm sorry,
[16:08] Speaker 2: but it's.
[16:08] Speaker 3: Called Rid.
[16:11] Speaker 2: The Grid is a game Into the Grid by Flatline Studios.
[16:16] Speaker 2: They're also publishing it. I've been following this game for
[16:18] Speaker 2: a while. I think it was an esteem Next Best
[16:21] Speaker 2: in twenty three or twenty four. I'll say it's not
[16:26] Speaker 2: like the most special incredible game, but it is a
[16:30] Speaker 2: very very good cyberpunk roguelike deck builder. I don't think
[16:35] Speaker 2: it's necessarily doing anything like unique that makes it like
[16:38] Speaker 2: a put this over other deck builders you might have
[16:41] Speaker 2: in your rotation, but there are so many deck builders
[16:44] Speaker 2: out there that for me, something like it being a
[16:47] Speaker 2: really cool cyberpunk setting with a cool protagonist and like
[16:51] Speaker 2: fun cyberpunk music, that's like a good hook for me
[16:54] Speaker 2: to get into this deck builder versus the other countless
[16:56] Speaker 2: ones out there. And I think Into the Grid is
[16:59] Speaker 2: just like a really strong melding of what makes roguelike
[17:04] Speaker 2: deck building so fun and some type of a genre
[17:08] Speaker 2: that you can obsess over. It's it really is. It's
[17:11] Speaker 2: just simply put, it is just like a one more
[17:13] Speaker 2: run type of game. And if you like cyberpunk, I'm
[17:17] Speaker 2: a big fan of Neon and lights and I just
[17:20] Speaker 2: like the cyberpunk genre. Into the Grid is the best
[17:24] Speaker 2: deck builder that plays with that kind of setting. Also
[17:29] Speaker 2: really great on handheld as well. I'm realizing now I'm
[17:31] Speaker 2: just giving my handheld recommendations as well. But Steam deck
[17:34] Speaker 2: or like a rog ally it's perfect for that.
[17:37] Speaker 3: Is it on switch?
[17:38] Speaker 2: No, it's not on switch because it's in early access,
[17:40] Speaker 2: but I think they have plans to bring it to
[17:42] Speaker 2: consoles and stuff. Yeah, I guess I should preference and
[17:45] Speaker 2: say it is early access. I wouldn't really be able
[17:48] Speaker 2: to tell that it is. I mean, they're working on it,
[17:52] Speaker 2: they're adding more to it, but like it's a completely
[17:54] Speaker 2: playable game right now, and one that I.
[17:59] Speaker 1: Cool. I guess my next one is probably I think
[18:05] Speaker 1: I feel like it's gotten some buzz with like min
[18:09] Speaker 1: Max and that kind of cruise of you. If you
[18:11] Speaker 1: listen to that podcast you might have heard of it.
[18:13] Speaker 1: It's called Motor Slice. Are you guys familiar with this one?
[18:16] Speaker 1: I think I've talked about it maybe maybe on the
[18:19] Speaker 1: podcast one time this year. It is Okay, you play
[18:26] Speaker 1: a a woman and she her she has the ORB
[18:34] Speaker 1: that also acts as like the diegetic camera in the game.
[18:37] Speaker 1: It's it's kind of weird. You play as her camera essentially,
[18:41] Speaker 1: but it's like this ORB who like follows her around
[18:44] Speaker 1: and they are You kind of start at the bottom
[18:47] Speaker 1: of this massive like megastructure and it's like you don't
[18:51] Speaker 1: really know what this facility is for, but it's almost
[18:55] Speaker 1: reminiscent of like like some echo or like just games
[19:00] Speaker 1: that have like these massive sort of structures that you
[19:04] Speaker 1: can see the whole of at once, but you don't
[19:06] Speaker 1: really know how you're going to get to the top.
[19:10] Speaker 1: And you have a chainsaw that you use to like
[19:17] Speaker 1: wall grind like run across walls. You have a wall run.
[19:21] Speaker 1: It's like a very parkore focused game, so you're jumping, running, sprinting,
[19:27] Speaker 1: taking leaps off of buildings, kind of doing wall to
[19:31] Speaker 1: wall while trying not to get sliced up by like
[19:33] Speaker 1: big the big kind of hazards in the game, and
[19:38] Speaker 1: the enemies are are sort of like construction adjacent, so
[19:44] Speaker 1: like there'll be big grinders and gears and the enemies
[19:48] Speaker 1: that show up are like little mini like you know,
[19:51] Speaker 1: the big cats, like those you know, construction truck things. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
[19:59] Speaker 1: talk just like evil talka trucks basically, yeah, and you're
[20:02] Speaker 1: chopping off did.
[20:05] Speaker 3: Well, he said, thought he made conceptually like a big cat,
[20:09] Speaker 3: like a lion or a leopard.
[20:11] Speaker 2: So when he sees one, he's like, that's really big cat.
[20:14] Speaker 3: That's what you call those cats. They're called the big cats.
[20:17] Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm pretty sure they're called big cats, like you know,
[20:22] Speaker 1: but yeah, let's say talka trucks.
[20:24] Speaker 3: That's also the name of the kit cat. That's just
[20:26] Speaker 3: the single giant kit cat.
[20:27] Speaker 2: That's true.
[20:28] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
[20:29] Speaker 1: I love the idea of Marcus like walking along a
[20:31] Speaker 1: street in public and like, uh walking by a construction
[20:34] Speaker 1: site and uh pointing to like the big bulldozer, like
[20:38] Speaker 1: a big talka truck quick there. Yeah.
[20:44] Speaker 4: Uh.
[20:44] Speaker 1: But I would say, like, so far for me, I'm
[20:47] Speaker 1: probably I actually don't know how far in the game.
[20:49] Speaker 1: I am several hours though, but the focus is much
[20:53] Speaker 1: more on like movement and exploration.
[20:56] Speaker 3: Than it is good the platform feel good.
[20:59] Speaker 1: I think, so yeah, there there are sometimes where I think,
[21:05] Speaker 1: like this game is like really high up on my list.
[21:08] Speaker 1: It's very like experimental in a lot of ways. It's like, oh,
[21:13] Speaker 1: this is like this feels like a game that like
[21:18] Speaker 1: I don't know, it's it's kind of the the vibe
[21:21] Speaker 1: is unlike anything I've played this year in terms of
[21:24] Speaker 1: like the setting and all that. There is a little
[21:27] Speaker 1: weirdness with like the orb camera that you are like
[21:31] Speaker 1: you're playing as the camera in the game, but during
[21:35] Speaker 1: cut scenes it will like go to a separate camera
[21:40] Speaker 1: and you can kind of see yourself in like talking
[21:43] Speaker 1: to her, and there's like an underlying like sexual tone
[21:49] Speaker 1: I think between the camera and he's like kind of
[21:52] Speaker 1: obsessed with the girl he's following around.
[21:54] Speaker 3: I would say, does the camera talk, like is there
[21:56] Speaker 3: a person?
[21:57] Speaker 1: In cut scenes? It's like tech you know, it's like
[21:59] Speaker 1: text dialogue, but there is like an option at one
[22:02] Speaker 1: point where like I forget what they're talking about, but
[22:05] Speaker 1: it's after like a pretty lengthy section and he just
[22:08] Speaker 1: like says like good girl, and I was like, WHOA, Okay,
[22:13] Speaker 1: what the hell.
[22:14] Speaker 3: Can you say that? His tone like is it like
[22:15] Speaker 3: a seductive like good girl?
[22:17] Speaker 1: It's it's not voiced, so it's just oh text.
[22:23] Speaker 4: If I had the voice it to be good girl,
[22:26] Speaker 4: like kind of like a dork good girl. Yeah, it's
[22:32] Speaker 4: kind of like I haven't honestly, I haven't played the
[22:34] Speaker 4: game since that happened because I was like.
[22:36] Speaker 3: What it kind of looks like because I'm looking at
[22:38] Speaker 3: the trailer. He kind of has like almost like a
[22:40] Speaker 3: weekly kind of yeah so maybe voice and it sounds
[22:44] Speaker 3: less creepy and more endearing.
[22:46] Speaker 1: But also some of the camera angles and stuff like
[22:50] Speaker 1: it feels like they're definitely like, I don't know, a little.
[22:55] Speaker 2: Near on it, near automaton on it.
[22:57] Speaker 3: It actually reminds me a lot, especially her design, like
[23:00] Speaker 3: her between her design and a kind of desert environments,
[23:02] Speaker 3: it reminds me of Recoor.
[23:04] Speaker 1: A little bit. Yeah, sure, yeah, she looks.
[23:06] Speaker 3: Like the protagonist from Recor a little bit, Everyone's favorite,
[23:09] Speaker 3: a game that we always talk about, Yeah, which also
[23:13] Speaker 3: dealt with machines a lot. Yeah, and it also orbs
[23:16] Speaker 3: funny enough.
[23:17] Speaker 1: Yeah, The vibes are just occasionally like huh are they
[23:22] Speaker 1: intending to do that? Like is this is the intended
[23:25] Speaker 1: effect of like this dialogue? And like also some of
[23:28] Speaker 1: the camera shots, I'm like, huh, okay, I'm gonna like
[23:32] Speaker 1: I don't know it's it's an interesting game, though I
[23:36] Speaker 1: don't think it does anything like I don't think it
[23:38] Speaker 1: ever has become gross or anything so far that I've seen,
[23:42] Speaker 1: But it's definitely like like if anything, it's like, oh,
[23:45] Speaker 1: this is like a weird relationshipship between a camera and
[23:48] Speaker 1: a protagonist. Like maybe I don't know, maybe there's something
[23:52] Speaker 1: there that they're exploring.
[23:53] Speaker 3: Listen, she's an adult. I assume she can what she wants.
[23:57] Speaker 1: Yeah, but still like I don't know, I don't know
[24:01] Speaker 1: that she has. It seems like they've been together for
[24:04] Speaker 1: a long time, like they have a relationship, but he
[24:07] Speaker 1: is always the one kind of being the creep and.
[24:12] Speaker 3: From her.
[24:13] Speaker 1: But also it's written in a way that it feels
[24:16] Speaker 1: like this is just kind of like their dynamic. I
[24:19] Speaker 1: don't know, it's it's I say that to just let
[24:22] Speaker 1: people know there is like some vibes of that. If
[24:26] Speaker 1: that's not like a roadblock for you, I would say, Uh,
[24:29] Speaker 1: the gameplay and such and like exploring and climbing, it's
[24:33] Speaker 1: really cool.
[24:35] Speaker 3: Maybe it's like a transitionor situation where like it's like
[24:38] Speaker 3: the orb has like the soul of her life, dead
[24:41] Speaker 3: boyfriend or something.
[24:42] Speaker 1: Maybe maybe I haven't maybe it hasn't you know, been
[24:45] Speaker 1: revealed to me yet, but we can move on to
[24:48] Speaker 1: the next game. Marcus, do you got another one for us?
[24:52] Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean this is uh my, this probably falls
[24:55] Speaker 3: back into category of things we've we've covered, but I
[24:59] Speaker 3: would just quickly say, mean to the hollower, it's one
[25:01] Speaker 3: of my favorite games of the year so far. You know,
[25:04] Speaker 3: I won't spend too much time on it because you know,
[25:06] Speaker 3: we've talked about it a lot, but it's really good
[25:07] Speaker 3: if you like like game Boy era Zelda basically with
[25:12] Speaker 3: a bit of you know, it's I don't know why
[25:14] Speaker 3: I didn't make this comparison with the Hollowing, but since
[25:17] Speaker 3: I've been playing Splatoon Raiders, it dawned on me of like, oh,
[25:20] Speaker 3: you're just splatoon diving everywhere, like not even just like Hollowing.
[25:24] Speaker 3: It's literally just like, this is the first game I've
[25:26] Speaker 3: played that has just maybe unknowingly, just borrowed the Splatoon
[25:31] Speaker 3: traversal and kind of made it their own, which is
[25:34] Speaker 3: great because playing Splatoon Raiders right now, it's like a
[25:36] Speaker 3: reminder of like, this is one of the most fun
[25:38] Speaker 3: mechanics and video games. How can more people just haven't
[25:40] Speaker 3: taken this and then being like, oh wait, Yacht Club
[25:43] Speaker 3: kind of did with Mina because it is fun to
[25:46] Speaker 3: just swim around in the dirt, especially when you attach
[25:48] Speaker 3: some upgrades that you do it longer at like effects
[25:51] Speaker 3: to your Halloween and stuff. But like, I haven't finished
[25:55] Speaker 3: it yet because I've just been kind of like distracted
[25:58] Speaker 3: with other games. But I'm like over halfway through it
[26:00] Speaker 3: and I've got like a lot of trinkets and abilities.
[26:03] Speaker 3: Now it's I'm having a fun time. But I like
[26:07] Speaker 3: kind of like solving the giant puzzle box that is
[26:09] Speaker 3: that world.
[26:11] Speaker 1: Yeah, I I don't want to, Oh, I guess I
[26:13] Speaker 1: do want to blow up Wesley's spot. Wes, you don't
[26:15] Speaker 1: you didn't like me, no, the.
[26:17] Speaker 3: Hollower, Yeah, and by association you don't like me either.
[26:21] Speaker 2: Yeah, well yeah, No, I hate me to the Hollower.
[26:23] Speaker 2: I hate Marcus. That's it.
[26:28] Speaker 3: No, I know, and I will not elaborate.
[26:31] Speaker 2: Hate is a strong word. I don't hate me to
[26:33] Speaker 2: the Hollower. I think it's a well made game. I
[26:35] Speaker 2: just think that it is like the most annoying game
[26:39] Speaker 2: I've played in maybe my adult life.
[26:42] Speaker 3: I like, that's crazy. I know.
[26:46] Speaker 2: Yeah, I've given I gave A four this year on
[26:48] Speaker 2: a game.
[26:49] Speaker 1: Which got brought up in an interview I did, by
[26:51] Speaker 1: the way, with the CEO.
[26:54] Speaker 2: I would love to hear.
[26:55] Speaker 1: No, he was a good word about it. Actually he
[26:57] Speaker 1: was a good sport. It's not for everyone, but I
[27:01] Speaker 1: did specifically get brought up.
[27:05] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[27:05] Speaker 2: The thing is, it's like it's it's it's more it's
[27:09] Speaker 2: made more annoying for me because I can tell that,
[27:11] Speaker 2: Like I would really like the core idea of the game,
[27:13] Speaker 2: I just think some of the stuff on top of
[27:15] Speaker 2: it really annoys me. And I don't want to blow
[27:17] Speaker 2: up the game too much because I think it is
[27:19] Speaker 2: a game that a lot of people have liked, so
[27:22] Speaker 2: the person who is asking for recommendations might really enjoy it.
[27:25] Speaker 2: I'm definitely the minority. It's just I don't know if
[27:27] Speaker 2: the two D Sprite work really coalesced into like the
[27:33] Speaker 2: type of precision and like challenge that Mita brings to
[27:39] Speaker 2: the player. Like I was, I constantly felt like despite
[27:42] Speaker 2: how much I thought its systems were well designed and
[27:44] Speaker 2: how great it felt to do those things, I think
[27:48] Speaker 2: like the actual enemy design and the platform and it
[27:51] Speaker 2: wanted me to do just like never came together into
[27:54] Speaker 2: something I experienced and by the time I finished it,
[27:56] Speaker 2: I had just take hate finished it, like I rolled
[27:58] Speaker 2: the credits, like stupid, stupid game. I'm done with you instant,
[28:02] Speaker 2: delete off my switch to But it's Yacht Club, you know,
[28:07] Speaker 2: they make great games, and I do think that they
[28:09] Speaker 2: have a very honestly probably the most admirable I don't
[28:14] Speaker 2: even want to call it accessibility because like it is accessibility,
[28:16] Speaker 2: but it's also just complete tuning of the game to
[28:19] Speaker 2: however you want. I've never seen this many options to
[28:21] Speaker 2: completely shape the game into what you want it to be.
[28:24] Speaker 2: So like, if you're annoyed, or you dislike something, or
[28:27] Speaker 2: you really like something, there is an option and the
[28:29] Speaker 2: accessibility to like tweak to your liking. I think there's
[28:32] Speaker 2: like over one hundred and fifty options that you can tweak.
[28:35] Speaker 2: It's it's super elaborate. It's crazy.
[28:38] Speaker 3: It almost feels like a debug menu.
[28:40] Speaker 2: For yes, actually it is.
[28:42] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, like.
[28:43] Speaker 2: You can change every single aspect of the game that
[28:46] Speaker 2: you can think of. It's you can you can mess
[28:47] Speaker 2: within the settings. It's really cool. Yeah, but yeah, I'm
[28:51] Speaker 2: just a hater.
[28:53] Speaker 1: That's fair. Yeah, is it my go.
[29:01] Speaker 2: My h wes because I yeah, I'm gonna technically cheat
[29:06] Speaker 2: because this game came out like right at the tail
[29:08] Speaker 2: end of twenty twenty five. But I really loved it,
[29:10] Speaker 2: and it just has a it has a switch to Yeah,
[29:13] Speaker 2: he Marcus hates it for sure, and I think it
[29:16] Speaker 2: has a switch to port coming out, and it just
[29:18] Speaker 2: got a really cool retro mode. But this is Total Chaos.
[29:21] Speaker 2: This is one of my favorite horror games I've played
[29:24] Speaker 2: in recent years, outside of uh Ari Requiem because that
[29:27] Speaker 2: game kicks ass. But Total Chaos was originally a Doom
[29:32] Speaker 2: two conversion mod that was then transformed into this single
[29:36] Speaker 2: player survival horror game. I won't spoil too much about
[29:40] Speaker 2: the story, but you go to like an abandoned mining
[29:43] Speaker 2: coastal town and you're kind of losing yourself while also
[29:49] Speaker 2: losing everything that like made life worth living. Oh my god,
[29:54] Speaker 2: this auto played the trailer and it scared the crap
[29:57] Speaker 2: out of me. If you saw the fear of my eyes.
[30:00] Speaker 2: And yeah, it's like a heavy emphasis on crafting. There's
[30:03] Speaker 2: lots of like things to pick up in the environment.
[30:05] Speaker 2: You're constantly creating new tools that you haven't used before.
[30:09] Speaker 2: The enemy design is really cool, and it just has
[30:11] Speaker 2: like that kind of it's hard to describe, but it's
[30:15] Speaker 2: like that, uh, I don't want to say unpolished, but
[30:17] Speaker 2: it has like this rough and tough like survival horror
[30:20] Speaker 2: field that it reminds me of like PS one, PS two,
[30:24] Speaker 2: And I think it's a it's just a really really
[30:26] Speaker 2: fun time and the story kind of like blew Me Away.
[30:29] Speaker 2: I actually did like a whole op ed on the
[30:31] Speaker 2: site that people should read if you like the game.
[30:33] Speaker 2: But yeah, it's one to check out, and I recommend
[30:37] Speaker 2: it because it's a horror game, and I feel like
[30:39] Speaker 2: we don't see small team or too much throughout the year.
[30:42] Speaker 2: I mean we do, but not this style of horror,
[30:45] Speaker 2: this first person survival horror. So check out.
[30:47] Speaker 3: Yeah, I wanted to play this. It came out, like
[30:49] Speaker 3: I said, it came out like tail end twenty twenty five,
[30:51] Speaker 3: which is like, at least for me, a weird time.
[30:53] Speaker 1: Yeah, and I just yeah, I think it was like
[30:55] Speaker 1: after we had to submit our lists at the end
[30:58] Speaker 1: of Yeah.
[31:01] Speaker 3: So yeah, it's been like hearing you talk about it
[31:03] Speaker 3: and also just being a horror fan in general, it's like, Man,
[31:05] Speaker 3: I need to make time and play that. I think
[31:07] Speaker 3: I have it on PlayStation. Yeah, I need to pick
[31:11] Speaker 3: a weekend because it's not like crazy long, right.
[31:13] Speaker 2: No, it's like ten to twelve hours, and they have
[31:15] Speaker 2: added so much stuff. There's like new endings, there's additional
[31:19] Speaker 2: chapters to experience. They just put out a retro mode
[31:21] Speaker 2: which like, uh it makes the graphics look very like
[31:25] Speaker 2: PS one, like a lot more polligonal, which is really
[31:27] Speaker 2: at least really awesome.
[31:29] Speaker 3: Free updates too.
[31:30] Speaker 2: Yeah, these are all free updates and it okay. Even
[31:33] Speaker 2: the retro mode included a new ending. Like every time
[31:36] Speaker 2: he updates the game, the developer he adds like new
[31:39] Speaker 2: chapters to twist and the ending or give you a
[31:41] Speaker 2: new ending to to find, because I think like the
[31:44] Speaker 2: people that play the game is pretty dedicated to it.
[31:46] Speaker 2: So but yeah, it's I really really enjoy the game.
[31:49] Speaker 2: I've got a review on Game and Reformer and uh
[31:52] Speaker 2: an op ed to go with it, so highly recommend nice.
[31:57] Speaker 1: I think my next one is it's there's so many
[32:02] Speaker 1: I'm gonna say one thing. One game I've I've been
[32:06] Speaker 1: sort of toying with here and there, and also it's
[32:10] Speaker 1: nice because it also plays on Mac pretty well. It's
[32:13] Speaker 1: called Para Lives. This is it's an early access, but
[32:18] Speaker 1: it is sort of trying to be like a new
[32:23] Speaker 1: uh sort of like SIMS competitor, right.
[32:27] Speaker 2: Uh.
[32:27] Speaker 1: You at the start of the game, you kind of
[32:30] Speaker 1: roll into town on a train. You're designing your your
[32:34] Speaker 1: first character, and like you get to pick where they
[32:36] Speaker 1: move into uh, and it's, uh, you know, just kind
[32:40] Speaker 1: of a lot of like what you would expect from
[32:43] Speaker 1: the SIMS. So you're like building houses, you're kind of
[32:47] Speaker 1: giving giving your your I forget what they're called in
[32:51] Speaker 1: this game. They're not obviously not called SIMS. They're called
[32:54] Speaker 1: like we'll say people Perry's, Perry's. Is that the real thing?
[33:00] Speaker 3: I don't know, I can look at up parafolks.
[33:02] Speaker 1: Here we go, parafolks.
[33:03] Speaker 2: What it is?
[33:05] Speaker 1: You're kind of giving them personalities, what their social perks are,
[33:09] Speaker 1: you know, if they're talented at something, And it's kind
[33:12] Speaker 1: of like, you know, if you are somebody. I love
[33:15] Speaker 1: games that let me, you know, build a home, you know,
[33:20] Speaker 1: decorate a room, that kind of thing. And so I've
[33:23] Speaker 1: always been a fan of the SIMS for that reason.
[33:26] Speaker 1: And this has like it's it's in early access, but
[33:28] Speaker 1: like they're patching it pretty frequently, like even I saw
[33:32] Speaker 1: in social media I think yesterday they're like, hey, we
[33:35] Speaker 1: know the babies in our game look weird. We're given
[33:39] Speaker 1: them new faces.
[33:41] Speaker 3: Like to be fair, a lot of video game not
[33:43] Speaker 3: even babies, but just children tend to look weird.
[33:46] Speaker 2: Yeah, like Cyberpunk twenty seventy seven that had the adults,
[33:50] Speaker 2: they just made them smaller for the children.
[33:53] Speaker 1: Yes, I think so.
[33:54] Speaker 2: God. Yeah.
[33:56] Speaker 1: But there's also huge community around this game, so there's
[33:59] Speaker 1: like all sorts of great tutorials, Like there's things that
[34:02] Speaker 1: aren't officially supported by uh, you know, the the game,
[34:08] Speaker 1: but people have either found out ways to do it.
[34:11] Speaker 1: There's also I think it's got a big sort of
[34:15] Speaker 1: market on Steam Workshop, so like you can install like
[34:19] Speaker 1: furniture or you know, other sort of like decors that
[34:23] Speaker 1: kind of thing. And I know throughout that they've they've
[34:26] Speaker 1: got like a long list of like here's our roadmap,
[34:29] Speaker 1: like they're going to be bringing like pets and animals
[34:32] Speaker 1: and weather systems and you know all sorts of like
[34:35] Speaker 1: ways like cars and bikes and boats. Pool right now
[34:40] Speaker 1: right now that you can't you don't have a pool.
[34:42] Speaker 1: The community has there's tutorials out there on how to
[34:44] Speaker 1: fake it essentially, but like.
[34:48] Speaker 3: All sorts of scoffy as the Sims.
[34:52] Speaker 1: I tonally so far, maybe not not quite as much. No,
[34:58] Speaker 1: I think it's more based on Again, I have only
[35:02] Speaker 1: put a few hours into it. My guy hasn't been
[35:05] Speaker 1: quite so uh silly as the Sims. It is like
[35:11] Speaker 1: very lighthearted and like chill. But yeah, I haven't quite
[35:16] Speaker 1: gotten that, like, and I think maybe maybe they could
[35:19] Speaker 1: kind of further develop that. But I think it's it
[35:22] Speaker 1: feels a little more grounded to me than maybe the
[35:25] Speaker 1: SIMS is in like it's you know, animations and that
[35:31] Speaker 1: sort of thing.
[35:31] Speaker 3: You know, like people aren't having crazy like overblown reactions
[35:35] Speaker 3: to the.
[35:36] Speaker 1: Yeah, like their heads aren't on fire or that kind
[35:38] Speaker 1: of thing. I haven't seen that yet. I I could
[35:41] Speaker 1: be wrong, but it definitely feels more more I would say,
[35:45] Speaker 1: like grounded in reality.
[35:47] Speaker 3: We got to torture your guy to get them. Yeah, yeah,
[35:49] Speaker 3: we can take the doors out like all the good
[35:53] Speaker 3: SIMS stuff. You know.
[35:54] Speaker 1: My first guy I made was like a hermit music
[35:56] Speaker 1: dude who's just like he actually kind of looks like
[35:59] Speaker 1: Wes if we really let himself go, And he's like
[36:05] Speaker 1: really into music and he doesn't pick up on Social
[36:08] Speaker 1: key as well, and I'm excited to make more different people.
[36:12] Speaker 1: But the building tools are like really intuitive. I've really
[36:16] Speaker 1: kind of enjoyed that part of it. But yeah, if
[36:18] Speaker 1: you're looking for like something, of course SIMS is still
[36:21] Speaker 1: going So if you want to you want to do that, sure,
[36:23] Speaker 1: keep playing the SIMS. But if you're looking for something
[36:25] Speaker 1: that's maybe newer and and coming from a different team,
[36:30] Speaker 1: a little bit of a different take, I think it's
[36:32] Speaker 1: it's worth worth checking out. That's Paara Lives.
[36:36] Speaker 3: Did you try out here? As did you try inzoy
[36:39] Speaker 3: at all?
[36:40] Speaker 1: I didn't. I have thought about downloading there's Enzoy. There's
[36:43] Speaker 1: also I've wanted to check out. One that came out
[36:46] Speaker 1: recently is Go Go Town. There's a few. Yeah, I've
[36:52] Speaker 1: been in the mood lately for like a good like
[36:56] Speaker 1: management games, like whether it's the SIMS or I've been playing.
[37:00] Speaker 1: One of my other recommendations I'll get into is like
[37:02] Speaker 1: a city builder. I've been like in that mood lately,
[37:06] Speaker 1: and yeah, Enzoy I've seen it and I'm like, ah,
[37:09] Speaker 1: I don't know if I if it's necessarily my speed,
[37:13] Speaker 1: But Marcus.
[37:15] Speaker 2: Like enjoy is the hyper realistic one.
[37:18] Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, it's like super nice looking KOREANTIV.
[37:26] Speaker 1: It's Crafton and then yeah, craft published, Yeah, Crafton publishes it.
[37:30] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's also.
[37:33] Speaker 1: In early access. I think it's just like this, the
[37:36] Speaker 1: realism of it, like it didn't I don't know, for
[37:39] Speaker 1: some reason, it kind of like put me off from it.
[37:41] Speaker 1: I think, I uh, I wanted to be a little
[37:44] Speaker 1: more cartoony.
[37:47] Speaker 3: Yeah, funny enough, that's what Go Go Town is. Where
[37:50] Speaker 3: Go Go Town is like the hard opposite of Enjoy,
[37:52] Speaker 3: where it's like incredibly stylized and super cartoony, like everyone
[37:56] Speaker 3: just looks like a playmobile place it looking thing and.
[38:01] Speaker 1: A little It's like I wish it was a little
[38:04] Speaker 1: bit in the other direction, but it's definitely like I
[38:08] Speaker 1: just wanted something like easy going and like relaxing and chill.
[38:12] Speaker 3: Para Life seems to be like that perfect in between
[38:15] Speaker 3: of those.
[38:16] Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, so far. And of course it's it's different
[38:18] Speaker 1: than like than those other games. It's more different from
[38:23] Speaker 1: Go Go Town than it is Enzoy sure aesthetically, yeah exactly, Marcus,
[38:29] Speaker 1: do you have another one to talk about? Hmm, it's
[38:33] Speaker 1: okay if not.
[38:38] Speaker 3: Real quick. The Mermaid Mask.
[38:39] Speaker 1: Oh yes, Okay, I wanted to talk about that. I'm
[38:41] Speaker 1: glad you brought it up.
[38:43] Speaker 3: Yeah, Charles has talked about it before he reviewed the game.
[38:45] Speaker 3: I'll just echo his sentiment. I'm almost done with it.
[38:48] Speaker 3: But I've been really enjoying this game. I I love
[38:51] Speaker 3: Tangle Tower. I actually reviewed Tangle Tower for screen Rant
[38:54] Speaker 3: in Another life, and it was like a pleasant surprise.
[38:57] Speaker 3: This is SFP game. So you might know as the
[39:00] Speaker 3: makers of snipper Clips and crow Country. This is kind
[39:04] Speaker 3: of part of their detective grimoire series that started way
[39:07] Speaker 3: back as a flash game on new Grounds. But yeah,
[39:10] Speaker 3: so this is the sequel to Tangle Tower. It's very
[39:13] Speaker 3: much in the vein of like point and click adventure,
[39:15] Speaker 3: with like a bit of like Phoenix Wright style, sort
[39:19] Speaker 3: of like puzzle solving and like interrogations of this colorful
[39:24] Speaker 3: cast on a submarine where you're trying to find out
[39:27] Speaker 3: who murdered the submarine's captain. So you're interviewing these eclectic personalities.
[39:32] Speaker 3: But I think the story so far is great. I
[39:34] Speaker 3: think the writing and the dialogue's phenomenal. I think the
[39:36] Speaker 3: voice acting is also phenomenal. The character portraits, like I
[39:40] Speaker 3: love the art style of this game, like all the
[39:42] Speaker 3: characters are just like really well animated and just so
[39:46] Speaker 3: expressive to where like, yes, because a lot of this
[39:48] Speaker 3: game is dialogue, like it is just talking to people
[39:51] Speaker 3: and listening to conversations, but it's such a joy to
[39:54] Speaker 3: do so between of how just how lovingly animated everyone
[40:00] Speaker 3: is and just their reactions to things, on top of
[40:03] Speaker 3: just how stellar the voice cast is for every single character.
[40:09] Speaker 3: And yeah, it's it's just fun, Like it's it's my
[40:11] Speaker 3: I have it on switch so it's like my end
[40:14] Speaker 3: of days like either sit down the couch or lay
[40:17] Speaker 3: in bed and just chip away at this thing. But yeah,
[40:21] Speaker 3: it's been of really kind of like within this week
[40:24] Speaker 3: because this game came out the same week as Incident
[40:26] Speaker 3: at Galley House. So it's like for someone that like meat,
[40:28] Speaker 3: that loves these games, this is just like, oh, I'm
[40:30] Speaker 3: eating real good right now. This is great.
[40:33] Speaker 2: Like the genre is like maybe it's just being paid
[40:36] Speaker 2: more attention to now or blowing up. But like last
[40:38] Speaker 2: year had the Root Trees, the Seance of Blake manor
[40:43] Speaker 2: we have Mermaide Mask now Incident at Galleyhouse, Like I
[40:45] Speaker 2: just feel like this genre is exploding or something like
[40:48] Speaker 2: it's everywhere now.
[40:50] Speaker 1: I really I was kind of I heard everyone talking
[40:55] Speaker 1: about how good it was, and I was like, Okay,
[40:57] Speaker 1: I want to try it, but like I was kind
[40:59] Speaker 1: of worried like this it wasn't gonna be my thing,
[41:02] Speaker 1: cause I think like the screenshots and like just seeing
[41:05] Speaker 1: it in like images doesn't really similar with other the
[41:09] Speaker 1: other games that we talked about incident at Galley House.
[41:11] Speaker 1: I imagine like when you look at like a you know,
[41:14] Speaker 1: the Steam page, I feel like I feel like you
[41:16] Speaker 1: really have to like try it yourself and see how
[41:18] Speaker 1: it all connects together. And like, especially like the animation
[41:23] Speaker 1: on this one, like you mentioned, Marcus is really great.
[41:27] Speaker 1: And I was kind of worried, like, oh am, I
[41:29] Speaker 1: gonna is this gonna be my thing? And then it
[41:31] Speaker 1: grabbed me so quickly. I think I was worried about
[41:36] Speaker 1: like everything kind of feeling sort of like, uh, maybe
[41:40] Speaker 1: like on rails or flat. But then I quickly realized
[41:45] Speaker 1: that I was incorrect. And like the ways in which
[41:48] Speaker 1: you like explore the ship and go from you know,
[41:50] Speaker 1: you can go from room to room to figure out
[41:53] Speaker 1: you know, uh, find clues in that kind of thing,
[41:56] Speaker 1: and I think that really kind of gave me because
[42:01] Speaker 1: I haven't played any of these games before the Tangle Tower.
[42:04] Speaker 1: I haven't played Detective Grimoire, but like, very quickly, the
[42:09] Speaker 1: characters are super charming, Like the main two characters I
[42:13] Speaker 1: guess it's Detective Grimoire and Sally. Yeah, they're like the
[42:19] Speaker 1: voice acting is really good, paired with the animation like
[42:23] Speaker 1: feels like it's like right out of a cartoon show.
[42:26] Speaker 1: And then there's also like a cool I really like
[42:29] Speaker 1: when you open up you find like new evidence and stuff.
[42:32] Speaker 1: How it's like a it's a three D eight asset
[42:35] Speaker 1: that's been hand painted, so it kind of good. It
[42:37] Speaker 1: fits with the art style of the game, like the
[42:39] Speaker 1: environments and all that are I believe mostly two D,
[42:43] Speaker 1: but then like you almost get the resident Evil style
[42:46] Speaker 1: like getting to like inspect items and stuff.
[42:49] Speaker 3: Yeah, and it actually matters, like there are like hitting
[42:51] Speaker 3: clues on objects that yeah, you need to turn them
[42:55] Speaker 3: around and spot like really crucial details.
[42:58] Speaker 1: Yeah. It's really very quickly shot up my my like
[43:04] Speaker 1: what I want to be playing right now, And I'm
[43:06] Speaker 1: very early. I think I'm still in the first I
[43:08] Speaker 1: literally started it like a night ago, two nights ago,
[43:13] Speaker 1: so I'm very early. But yeah, Mermaid Masters. Somebody's really solid.
[43:17] Speaker 3: Some of those characters are already like on my list
[43:19] Speaker 3: of like, oh best characters of the year, whether it's
[43:22] Speaker 3: like like like most liked or maybe even like dork
[43:26] Speaker 3: but like endearing in a way. Shout out Symmetry.
[43:30] Speaker 1: She's precious as somebody who's like, you know, I'm not
[43:34] Speaker 1: as I'm not familiar with this series, The Detective Grimoire.
[43:38] Speaker 1: I didn't play Tangle Tower. It almost reminds me like
[43:41] Speaker 1: I feel like I'm I know, I know crow Country obviously,
[43:43] Speaker 1: that was a really well respected and people loved that
[43:48] Speaker 1: as a survival horror game. Yeah, all that I really respect.
[43:53] Speaker 1: They're like all their games are vastly different from each other.
[43:56] Speaker 1: It seems like Snipper Clips, crow Country, this, Murmers. They
[44:02] Speaker 1: remind me of a studio like Double Fine, And I
[44:05] Speaker 1: think that even even as I'm playing The Mermaid Mask
[44:09] Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, this reminds me of like some of
[44:11] Speaker 1: the Double Fine games. I love, you know, but but
[44:15] Speaker 1: without it, it doesn't it feels totally. It's like its
[44:18] Speaker 1: own thing though, you know it's cool.
[44:22] Speaker 2: Marcus, did you do the crow Country feature on them?
[44:25] Speaker 2: That was kind of about the studio's history as well,
[44:27] Speaker 2: or was that somebody else?
[44:29] Speaker 3: Yeah, I so I reviewed co Crow Country, But I
[44:32] Speaker 3: also did a big sort of like feature on SFB
[44:37] Speaker 3: as a studio interview of the two brothers, who are
[44:40] Speaker 3: pretty much the entire studio, Like they do outsource some stuff,
[44:44] Speaker 3: but they're the only two like actual employees. The SFB
[44:49] Speaker 3: game stands for Super Flash Brothers because that's where they
[44:51] Speaker 3: got their start. They were really big on new grounds
[44:54] Speaker 3: back in the stage and they put out a ton
[44:56] Speaker 3: of flash games and their first console game was actually
[44:58] Speaker 3: Snipper Clips for the sway in that story they have,
[45:02] Speaker 3: they have a very fun story that I included in
[45:05] Speaker 3: a feature where they talked about how that happened and
[45:06] Speaker 3: how Nintendo kept it a secret that it would be
[45:09] Speaker 3: a launch title for the Switch and they didn't find
[45:11] Speaker 3: out to like halfway through making it, and how like
[45:15] Speaker 3: exciting and terrifying that is just the pressure of like,
[45:17] Speaker 3: oh my god, we're on a Nintendo council and we're
[45:20] Speaker 3: gonna launch, Like that's crazy, but also man to be
[45:23] Speaker 3: great to note that earlier. Yeah, but I mean, like, yeah,
[45:28] Speaker 3: I think they're of like indie developers that maybe don't
[45:31] Speaker 3: always get their due. I think they would be on
[45:34] Speaker 3: that list of like they don't get talked about very
[45:37] Speaker 3: often in the way that other maybe small teams do,
[45:39] Speaker 3: but I think they like with Mermaid Mask now, I
[45:42] Speaker 3: think they should absolutely be in that conversation for the
[45:44] Speaker 3: reasons you've just mentioned, Alex of there. They have such
[45:48] Speaker 3: incredible range and like, but they seem to like just
[45:51] Speaker 3: hit it every time they put something out.
[45:53] Speaker 1: Yeah. I have since in this conversation, followed them on
[45:58] Speaker 1: Steam so that I'm you know, alerted to when they
[46:00] Speaker 1: put out new games. Because yeah, I mean they're I'm
[46:04] Speaker 1: really impressed by and I'm kind of mad at myself
[46:06] Speaker 1: that I've missed out on their other stuff. Haunt the
[46:09] Speaker 1: House seems really cool. I don't know if you've played
[46:11] Speaker 1: that by them.
[46:12] Speaker 3: No, we talked about Haunt the House in that feature though.
[46:15] Speaker 1: It sounded cool. Yeah.
[46:16] Speaker 3: Yeah, Like there their flash catalog which is extensive, which
[46:19] Speaker 3: I think some of it. I think a lot of
[46:20] Speaker 3: that stuff is still playable, like on your website. I
[46:23] Speaker 3: think they have links to all their flash games. Yeah,
[46:25] Speaker 3: so you can just play them in a browser if
[46:27] Speaker 3: you want to, like really dive into their history, which
[46:29] Speaker 3: is cool.
[46:30] Speaker 1: Yeah, this is This is really cool and a great
[46:33] Speaker 1: pick for this list. I think I was likely going
[46:36] Speaker 1: to sleep on this game, and I just happened. I
[46:38] Speaker 1: got a code through work. People on staff were talking
[46:41] Speaker 1: about it. I was like, all right, let me let
[46:43] Speaker 1: me like boot it up for five minutes and see
[46:44] Speaker 1: what it's about. And I was like instantly hooked. I
[46:46] Speaker 1: was like, oh damn, I almost just missed a really
[46:49] Speaker 1: good game because I was being you know, obtuse essentially.
[46:54] Speaker 1: But yeah, is a great pick. I think we'll be
[46:59] Speaker 1: talking about that one at the end of the year
[47:01] Speaker 1: if i'd have to guess, because I know Eric's also
[47:04] Speaker 1: really into it.
[47:07] Speaker 2: Ile like it, Wes.
[47:07] Speaker 1: Thank he's playing Wes, you got one more?
[47:11] Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually have three more, so I'll just rapid
[47:13] Speaker 2: fire thee real quick. Perfect Vampire Crawlers the Turbo wild
[47:17] Speaker 2: card from Vampire Survivors. It is a dungeon crawler from
[47:21] Speaker 2: a punko who made Vampire Survivors. So basically it is
[47:25] Speaker 2: all the numbers go up fun and screen explosions and
[47:30] Speaker 2: effects and blue bitty blobbody that you expect from the
[47:33] Speaker 2: guy that made Vampire Survivors, but it's in a like
[47:36] Speaker 2: a dungeon Crawler, which is a really cool like first
[47:39] Speaker 2: person throwback that there's not many games out there like it.
[47:42] Speaker 2: Maybe like Ytrian Odyssey I think is maybe holding the
[47:46] Speaker 2: market on that, but it's really cool. I re viewed
[47:49] Speaker 2: it for game before I gave it an eight. It's
[47:50] Speaker 2: a good time. I also want to shout out rat
[47:53] Speaker 2: coin Coin Pusher Road.
[47:55] Speaker 1: Yeah, I really liked that one.
[47:57] Speaker 2: Yeah, in the vein of Bilatro, I would say where
[48:01] Speaker 2: it's kind of this game that feels I don't want
[48:05] Speaker 2: to say mindless, but like very quickly becomes I've used
[48:09] Speaker 2: numbers go up a lot. I guess I just really
[48:10] Speaker 2: like these numbers go up a lot games. But it's
[48:13] Speaker 2: a coin put It's like the coin pusher from the
[48:15] Speaker 2: arcade games that you don't ever touch because they're kind
[48:17] Speaker 2: of rip offs. It's a video no whoa, whoa, whoa.
[48:21] Speaker 1: Don't speak ill on coin pushers. All right, there's one
[48:29] Speaker 1: I would us. I spent like sixty dollars on one
[48:33] Speaker 1: of these on my birthday. My friends just kept bringing
[48:36] Speaker 1: me coins to keep playing.
[48:38] Speaker 3: And how much did you recoup from that?
[48:41] Speaker 1: None? But well, actually I recouped like I recouped like
[48:44] Speaker 1: twenty dollars and reinvested it. But I knew what I
[48:49] Speaker 1: was doing. Uh but bonus hole, that's what they call it,
[48:53] Speaker 1: near us bonus hole. I love it, just like gets
[48:57] Speaker 1: all of the all the the engines are firing up
[49:01] Speaker 1: in the old noggin when when you're.
[49:03] Speaker 2: Push because like maybe it's because I'm in Jacksonville and
[49:06] Speaker 2: it's just a very Jacksonville coded thing, but I swear
[49:09] Speaker 2: to God, like every single coin pusher machine, the reward
[49:12] Speaker 2: is like a monster energy, Like that's what they have.
[49:15] Speaker 2: They have like multiple monster energies to like knock down
[49:19] Speaker 2: and get which.
[49:20] Speaker 1: All the ones I play, it's like nothing but like
[49:23] Speaker 1: ten dollars, bills, quarters dollars like your you're getting I'm
[49:28] Speaker 1: actively getting money back as I play, But then I'm
[49:31] Speaker 1: taking that money and putting back putting it back in
[49:34] Speaker 1: because I'm like, yeah, but I know, I knew what
[49:37] Speaker 1: I was doing. You know it is, yeah, you're throwing
[49:39] Speaker 1: your money away.
[49:40] Speaker 3: But well, if you're a coin pushing makes right coin,
[49:45] Speaker 3: yeah yeah, that's what makes right coin great. You get
[49:47] Speaker 3: the thrill without your money sink.
[49:49] Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And I'm like.
[49:52] Speaker 3: Just got to consoles.
[49:55] Speaker 2: Is it just xbos? I think both okay, see yeah,
[50:00] Speaker 2: actually an email about it coming to Xbox. But if
[50:03] Speaker 2: you don't like the real game because it takes your money,
[50:05] Speaker 2: rack Cooined is about getting lots and lots of money,
[50:07] Speaker 2: and there's it's a video game, so there's fun twist
[50:10] Speaker 2: on the types of coins you use to shoot through
[50:12] Speaker 2: and like different gadgets you can deploy, and like it's
[50:15] Speaker 2: just a very kooky's any game. I think it's a
[50:17] Speaker 2: little more mindless than Bilotro probably, but it's still a
[50:21] Speaker 2: really good time. It's a short burst game. It's perfect
[50:24] Speaker 2: again for playing on a handheld or sitting on the couch.
[50:26] Speaker 2: That's where I play it. It's a really good time.
[50:29] Speaker 2: Highly recommend. And then the last game I want to
[50:30] Speaker 2: shout out is not really an unknown, but I think
[50:33] Speaker 2: it's being slept on, probably because it's still an early
[50:35] Speaker 2: access and it also kind of launched like inter early
[50:38] Speaker 2: access very late last year, which was Moonlighter two the
[50:40] Speaker 2: Endless Vault. Moonlighter is a cool game, but for me,
[50:45] Speaker 2: Moonlighter two, which has completely shifted its art style to
[50:47] Speaker 2: be from this like two D sprite thing to like
[50:49] Speaker 2: this three D almost kind of looks like it's made
[50:51] Speaker 2: of Clay style that works for me a lot more,
[50:55] Speaker 2: and I it's the same type of game. Go out
[50:57] Speaker 2: and adventure, fight, kill monsters, acquire objects that you can
[51:01] Speaker 2: then go and sell in your shop for the other
[51:04] Speaker 2: half of the game, where you're kind of like managing
[51:06] Speaker 2: a shop and trying to get sales and bartered with customers,
[51:08] Speaker 2: and it's just a really fun, solid loop and it's
[51:13] Speaker 2: a really good time. It's still an early access I
[51:14] Speaker 2: don't really know what their one point oh plans are
[51:16] Speaker 2: because there's a lot to it already, but I I've
[51:21] Speaker 2: been enjoying it even as an early access game.
[51:23] Speaker 1: Yeah, I was looking at their most recent because this
[51:26] Speaker 1: is a game I've been really interested in. I really
[51:28] Speaker 1: like the first one. I've been kind of waiting for
[51:30] Speaker 1: the one point oh. But early Access update number six
[51:35] Speaker 1: June thirtieth, current dev status and essentially they are as
[51:41] Speaker 1: a bit closer alunch. It seems like they're nearing nearing
[51:45] Speaker 1: launch soon. Yeah, they've let's see following Day which introduced me. Yeah,
[51:54] Speaker 1: the team is still hardwork preparing even more. Yeah, so
[51:56] Speaker 1: the next step is one point oh release in their roadmap.
[52:00] Speaker 3: So yeah, they already confirmed it's coming to switch to
[52:04] Speaker 3: at launch. That's okay, that's the only console that it's
[52:06] Speaker 3: been confirmed for.
[52:08] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[52:08] Speaker 2: Yeah, the Access talk reminds me I have one more
[52:11] Speaker 2: to shout out. Honestly, it's probably one of my favorite
[52:14] Speaker 2: games I've played this year, which Fire Oh. It's been
[52:17] Speaker 2: really access forever, but it's coming to one point Oh
[52:19] Speaker 2: this year. That is a incredible first person I guess
[52:24] Speaker 2: you could say souls like because it uses the mechanics
[52:27] Speaker 2: of like losing your resources when you dine, all that
[52:29] Speaker 2: kind of stuff. But it's just like this really awesome, dark,
[52:32] Speaker 2: gothic first person shooter that's hard as nails and has
[52:35] Speaker 2: a really good progression loop, and I cannot wait for
[52:38] Speaker 2: the one point oh launch like. It's already one of
[52:40] Speaker 2: my favorite games of the year. We're still in earlys
[52:43] Speaker 2: which for which fire?
[52:44] Speaker 1: Which Fire? Nice?
[52:45] Speaker 2: Yes?
[52:46] Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, that's one that uh GI editor in chief
[52:49] Speaker 3: Matt Miller has also been very very high on because
[52:51] Speaker 3: he's played the early I have the game on Early
[52:54] Speaker 3: Access and I still haven't fired it up. There's a
[52:56] Speaker 3: part of me that's just kind of like, I'll just
[52:58] Speaker 3: wait for the one because it's supposed to be like
[53:00] Speaker 3: in the near future. But yeah, you're me, like, I
[53:05] Speaker 3: should fire it up at least get a run in
[53:06] Speaker 3: just to get a feel for it before it comes out.
[53:08] Speaker 3: Actually busy, but yeah, like the game has looked cool.
[53:12] Speaker 2: It's from the Astronauts as well, by the way, self
[53:15] Speaker 2: published coo cool.
[53:16] Speaker 3: Yeah, this is the Vanishing of Ethan Carter. Yeah team right, Yeah,
[53:20] Speaker 3: oh wow.
[53:21] Speaker 2: I think it's their their first game since that too,
[53:23] Speaker 2: which is yea very different twelve years. Yeah.
[53:29] Speaker 1: Well let's uh, I guess real quick. My Rapid Fire
[53:33] Speaker 1: ones slave this Fire too. I mean, that is just
[53:38] Speaker 1: a game that I continue to go back to Cairn.
[53:42] Speaker 1: I've talked about it on the show a bunch. It's
[53:45] Speaker 1: in my top five this year. Rock climbing or yeah, yeah,
[53:49] Speaker 1: like kind of mountain climbing, really great performances like from
[53:56] Speaker 1: the actors, and just like a unique gameplay system that
[54:01] Speaker 1: I haven't seen in other games in the way that
[54:03] Speaker 1: it's all implemented here. And then Town to City I've
[54:06] Speaker 1: been playing more and it's a city city builder that
[54:10] Speaker 1: came out a few months ago. Uh, and yeah, you're
[54:14] Speaker 1: kind of building Mediterranean towns from the ground up.
[54:17] Speaker 3: It's kind of like a Bauxhil.
[54:19] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a bouxeil, so like three D pixel art
[54:23] Speaker 1: is if you don't know what a bauxhill is. But yeah,
[54:26] Speaker 1: both of those I'm very much enjoying. But I think
[54:32] Speaker 1: with that we can kind of get into the next topic.
[54:36] Speaker 1: I guess. I guess we haven't gone over What's to Come.
[54:39] Speaker 1: We've spent like an hour on the games we really liked.
[54:42] Speaker 1: Maybe we save that What's to Come piece, I mean,
[54:45] Speaker 1: or we could talk about what's kind of a few
[54:47] Speaker 1: of the ones that are in the issue real quick. Yes,
[54:51] Speaker 1: we wrote, yeah, slap out of It is one. Yeah,
[54:56] Speaker 1: that's why I don't know if I wrote this entry,
[54:58] Speaker 1: but I definitely played it. Actually you wrote that one.
[55:02] Speaker 1: I played it at Summer Game Fest. It was probably
[55:04] Speaker 1: my game or the show at Summer Game Fest. Really
[55:07] Speaker 1: enjoyed that.
[55:09] Speaker 3: I'll guess that.
[55:10] Speaker 2: Actually you go ahead, do you want to go Marcus?
[55:12] Speaker 2: And we follow up?
[55:12] Speaker 3: Sure? I mean, that's in there. There's a game called
[55:16] Speaker 3: I never know how to pronounce it, but Melissa's here
[55:18] Speaker 3: about the giant cop that you have to escape from.
[55:20] Speaker 3: That's like watching This Town. I've had my eye on
[55:23] Speaker 3: that game for like years now, just because I think
[55:25] Speaker 3: it's such a fascinating premise, so I'm hopeful, hopefully we'll
[55:29] Speaker 3: get more news on that soon. Usual June is another
[55:32] Speaker 3: one I've been waiting for for a long while. That's
[55:35] Speaker 3: by Finji, who is a developer and publisher. Maybe most
[55:39] Speaker 3: recently might think of them from Tunic Tunic, but yeah,
[55:43] Speaker 3: Usual June's got like kind of like ghost and like
[55:47] Speaker 3: a bit of a like kind of coming of age
[55:49] Speaker 3: sort of story to it that it just it's got
[55:52] Speaker 3: a cool vibe and look to it. And then the
[55:55] Speaker 3: last one I'll shout out real quick is Abyss x zero,
[55:59] Speaker 3: which is the next game by the developer studio Pixel Punk,
[56:02] Speaker 3: who did Unsided, which is the game I reviewed years
[56:05] Speaker 3: ago for GI that I gave a nine too, And
[56:07] Speaker 3: I think that game's awesome and maybe a little bit
[56:10] Speaker 3: of an unsung like game of the twenty twenties. It's
[56:14] Speaker 3: a really good kind of like isometric Zelda esque two
[56:17] Speaker 3: D action game with like a really cool sort of
[56:20] Speaker 3: like time limit aspect. Nice. But I've been waiting to
[56:23] Speaker 3: see what that team would do next, and a besic
[56:25] Speaker 3: zero dave anounced for a while, and I've just kind
[56:27] Speaker 3: of been semi impatiently waiting for a release date for
[56:31] Speaker 3: that thing, but yeah, it looks cool, well cool.
[56:36] Speaker 2: I'll shout out the Floorist, which comes from publisher developer
[56:41] Speaker 2: Unclear Games. This is a throwback Resident Evil style game.
[56:46] Speaker 2: It has most importantly fixed camera and pre rendered backgrounds,
[56:50] Speaker 2: which I still love in twenty twenty six and I
[56:52] Speaker 2: can't wait for it. It's about like horrific flowers and
[56:56] Speaker 2: stuff like that. It looks awesome. Valor Mortis, which is
[56:59] Speaker 2: from developer One More Level. They are the ghost Runner team,
[57:03] Speaker 2: but they're making a first person souls like a set
[57:06] Speaker 2: during the Napoleonic Wars.
[57:09] Speaker 3: I played it at a summer games fest and thought
[57:11] Speaker 3: it was very fun.
[57:12] Speaker 2: Yeah, Valor Mortars rules. And then the last one I'll
[57:14] Speaker 2: shout out is Where to Go. Burn nine is coming
[57:17] Speaker 2: this year. It's being published by Fellow Traveler, which they
[57:21] Speaker 2: have a very excellent taste as a taste maker. They
[57:23] Speaker 2: do Citizen Sleeper and stuff. The developer is fourteen hours production.
[57:28] Speaker 2: Burn nine is metal Gear Solid, but instead of being Snake,
[57:32] Speaker 2: you are the person in the chair. You're like the coms.
[57:35] Speaker 2: You're autoco side yes exactly, and your mission goes wrong.
[57:40] Speaker 2: There's one survivor left and you've got to help them
[57:42] Speaker 2: survive while also like dealing with the politics of what's
[57:45] Speaker 2: happening back at the base. And it just looks like
[57:48] Speaker 2: a really fun twist on metal Gear Solid in a
[57:51] Speaker 2: industry that has lots of metal Gear Solid likes. Very cool, that's.
[57:55] Speaker 1: Cool, awesome. Uh, Well, we're gonna take a quick break
[58:00] Speaker 1: and come back before we Before we get out of here,
[58:02] Speaker 1: we'll dive into Scarlet Deer in, a game that Marcus
[58:05] Speaker 1: has been playing, and then a puzzle game Helix Descent
[58:10] Speaker 1: and Ascent. I've been playing some books, yes, and then
[58:14] Speaker 1: we'll get into listener questions. We'll be right back right
[58:17] Speaker 1: after this, and welcome back to the Game Informer show, Marcus.
[58:22] Speaker 1: I would love to hear about Scarlet Deer in.
[58:26] Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been waiting on this game for a good while,
[58:28] Speaker 3: ever since I played a Steam Nextfest demo like two
[58:31] Speaker 3: years ago. It is a sort of like two D
[58:36] Speaker 3: adventure game with quite a bit of platforming and even
[58:39] Speaker 3: a little bit of action, that is set in a
[58:42] Speaker 3: medieval small town where you play as this widowed mother
[58:46] Speaker 3: named Elise. The probably biggest selling point of the game
[58:51] Speaker 3: is its art direction, where it's got an embroidery look
[58:56] Speaker 3: to it and like, and I mean that like quite literally,
[59:00] Speaker 3: like the characters were actually animated using actual embroidery. Like
[59:05] Speaker 3: I forgot how they did it. It's been years since
[59:07] Speaker 3: I've watched videos, but pretty much like every frame of
[59:09] Speaker 3: animation is like an like an embroidered figure that they
[59:13] Speaker 3: then just sort of like put splice together to make
[59:16] Speaker 3: animation in the video.
[59:18] Speaker 2: It's like it's like how you would draw for animation.
[59:21] Speaker 2: You would draw each frame they have like embroidered it.
[59:24] Speaker 2: It's it's kind of nuts a lot of work.
[59:28] Speaker 3: So like all the characters are done in that style
[59:30] Speaker 3: and they're all against these kind of these hand painted backgrounds.
[59:35] Speaker 3: But it's got a despite how like whimsical and nice
[59:39] Speaker 3: it is, it's actually a pretty dark game and kind
[59:42] Speaker 3: of the way that a lot of like medieval fairy
[59:45] Speaker 3: tales are Like if you about your old favorite fairy
[59:48] Speaker 3: tales and maybe yeah, the raw versions, you're just like
[59:56] Speaker 3: it's got a bit of that. I I don't want
[59:58] Speaker 3: to say too much about like the twist or whatever.
[1:00:02] Speaker 3: It's not even it's hard to even called it twist
[1:00:04] Speaker 3: because it's like immediately or it's very early in the game.
[1:00:06] Speaker 3: But basically early in the game, your two children go missing,
[1:00:12] Speaker 3: and so you're trying to find them, and along the
[1:00:15] Speaker 3: way you sort of stumple upon this very dark secret
[1:00:19] Speaker 3: that no one else in the town seems pretty to
[1:00:21] Speaker 3: that involves other children that have disappeared. There's a lot
[1:00:27] Speaker 3: of depict like there's some like some gruesome imagery for
[1:00:31] Speaker 3: a game where a bunch of embroidery characters, and there's
[1:00:35] Speaker 3: actually quite a bit of an action and like act
[1:00:37] Speaker 3: of like it's not just running around, uh to scene
[1:00:40] Speaker 3: the scene and talking to people, but there's actually like
[1:00:42] Speaker 3: full on dungeons where you're doing some platforming, like you're
[1:00:45] Speaker 3: jumping around. There's like not chase sequences, well I guess
[1:00:49] Speaker 3: there's chase sequences where you're chasing someone and you're trying
[1:00:51] Speaker 3: to like platform alongside them, like like it's more involved than.
[1:00:54] Speaker 1: You because the camera always kind of stay on like
[1:00:56] Speaker 1: a two D like the same sort of goal. I guess.
[1:01:00] Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah. There's also a lot of like a mechanic
[1:01:04] Speaker 3: around keeping a torch let when you're in these dungeons
[1:01:08] Speaker 3: where you're trying to move through space as quickly and
[1:01:11] Speaker 3: light torches along the way because if you run out
[1:01:14] Speaker 3: of light, one you can't see. But then also there's
[1:01:16] Speaker 3: these kind of like these like weird supernatural entities that
[1:01:20] Speaker 3: will kill you if you're in the dark too long.
[1:01:22] Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, there's some dark some dark themes in
[1:01:26] Speaker 3: this game that I kind of appreciate. I'm enjoying the game,
[1:01:30] Speaker 3: I do have some issues with it my One of
[1:01:34] Speaker 3: my biggest is that it can be pretty hard to
[1:01:36] Speaker 3: keep track of where to go when you're not in
[1:01:38] Speaker 3: the dungeon, uh, because when you're not doing the platforming stuff,
[1:01:41] Speaker 3: it's a lot of like, hey, you need to go
[1:01:43] Speaker 3: over here to talk to somebody, uh, And kind of
[1:01:46] Speaker 3: keeping track of the layout of the town for me
[1:01:49] Speaker 3: at least, has been a bit tricky. There's no map
[1:01:51] Speaker 3: in this game, so it's more about remembering like, okay,
[1:01:53] Speaker 3: which road takes me to the next like scene of
[1:01:58] Speaker 3: like like just like which part. It reminds me lot
[1:02:00] Speaker 3: of This game in general reminds me a lot of pentiment,
[1:02:04] Speaker 3: just in terms of that. Yeah, when it comes to
[1:02:07] Speaker 3: just like how you move around from like area to
[1:02:10] Speaker 3: area in that game gives me like some pentiment vibes
[1:02:13] Speaker 3: and all top of just like the time period in
[1:02:15] Speaker 3: the setting like it like you're talking to these medieval
[1:02:19] Speaker 3: people and and whatnot. It's just yeah, I just I
[1:02:22] Speaker 3: keep thinking of Penniment when I played this game, even
[1:02:23] Speaker 3: though the subject matter is a bit a lot different.
[1:02:26] Speaker 3: I don't even know if this game is set, and
[1:02:28] Speaker 3: I don't think they ever say where it's actually said,
[1:02:30] Speaker 3: Like it gives me the sense of like Holy Roman
[1:02:32] Speaker 3: Empire era like Eastern Europe or like Germany or whatever,
[1:02:35] Speaker 3: but I'm not totally sure if it's ever been explicitly communicated. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
[1:02:41] Speaker 3: actually yeah, this is a South Florida fifteenth century. But
[1:02:49] Speaker 3: but yeah, I think the music's really good. There's some
[1:02:51] Speaker 3: really good just like medieval like strings and flutes that
[1:02:54] Speaker 3: I appreciate. There's also a little bit of a in
[1:02:59] Speaker 3: terms of my issues. There's some like and I like
[1:03:03] Speaker 3: like bugs. I guess we'll say like this has only
[1:03:06] Speaker 3: happened to me once. But I was looking at like
[1:03:07] Speaker 3: Steam Support, I saw similar instances of some people of
[1:03:10] Speaker 3: just occasionally getting like soft locked, where like you can
[1:03:13] Speaker 3: kind of like trap yourself in areas and not have
[1:03:17] Speaker 3: a way to get out. Like there's one point where
[1:03:19] Speaker 3: I fell down like a path that I need to
[1:03:21] Speaker 3: go down and I needed to break through a door,
[1:03:24] Speaker 3: like there's breakable doors that you can smash through with
[1:03:26] Speaker 3: your torch, but for whatever reason, I wasn't able to
[1:03:28] Speaker 3: pull out my torch, so I was stuck there and
[1:03:30] Speaker 3: had to restart the game. But thankfully, the checkpoints are
[1:03:35] Speaker 3: generally pretty good, but like little things like that happen
[1:03:39] Speaker 3: every now and then. The combat itself, which is very light,
[1:03:41] Speaker 3: is just swinging your torch at the occasional enemy. It's
[1:03:45] Speaker 3: not great, almost like intentionally so, but at the same time,
[1:03:48] Speaker 3: it's kind of like, well, if you're gonna have combat,
[1:03:50] Speaker 3: at least should be feel good. Otherwise just maybe don't
[1:03:53] Speaker 3: have it. Yeah, and yeah, it's a lot of like
[1:03:56] Speaker 3: like the attacks have no impact, and it's just kind
[1:03:58] Speaker 3: of like, I guess I'm gonna get close enough to
[1:04:00] Speaker 3: this thing and then maybe if I read the frames right,
[1:04:03] Speaker 3: I'll hit it.
[1:04:04] Speaker 1: But it looks like you're coming to this for like
[1:04:08] Speaker 1: the presentation, like a unique, very novel presentation of like
[1:04:13] Speaker 1: you know, embroidery, music, and then the story. It seems
[1:04:17] Speaker 1: like those are like the three maybe being like the
[1:04:20] Speaker 1: general mystery of like what happened to the kids? That
[1:04:22] Speaker 1: kind of thing. It seems like that's like the strengths
[1:04:24] Speaker 1: of the game, would you say, that's right?
[1:04:27] Speaker 3: Yeah, Like the exploration I mentioned before can be a pain,
[1:04:29] Speaker 3: especially because some of the squests can evolve like running
[1:04:32] Speaker 3: a lot of running back and forth between locations of like, hey,
[1:04:35] Speaker 3: you need to go here to bring me this. Okay,
[1:04:37] Speaker 3: I found a thing, and now I got to go
[1:04:38] Speaker 3: back to where I was, But now I've got to
[1:04:40] Speaker 3: turn around because of the layouts, like how do I
[1:04:42] Speaker 3: get back to where I was? And I the map?
[1:04:44] Speaker 3: So that stuff can be pretty annoying. But I don't
[1:04:47] Speaker 3: want to say, like I can't tell. I don't want
[1:04:50] Speaker 3: to say if the story is like great or not,
[1:04:52] Speaker 3: because I haven't seen how it ends. Like fair, I've
[1:04:55] Speaker 3: hit a crescendo to where like I think I can
[1:04:57] Speaker 3: finish it in the next sitting, Like this doesn't strike
[1:04:59] Speaker 3: me as a particularly long game, but I need to
[1:05:03] Speaker 3: see how sort of like how the revelations built to
[1:05:06] Speaker 3: like the big ending of like what's actually going on here?
[1:05:09] Speaker 3: But that has been enticing it, just like what is
[1:05:11] Speaker 3: going on? What's really going on in this town? Where
[1:05:13] Speaker 3: her kids are they okay? And why is this even
[1:05:15] Speaker 3: happening in the first place. But yeah, that's the hook
[1:05:18] Speaker 3: is like it's you know, it looks all nice and
[1:05:21] Speaker 3: pleasant in the front, but it's actually pretty dark. So
[1:05:23] Speaker 3: if you're into sort of like that subversion of expectations,
[1:05:26] Speaker 3: maybe give this a look sounds.
[1:05:29] Speaker 2: There's like a bug and they have to fix something.
[1:05:31] Speaker 2: They have to like go back to their.
[1:05:32] Speaker 1: Like, Okay, it's gonna be I gotta you're gonna hate.
[1:05:40] Speaker 3: Yeah, did you put your sewing machine away? Oh crap, Okay,
[1:05:43] Speaker 3: we'll break that out. Yeah.
[1:05:45] Speaker 1: I would love to see their workspace, Like what that
[1:05:48] Speaker 1: does look like?
[1:05:49] Speaker 3: Do you think they keep all their thread and a
[1:05:53] Speaker 3: little cookie pin that every grandma has, like the little
[1:05:56] Speaker 3: bit different types of European cookies or whatever, all those.
[1:06:00] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's funny.
[1:06:01] Speaker 3: We all know the ones. We all know. The pretzel
[1:06:04] Speaker 3: one is like the best one.
[1:06:05] Speaker 1: I know what you're talking about. Well cool, Well, real quick,
[1:06:09] Speaker 1: before we get to listener questions, I do want to
[1:06:10] Speaker 1: highlight another game that I think actually Marcus you in particular,
[1:06:14] Speaker 1: will really be interested by. It's called helicks descent then
[1:06:21] Speaker 1: space the letter in like shortening and ascent, so descent
[1:06:26] Speaker 1: and assent, and it is a hand drawn black and
[1:06:32] Speaker 1: white puzzle game where it's it's very everything about this
[1:06:39] Speaker 1: game is like presentation wise is like sort of well
[1:06:45] Speaker 1: number one, very stylish like, but otherworldly is like the
[1:06:50] Speaker 1: the common uh sort of thing that comes to my
[1:06:52] Speaker 1: mind and alien and just like there's a general sort
[1:06:57] Speaker 1: of like it's not a scary game at all, but
[1:07:00] Speaker 1: it's like creepy in a way because it is so foreign.
[1:07:06] Speaker 2: It looks really cool, yeah, and.
[1:07:10] Speaker 1: You are essentially collecting, completing a series of puzzles to
[1:07:16] Speaker 1: unlock new powers and stuff, and you're kind of teleporting
[1:07:19] Speaker 1: all around, and there's it seems like you are playing
[1:07:22] Speaker 1: two different characters, or maybe two different versions of the
[1:07:25] Speaker 1: same character, and you'll kind of balance between a the
[1:07:28] Speaker 1: white version of a character who's like on mostly like
[1:07:32] Speaker 1: a black background, and you're like doing certain puzzles with them,
[1:07:36] Speaker 1: and then you'll see cut scenes of like the white
[1:07:38] Speaker 1: version of you doing other things, and then you'll complete
[1:07:42] Speaker 1: a puzzle and now you're playing as the other version
[1:07:44] Speaker 1: of yourself or I don't know if if it's actually
[1:07:47] Speaker 1: two versions of you or if it's two different characters, but
[1:07:51] Speaker 1: there's like one of the one of the I've unlocked,
[1:07:54] Speaker 1: like two of the main powers so far which are
[1:07:57] Speaker 1: tied to the face buttons, and eventually you will unlock
[1:08:02] Speaker 1: so many that like I think you have to hold
[1:08:03] Speaker 1: the triggers down almost like you're playing an MMO on
[1:08:06] Speaker 1: a controller, where like, okay, I need to hold the
[1:08:08] Speaker 1: right trigger down and then that opens up a new
[1:08:10] Speaker 1: thing of face face button actions. But that's how many
[1:08:14] Speaker 1: like little powers you have in the game. The first
[1:08:17] Speaker 1: one you get is all about like you can summon
[1:08:20] Speaker 1: blocks to like hold down uh you know, uh, plates
[1:08:25] Speaker 1: on the ground that you need to like keep doors open.
[1:08:27] Speaker 1: That kind of thing. Typical like pretty standard uh stuff.
[1:08:30] Speaker 1: The second one you get is like a mind drone
[1:08:34] Speaker 1: thing that like you go remote control on this little
[1:08:38] Speaker 1: flying dude and you're kind of like going through pipes
[1:08:43] Speaker 1: and stuff to like activate switches that are far away.
[1:08:46] Speaker 1: But there's only the drone only has like a certain
[1:08:48] Speaker 1: amount of life before it will blow up. So you
[1:08:51] Speaker 1: have to like be strategic and solve puzzles based on
[1:08:54] Speaker 1: which is how drones always work. Yeah, oh of course,
[1:08:56] Speaker 1: of course, or they follow they drop an the Icelandic
[1:09:00] Speaker 1: ocean sometimes as well. But but and so you kind
[1:09:05] Speaker 1: of do that and then you realize later I'm like,
[1:09:07] Speaker 1: oh wait, if I put down a piece of you know,
[1:09:10] Speaker 1: a column, and then I fly the drone into it,
[1:09:13] Speaker 1: if they're like these same colors, then the drone then
[1:09:19] Speaker 1: transforms into like it essentially becomes the pillar, and now
[1:09:23] Speaker 1: I can move the pillar around across surfaces that I
[1:09:26] Speaker 1: otherwise couldn't, like across water, and it's like the drone
[1:09:29] Speaker 1: is lifting it up and moving it's like and it
[1:09:31] Speaker 1: just continues to I've only put in probably forty five
[1:09:34] Speaker 1: minutes last night, but even just like those first forty
[1:09:38] Speaker 1: five minutes, I was just like, oh man, I have
[1:09:40] Speaker 1: like this is a game I gotta I gotta play
[1:09:43] Speaker 1: more of and yeah, it's really fascinating. I think it's
[1:09:49] Speaker 1: it's uh, maybe the puzzles aren't super difficult, but like
[1:09:53] Speaker 1: it's enough to where like, you know, if you're a
[1:09:55] Speaker 1: puzzle game fan, there might you know, I feel like
[1:09:58] Speaker 1: I'm kind of breezing through some of them, but then
[1:10:00] Speaker 1: there's been a few at the end of like at
[1:10:03] Speaker 1: the end of each sort of like vignette that's kind
[1:10:08] Speaker 1: of like what it feels like. It feels like you're
[1:10:10] Speaker 1: playing through vignettes tied to these powers, like the ones
[1:10:15] Speaker 1: that really kind of test your knowledge of the power.
[1:10:18] Speaker 1: Like the last puzzle, it feels really really fun to solve,
[1:10:22] Speaker 1: and then you get teleported to a new one and
[1:10:24] Speaker 1: now it's like, Okay, now I'm gonna get a new power.
[1:10:26] Speaker 1: Let's see how I do this. Yeah, it's really kind
[1:10:29] Speaker 1: of like I don't know what's happening in the game,
[1:10:32] Speaker 1: like the story wise, it's very obtuse, but it's really
[1:10:37] Speaker 1: cool and I think you guys should play this again.
[1:10:39] Speaker 1: It's called Helix Descent and Ascent.
[1:10:44] Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks awesome on my wish list.
[1:10:46] Speaker 1: Yeah. Cool. Yeah, and it only has like thirty two
[1:10:50] Speaker 1: reviews on Steam, Like it's more people need to need
[1:10:54] Speaker 1: to play this thing. But I think we should get
[1:10:58] Speaker 1: into listener questions. You know, we've kept We've kept Michael
[1:11:03] Speaker 1: waiting long enough. Michael, of course wrote in on our discord, Uh,
[1:11:07] Speaker 1: if you don't have access to our discord, you can
[1:11:10] Speaker 1: email us podcast at gaming from dot com with your question.
[1:11:15] Speaker 1: That's the easiest way, and we check that and we
[1:11:17] Speaker 1: will include those. But the second question of that Michael
[1:11:22] Speaker 1: asked at the start of the show was I do
[1:11:24] Speaker 1: genuinely want pirate book recommendations from Wesley whenever he's on next.
[1:11:30] Speaker 3: For those that are wondering, this is uh kind of
[1:11:32] Speaker 3: a follow up to our previous Assassin's Creed black Flag
[1:11:36] Speaker 3: episode we did a couple of weeks ago. Or Wes,
[1:11:38] Speaker 3: you gave us some pirate trivia because you are so
[1:11:41] Speaker 3: well versed in all things pirates.
[1:11:43] Speaker 2: Yes, a big fan of pirates, have been for a
[1:11:46] Speaker 2: lot of my life. Pirates are awesome and I've read
[1:11:49] Speaker 2: a bunch of books about them today.
[1:11:53] Speaker 3: Uh have you rea done an ancestry to find out?
[1:11:55] Speaker 2: No, I don't know if I want to find out.
[1:11:57] Speaker 2: As cool as like pirates are in media, like the
[1:12:01] Speaker 2: actual history not so great, so I hope I don't.
[1:12:03] Speaker 1: I also just recommend doing Ancestry dot Com has brought
[1:12:07] Speaker 1: nothing but havoc to my family. That's all I will be.
[1:12:10] Speaker 1: That's all I'll be saying. But you know, some things
[1:12:16] Speaker 1: aren't worth knowing all the time, so obinous, there's a
[1:12:21] Speaker 1: lot of a lot of changes in my life, thinks
[1:12:23] Speaker 1: the ancestry dot Com. I'll say that and leave it there.
[1:12:27] Speaker 3: Sponsors ancestry.
[1:12:28] Speaker 2: No, I also think those companies like take your genetics
[1:12:35] Speaker 2: and give them to insurance companies or something.
[1:12:37] Speaker 1: I don't probably give them, who's that billionaire with the
[1:12:40] Speaker 1: blood boy who's his own son. They're probably giving.
[1:12:43] Speaker 2: It is trying to stay young forever.
[1:12:46] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, they're just making a worse in real life.
[1:12:51] Speaker 2: But pirate books and I got to today a non
[1:12:54] Speaker 2: fiction into fiction. For the nonfiction, I want to go
[1:12:56] Speaker 2: with Steven Talt, It's called The Empire of Blue watertain
[1:13:01] Speaker 2: Captain Morgan's Great Pirate Army, the epic Battle for the Americas,
[1:13:04] Speaker 2: and the catastrophe that ended the Outlaws, Bloody Rain. This
[1:13:08] Speaker 2: is a long ass title that's like this, that's like
[1:13:11] Speaker 2: the little sub Okay, Yeah, the actual title is Empire
[1:13:16] Speaker 2: Blue Water. It's a really it's one of those nonfiction
[1:13:20] Speaker 2: books that reads like fiction because the author is well
[1:13:23] Speaker 2: versed and is able to like kind of bring you
[1:13:26] Speaker 2: back to this period of history. But it's a really
[1:13:28] Speaker 2: great resource for finding out what pirate life was like,
[1:13:32] Speaker 2: which is the non romanticized version from Pirates of the
[1:13:36] Speaker 2: Caribbean or Assassin's Creed and stuff like that. Like, if
[1:13:38] Speaker 2: you want to find out what why pirates had it
[1:13:41] Speaker 2: to your lifespan once they started piracy, like this, the
[1:13:44] Speaker 2: book is really good for kind of bringing you through
[1:13:47] Speaker 2: a story of an actual pirate of Captain Morgan, who
[1:13:50] Speaker 2: is that is the captain that's on the rum bottles today.
[1:13:54] Speaker 2: And then the fiction book I want to recommend is
[1:13:57] Speaker 2: Pirate Latitudes, which is by Michael Crichton, uh, the guy
[1:14:00] Speaker 2: that wrote Drastic Work. It's a quick read. It's a fun,
[1:14:05] Speaker 2: little action pirate adventure rop. The thing I really like
[1:14:09] Speaker 2: about it is that it uses fictional characters, but like
[1:14:11] Speaker 2: pools on a lot of real pirate history. One particularly,
[1:14:17] Speaker 2: I was kind of impressed that it was in the
[1:14:18] Speaker 2: book because it's a weird bit of pirate history. But
[1:14:21] Speaker 2: Anne Bonnie is known to have been in fights when
[1:14:24] Speaker 2: she was when she would go to fight typically other men,
[1:14:28] Speaker 2: because that's.
[1:14:28] Speaker 1: What no, no, no no, although she is from Florida,
[1:14:37] Speaker 1: my state.
[1:14:37] Speaker 2: Unfortunately, I'm sorry to the world that.
[1:14:40] Speaker 3: You said Bonnie. Four.
[1:14:47] Speaker 2: Yes, in history, there have been I don't want to
[1:14:49] Speaker 2: say like myths or anything, but there's like been reason
[1:14:52] Speaker 2: to believe that a tactic she used when fighting pirates,
[1:14:56] Speaker 2: which is majority men, is she would like undo her
[1:15:00] Speaker 2: shirt so that her breast route and then that would
[1:15:02] Speaker 2: distract the men. Fine, I don't know why I said
[1:15:05] Speaker 2: breast like a that was weird, but she would do
[1:15:07] Speaker 2: that to distract the men and then kill them while
[1:15:10] Speaker 2: they were busy looking at her boobs. And this book
[1:15:12] Speaker 2: has a fun bit about that that kind of draws
[1:15:15] Speaker 2: on that. And as a pirate fan of pirate history,
[1:15:17] Speaker 2: I was like, I see you, Michael Crichton. You've you've
[1:15:19] Speaker 2: read some encyclopedias, but it's just a really, it's just
[1:15:22] Speaker 2: a fun It's like a uncharted esque pirate adventure book.
[1:15:26] Speaker 2: And it's Michael Crichton, so you know, it's a it's
[1:15:27] Speaker 2: a good read and then bonus. Not a book, but
[1:15:30] Speaker 2: if you have not watched Black Sales, it is a
[1:15:33] Speaker 2: Star's pirate show. It's on Netflix now, which is great
[1:15:37] Speaker 2: because I don't even like Stars is a subscription that
[1:15:40] Speaker 2: that people get. I guess I don't know, but yeah,
[1:15:43] Speaker 2: check it out on Netflix. It is very rated, m
[1:15:48] Speaker 2: very It's like, it's hard to say. I used to
[1:15:50] Speaker 2: say Game of Thrones but pirates, but now that Game
[1:15:52] Speaker 2: of Thrones kind of didn't end so well, that doesn't
[1:15:55] Speaker 2: really work as much. But it's like all the intrigue
[1:15:57] Speaker 2: and the politics and the mystery and the action and
[1:15:59] Speaker 2: the gore and the sex and the violence and all
[1:16:01] Speaker 2: the blah blah blah of Game.
[1:16:03] Speaker 3: It's very much like the prestige television of Pirates, Yes,
[1:16:06] Speaker 3: if you want, like, yeah, like the prestige television budget
[1:16:09] Speaker 3: and like grittiness of Game of Thrones. That's basically black sales.
[1:16:14] Speaker 2: Yes, and it takes it takes the characters of Treasure Island,
[1:16:16] Speaker 2: like Captain Flint and John Silver and stuff, and uses
[1:16:20] Speaker 2: them to create like a new mythology for these characters.
[1:16:23] Speaker 2: And it's just it's really good. The actors are incredible.
[1:16:25] Speaker 2: It's just four seasons. The theme song and all the
[1:16:28] Speaker 2: music is done by Baron McCreery, who you might know
[1:16:32] Speaker 2: as the guy that made the Walking Dead theme. He
[1:16:34] Speaker 2: does the God of War music. He's a really great
[1:16:38] Speaker 2: composer and it has one of the most it's one
[1:16:40] Speaker 2: of my all time favorite like opening theme songs for
[1:16:43] Speaker 2: a drama.
[1:16:44] Speaker 1: It seems like you're really not it's not active on
[1:16:46] Speaker 1: Netflix right now, weirdly, but it has like a button
[1:16:50] Speaker 1: on that This has remind me, so I wonder if
[1:16:53] Speaker 1: it like.
[1:16:54] Speaker 3: That's I've never heard of that. So it's like not
[1:16:56] Speaker 3: on Netflix, but it has at.
[1:16:58] Speaker 2: Maybe it's back maybe maybe.
[1:17:00] Speaker 1: Yeah. I like real licensing, Yeah yeah, cool? Uh next
[1:17:07] Speaker 1: question comes from then Tom was like, when's the last
[1:17:09] Speaker 1: time you felt totally uninformed on a game? Have you
[1:17:12] Speaker 1: gone in blind any games lately? I think I talked
[1:17:16] Speaker 1: about that with Mermaid Mask earlier on the show. That's
[1:17:17] Speaker 1: probably my answer the second part of the question. But
[1:17:21] Speaker 1: games I feel totally unaware of, are uninformed on, probably.
[1:17:26] Speaker 2: Gone into uninformed on or ones that.
[1:17:29] Speaker 3: Were just just went in blind basically, Okay.
[1:17:32] Speaker 1: Probably yeah, probably Mermaid Mask for me. Yeah, I know
[1:17:38] Speaker 1: that's that's a born answer because we just talked about it,
[1:17:41] Speaker 1: but uh, that's the honest, the honest truth for me.
[1:17:45] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's tricky for us because like even I can't
[1:17:48] Speaker 3: think of something that I've played and even forgetting something
[1:17:52] Speaker 3: that just had no heads up on, because even the
[1:17:54] Speaker 3: closest thing to that is like if I get a
[1:17:56] Speaker 3: press release for something that I had no prior knowledge
[1:17:58] Speaker 3: of and then I wind up it comes with a
[1:18:00] Speaker 3: code and I'm like, oh, just reading this press release,
[1:18:03] Speaker 3: that sounds interesting. I'll put this code in and try
[1:18:05] Speaker 3: it real quick. But even then that's still like a
[1:18:07] Speaker 3: little bit of a heads up. Say, at least I
[1:18:09] Speaker 3: read a press release to know what it is. So
[1:18:11] Speaker 3: it's like in terms of just firing up something and
[1:18:13] Speaker 3: like not reading a description or anything. That's that's that's
[1:18:17] Speaker 3: really for me, at least because of this job. It's
[1:18:19] Speaker 3: really hard because I feel like if I personally have
[1:18:23] Speaker 3: not kept up with it, I at least get some
[1:18:25] Speaker 3: heads up, either from you guys or from like just peers.
[1:18:28] Speaker 3: But I mean, it's funny enough you said MraY Mask.
[1:18:31] Speaker 3: I remember Tangle Tower, the predecession to Murray Mask that
[1:18:35] Speaker 3: was just given to me to review when I was
[1:18:37] Speaker 3: a screen rant with like no warning. Yeah, it's like
[1:18:43] Speaker 3: I've never heard of this, what even is this? And
[1:18:45] Speaker 3: then just played it and then was completely like bowled
[1:18:48] Speaker 3: over because that game is great. But that was like
[1:18:50] Speaker 3: twenty nineteen, So I was like, there's probably a more
[1:18:51] Speaker 3: recent example if I thought about it, But in general,
[1:18:54] Speaker 3: it's still the closest thing is sort of like like
[1:18:57] Speaker 3: maybe Alex, I try to don't let it Star because
[1:19:00] Speaker 3: of you, and I had not heard of that game
[1:19:02] Speaker 3: at all, So you talked about it on the show
[1:19:04] Speaker 3: a couple of weeks ago, and so I went into
[1:19:06] Speaker 3: that and I like that game. That's fun. So maybe
[1:19:10] Speaker 3: that's like a recent answer that fits.
[1:19:12] Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. If I have any this year,
[1:19:14] Speaker 2: but last year I actually have two, both games I
[1:19:17] Speaker 2: really enjoyed and reviewed for Game Reformer. One is Metal Eden,
[1:19:21] Speaker 2: which is from the Ruiner team, which is really all
[1:19:23] Speaker 2: I knew going in. I just kind of I got
[1:19:25] Speaker 2: a key and I was like, first person shooter. Sure,
[1:19:27] Speaker 2: I'll try it out. And it is a really really good.
[1:19:32] Speaker 2: But yeah, it's ghost Runner but with guns, which is
[1:19:35] Speaker 2: parkour arena based combat, fast paced, you're slowing down. Time
[1:19:39] Speaker 2: you take a couple of hits, you're dead. Fantastic game.
[1:19:42] Speaker 2: And then another one I talked about maybe last year
[1:19:44] Speaker 2: on here, Eric Schulm, The Stolen Dream. Yeah, really had
[1:19:49] Speaker 2: no idea what this was like at all. I just
[1:19:52] Speaker 2: I saw it and looked cool, picked it up, and
[1:19:54] Speaker 2: it's like a very It's a beautiful, rich stealth gain
[1:20:00] Speaker 2: person stealth game. Yeah, like a classic stealth gain There's
[1:20:04] Speaker 2: not really combat. It's just I don't want to say
[1:20:06] Speaker 2: immersive sim, but it has like an immersive sim feel
[1:20:08] Speaker 2: where to stealth your way forward, you need to use
[1:20:10] Speaker 2: what's around you, and the game doesn't really hold your hand.
[1:20:13] Speaker 2: It's like you need to know that if there's a
[1:20:15] Speaker 2: light above you to distract the guard or to turn
[1:20:19] Speaker 2: off the lights. You need to find something that hits
[1:20:21] Speaker 2: the light bulb to get rid of it. And it's
[1:20:24] Speaker 2: really cool. But yeah, like Marcus said, it's really hard
[1:20:26] Speaker 2: to come across games in the sense that like it
[1:20:31] Speaker 2: is our job to know, and we do try to
[1:20:33] Speaker 2: keep an eye on at least as much as we can,
[1:20:36] Speaker 2: even in the smallest sense, because we write previews for
[1:20:40] Speaker 2: the magazine, or we make our lists, or we do
[1:20:42] Speaker 2: discussions like this. But I do enjoy whenever a game
[1:20:46] Speaker 2: I have nothing no awareness about ends up becoming something
[1:20:49] Speaker 2: I really really love.
[1:20:50] Speaker 1: Yeah, Matt Storm asks, how do you not give in
[1:20:55] Speaker 1: a despair? Seriously, though, with the current state of the industry,
[1:20:58] Speaker 1: how do you engage in self care to not get
[1:21:01] Speaker 1: buried or burned out by it? Yeah? I take breaks
[1:21:06] Speaker 1: from it. I feel like I play. I feel like
[1:21:09] Speaker 1: there are gaming fans out there that probably play more
[1:21:13] Speaker 1: games than I do. And granted I typically am not
[1:21:15] Speaker 1: on reviews for US, I do other things for US,
[1:21:19] Speaker 1: and so it's I I feel like I'm in a
[1:21:21] Speaker 1: unique position on the team where like Marcus and West,
[1:21:24] Speaker 1: you guys are always reviewing games like constantly, you have
[1:21:27] Speaker 1: something that you're on review for and I don't typically
[1:21:31] Speaker 1: and so I feel like I I will just kind
[1:21:35] Speaker 1: of like you know, I'll clock in, do my job,
[1:21:38] Speaker 1: you know, work on what I need to work on.
[1:21:40] Speaker 1: But in my personal life, like I am, I honestly
[1:21:43] Speaker 1: have like one game that I play like the last
[1:21:45] Speaker 1: month outside of like some of the stuff we talked
[1:21:47] Speaker 1: about on the podcast, And it's kind of the question
[1:21:50] Speaker 1: there's another question on here that I want to I'll
[1:21:52] Speaker 1: save that game for that. But like I pick a
[1:21:55] Speaker 1: thing that's like not really related to work, and I
[1:21:58] Speaker 1: play that thing. And you know, usually for me, it's
[1:22:02] Speaker 1: like a multiplayer game or something, but like or even
[1:22:05] Speaker 1: like an old game that like, you know, I'm not
[1:22:07] Speaker 1: gonna be talking about this really, but I'm just like
[1:22:10] Speaker 1: playing it to for the love of the game, you
[1:22:12] Speaker 1: know what I mean. But yeah, I think Marcus said
[1:22:15] Speaker 1: it sucinctly like gut side touch grass. I think Marcus
[1:22:19] Speaker 1: has talked about many times on the show. Uh, you know,
[1:22:22] Speaker 1: you can only control what you can control and focus
[1:22:25] Speaker 1: on that and.
[1:22:27] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and and bet be grateful for like what
[1:22:31] Speaker 3: you do have. I think that always starts for me
[1:22:33] Speaker 3: is gratitude is a big thing for me. Yeah, I
[1:22:37] Speaker 3: don't think if I can add much more than that gratitude.
[1:22:40] Speaker 3: Go outside, like seriously, like disc out for each other,
[1:22:43] Speaker 3: look out for each other, do what you can within
[1:22:45] Speaker 3: your circle to make other people's lives a little bit better.
[1:22:48] Speaker 2: Yeah, I take lexapros.
[1:22:56] Speaker 3: Play a coin Alex, say, go pull a play a
[1:22:59] Speaker 3: coin usher game.
[1:23:00] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's that's really a wild hole or whatever.
[1:23:04] Speaker 1: It was a bonus hole.
[1:23:09] Speaker 2: It's a big hole and wild hole, which is a
[1:23:13] Speaker 2: lot worse than uh.
[1:23:16] Speaker 1: Duke Fason asks, what was the last game you were
[1:23:18] Speaker 1: genuinely pumped for and not because you had to do
[1:23:21] Speaker 1: a review on it, because you wanted to play it
[1:23:23] Speaker 1: on your own time. That was the game I was mentioning,
[1:23:26] Speaker 1: Like the game I have that I'm like kind of
[1:23:28] Speaker 1: always playing. I've put ninety seven hours into Deadlock, and
[1:23:32] Speaker 1: that game is not even like publicly available yet.
[1:23:36] Speaker 3: Yeah, that game is technically barely real when you think
[1:23:38] Speaker 3: about it.
[1:23:39] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, of course. Yeah, I
[1:23:44] Speaker 1: have ninety seven hours in that game, and like at
[1:23:49] Speaker 1: night time when I don't when everything else feels like overwhelming,
[1:23:52] Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I don't want to play it. I
[1:23:54] Speaker 1: don't want to start a new game. I don't want to,
[1:23:56] Speaker 1: you know, I don't really want to keep playing something
[1:23:58] Speaker 1: I'm playing right now because I just I don't you
[1:24:00] Speaker 1: want to think about it. But dead Luck and uh,
[1:24:05] Speaker 1: yeah I play. I played like the the fun like
[1:24:08] Speaker 1: mode that's not even the real it's not even the
[1:24:11] Speaker 1: real mode. Yeah, and it's great. What about Yeah, that's it.
[1:24:17] Speaker 3: I mean for me, I'm I'm genuinely excited about games
[1:24:20] Speaker 3: all the time. Like it's not I feel like the
[1:24:23] Speaker 3: question almost phrases it. It's like I said, I don't
[1:24:28] Speaker 3: know that the tone of the question almost makes it. It
[1:24:30] Speaker 3: sound like it's a rare occurrence. But it's like I'm
[1:24:32] Speaker 3: always excited about something, like in a genuine sense and
[1:24:35] Speaker 3: not even if anything. Sometimes it's more exciting when I
[1:24:37] Speaker 3: don't have to review it because then it doesn't become work.
[1:24:40] Speaker 3: I can just play it.
[1:24:41] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:24:41] Speaker 3: But like I was excited for, like super excited for
[1:24:44] Speaker 3: Resident Evil, some huge Residuel fans that I was a
[1:24:46] Speaker 3: big one, uh Pragmata just because I liked what I
[1:24:49] Speaker 3: played of it before and just because of the concept.
[1:24:52] Speaker 3: Like right now, I'm super excited for Castlevania. I mean
[1:24:56] Speaker 3: GT six, But that goes with I was saying, Uh,
[1:24:59] Speaker 3: Residents of Tail Legacy is one I'm personally really excited
[1:25:01] Speaker 3: about as a fan of that series and having gotten
[1:25:03] Speaker 3: to play it myself. Only Musha as Wes is holding
[1:25:06] Speaker 3: up our issue, Like I've gotten to play that twice
[1:25:09] Speaker 3: at two different pre release events and enjoyed at both times.
[1:25:12] Speaker 3: Like there's for me, there's always multiple multiple games that
[1:25:17] Speaker 3: I have my eye on that I'm like, man, can't
[1:25:19] Speaker 3: wait to play that, which is great, you know, I
[1:25:21] Speaker 3: mean that's what keeps you a fan of the of
[1:25:24] Speaker 3: the medium, right is too? Yeah, even when even for
[1:25:27] Speaker 3: us where we can probably more so than any other fan,
[1:25:30] Speaker 3: fall to cynicism because we're critics. Ultimately, like, I think
[1:25:34] Speaker 3: it's always healthy to kind of like allow yourself to
[1:25:38] Speaker 3: get excited for things, like to not be overly cynical
[1:25:41] Speaker 3: about everything, like totally you've always want to be willing
[1:25:45] Speaker 3: to be wowed by something.
[1:25:46] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, My answer is the last game I
[1:25:51] Speaker 2: was like the most excited I've been this year was
[1:25:54] Speaker 2: Double seven First Light. I have a I loved Double
[1:25:58] Speaker 2: O seven games growing up, Like those were my multiplayer
[1:26:02] Speaker 2: experiences on PS two, like playing Agent under Firelight Brother
[1:26:05] Speaker 2: multiplayer all day and all night long.
[1:26:08] Speaker 1: Obviously, I think we've talked about it before.
[1:26:11] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there's no multiplayer in First Light. But I
[1:26:15] Speaker 2: just love being in a James Bond game world, like
[1:26:18] Speaker 2: It's just it feels like home to me. And I
[1:26:21] Speaker 2: really think Io Interactive unsurprisingly knock it out of the park.
[1:26:24] Speaker 2: And I genuinely enjoyed that game so much, Like I
[1:26:27] Speaker 2: was very hyped and it lived up to the hype.
[1:26:29] Speaker 2: And it's still what I'm thinking about a lot today,
[1:26:31] Speaker 2: and they seem to be tackling like a Hitman style
[1:26:34] Speaker 2: approach to supporting it over the months. They just hadn't
[1:26:38] Speaker 2: dropped this week, I think of content.
[1:26:40] Speaker 1: Yeah, last question of the show, howdy Gi. This is
[1:26:44] Speaker 1: from an Attack an attack Corgi, a longtime, longtime community member.
[1:26:50] Speaker 1: What are your video game beige flags? Like red flags?
[1:26:54] Speaker 1: But instead of alarming you about a bad game, they
[1:26:56] Speaker 1: just shout this game is hella boring and a generic
[1:27:00] Speaker 1: an I G N six attack Cory, You why wouldn't
[1:27:03] Speaker 1: it be a Game in Former six? Come on? What
[1:27:05] Speaker 1: are we doing here?
[1:27:06] Speaker 2: Yeah?
[1:27:06] Speaker 1: Come on? What are we? What are we saying? What
[1:27:09] Speaker 1: do we You can't even mention?
[1:27:12] Speaker 3: This is some respect for our six for for our
[1:27:14] Speaker 3: minute appeal score.
[1:27:17] Speaker 1: I'm kidding, that's a good question. This game is heliboring.
[1:27:21] Speaker 3: And then that's tricky because those are the games. I
[1:27:23] Speaker 3: feel like those are games that are hardest to remember
[1:27:25] Speaker 3: because like the bad games can be memorable because they're
[1:27:27] Speaker 3: just so awful or probably bad, but the games that
[1:27:30] Speaker 3: are just like this is perfectly cromulent, this is just fine,
[1:27:34] Speaker 3: but I will forget about this an hour after finishing it.
[1:27:37] Speaker 3: Those are those are tough to recall sometimes.
[1:27:39] Speaker 1: And this is even like not they aren't even saying
[1:27:41] Speaker 1: like specific games, like what are like the features within
[1:27:45] Speaker 1: those games, or like what quality is about like the
[1:27:49] Speaker 1: Beijes flags of those games.
[1:27:52] Speaker 3: It's because I don't know if it's tied to a
[1:27:54] Speaker 3: specific feature. I think it's just any existing feature but
[1:27:57] Speaker 3: just not done remarkably well, but also not done remarkably
[1:28:02] Speaker 3: bad either. It's just like this is this is that thing.
[1:28:06] Speaker 3: Like it's like when you say this is one of
[1:28:08] Speaker 3: the games of all time, it's like, yeah, they did
[1:28:11] Speaker 3: this feature, and they nailed it at on a fundamental level,
[1:28:15] Speaker 3: but they've done They've neither ruined it or done anything
[1:28:18] Speaker 3: interesting with it beyond making it functional.
[1:28:22] Speaker 1: That's a tough one.
[1:28:24] Speaker 2: I've got to I've got a weird, weird one to include.
[1:28:28] Speaker 2: I don't like when you're in a game and a
[1:28:31] Speaker 2: character is talking to you, whether that be like in
[1:28:34] Speaker 2: your ears and a calm or like with you, and
[1:28:36] Speaker 2: you're you're allowed to move in this space.
[1:28:39] Speaker 3: But you walk away from them, but they only let you.
[1:28:41] Speaker 2: Walk, like I can't talk about a certain game I'm
[1:28:45] Speaker 2: thinking of yet, but in my head, I'm like, you're
[1:28:49] Speaker 2: talking to me. I'm moving around listening to my ear,
[1:28:52] Speaker 2: but you're making me walk. I have to just sit
[1:28:53] Speaker 2: here and walk while I'm doing it instead of running
[1:28:55] Speaker 2: around and jumping because I have I want to be
[1:28:58] Speaker 2: sitting there jamming buttons. I'm gonna be jump in doing
[1:29:01] Speaker 2: whatever stuff you're talking to me. And when you just
[1:29:03] Speaker 2: slow me down and you're like, you can move, but
[1:29:05] Speaker 2: you got to move real slow while I talk to you,
[1:29:07] Speaker 2: I'm like, beige flag, beige flag.
[1:29:11] Speaker 3: Yeah. Another one when you can auto walk? Does that help?
[1:29:14] Speaker 3: Like it so you don't have to actually do it,
[1:29:16] Speaker 3: like you just hit the auto walk button then, just
[1:29:17] Speaker 3: like an.
[1:29:18] Speaker 2: Assassin's Free, like an auto follow. I do. I do
[1:29:21] Speaker 2: like that feature. Yeah, but I will say, you put
[1:29:24] Speaker 2: that feature in the game. You just created a perfect
[1:29:27] Speaker 2: let me check Instagram moment during your game, which is
[1:29:30] Speaker 2: not always what I think developers are going for. It's
[1:29:33] Speaker 2: very easy for me to grab my phone whenever you
[1:29:35] Speaker 2: show me a like auto follow button on screen, but
[1:29:38] Speaker 2: that might be more of a beige flag for myself.
[1:29:40] Speaker 2: Maybe I need to to work on myself and my attention.
[1:29:44] Speaker 3: Yeah, you're the problem.
[1:29:45] Speaker 1: Withst I think. I think characters that are like like,
[1:29:51] Speaker 1: there's this is stemming from my and I hesitant to
[1:29:55] Speaker 1: mention it because I don't remember the name of the
[1:29:57] Speaker 1: creator and I wish I could credit them. There was
[1:30:01] Speaker 1: a woman on my TikTok feed who was she's a streamer,
[1:30:04] Speaker 1: and she was complaining about I think it's an exit
[1:30:06] Speaker 1: at the upcoming Exodus game, like some of the dialogue,
[1:30:10] Speaker 1: and like the characters that are always like really, oh
[1:30:12] Speaker 1: my god, like are like like millennial cringe kind of
[1:30:18] Speaker 1: characters that are like, well, I guess we'll have to
[1:30:21] Speaker 1: do this, like uh part ah, like cat humor, like
[1:30:28] Speaker 1: the quirky scientists who's like really geeky and nerdy, and
[1:30:31] Speaker 1: like there's a lot of those tropes, not just that
[1:30:33] Speaker 1: one in games and in in media movies whatever. I
[1:30:37] Speaker 1: think when I see those like archetypes like oh, well
[1:30:39] Speaker 1: we gotta have the tough guy, we got to have
[1:30:42] Speaker 1: the geeky scientists, we gotta have It's just like when
[1:30:46] Speaker 1: I see those those kind of tropes played out, they
[1:30:50] Speaker 1: don't really I know, like they're meant to like kind
[1:30:52] Speaker 1: of warm you to the characters, like oh, these are
[1:30:54] Speaker 1: the familiar archetypes that you're used to. It just doesn't
[1:30:59] Speaker 1: do much for me usually like okay, well I would
[1:31:02] Speaker 1: rather you have done something a little more interesting.
[1:31:07] Speaker 3: On a specific note, like I remember this was a
[1:31:10] Speaker 3: big thing in the PS three generation, like post Uncharted,
[1:31:13] Speaker 3: where it felt like there was a couple of years
[1:31:15] Speaker 3: of like like Nathan Drake likes, oh, we need like
[1:31:20] Speaker 3: a Nathan Drake, like a Quippi cool guy, Like he's
[1:31:23] Speaker 3: not a complete badass, Like he's an everyman who quips
[1:31:26] Speaker 3: a lot. And I felt like there was like a
[1:31:28] Speaker 3: run of games that just did like Nathan Drake but worse, or.
[1:31:32] Speaker 2: Like what was the sci fi shooter that is Nolan
[1:31:37] Speaker 2: North and it's just him being Drake.
[1:31:40] Speaker 3: I mean there was Dark Void where he has the
[1:31:41] Speaker 3: jet because that is and he's pretty much doing Nathan
[1:31:45] Speaker 3: Drake in the game, and it's not a good game. Yeah,
[1:31:49] Speaker 3: But I for me, maybe this is a this is
[1:31:53] Speaker 3: more or less not even more or less. This is
[1:31:54] Speaker 3: almost entirely directed like Japanese games, but like sometimes dialogue
[1:31:59] Speaker 3: in Japanese game specifically is written in a bit of
[1:32:02] Speaker 3: a way that makes me cringe, Like I think Kingdom
[1:32:05] Speaker 3: Hearts is maybe the worst offender I can think of of,
[1:32:07] Speaker 3: just that classic style of characters having to needlessly say
[1:32:14] Speaker 3: a character's name even though they know them. Of just
[1:32:17] Speaker 3: like every conversation start with Riku and it's like you've
[1:32:20] Speaker 3: seen him like two minutes ago, and like they'll say like, hey, hello,
[1:32:24] Speaker 3: it's me, or hey, how are you doing, and instead
[1:32:27] Speaker 3: of just saying I'm good, they're like Riku and it's like, yes,
[1:32:30] Speaker 3: I'm it is me, I'm standing right in front of you.
[1:32:34] Speaker 3: Like the Kingdom Hearts three particularly drove me nuts with that,
[1:32:38] Speaker 3: Like I think it's maybe the worst offender of that,
[1:32:41] Speaker 3: But there are other like JRPGs or just like Japanese
[1:32:45] Speaker 3: developed games, and even maybe just other like areas of Asia,
[1:32:48] Speaker 3: that that's just like a recurring thing. And sometimes if
[1:32:51] Speaker 3: the game's good enough, I can kind of like forgive
[1:32:53] Speaker 3: it and like turn my brain off to it. But
[1:32:55] Speaker 3: if the game cannot get past that, then it's just
[1:32:58] Speaker 3: a bit like I don't even know what you would
[1:33:00] Speaker 3: call the style of dialogue, but I assume you guys
[1:33:02] Speaker 3: know what I'm talking about. You've probably encountered.
[1:33:04] Speaker 2: It's like a I wonder if it's like a loss
[1:33:06] Speaker 2: from translation thing like in yeah, like it makes more sense, yeah, localization.
[1:33:12] Speaker 3: Maybe I feel like I've played games like with subtitles
[1:33:15] Speaker 3: and it was still like translated that way. I think
[1:33:17] Speaker 3: that's just the approach. Yeah, like in an age where
[1:33:21] Speaker 3: video game writing has gotten so good and sophisticated, like
[1:33:24] Speaker 3: going back to when Charted of like some like Naughty
[1:33:27] Speaker 3: Dog dialogue being excellent, or like a rock Star game
[1:33:30] Speaker 3: like Red Nitsu or something like that, or like people, Yeah,
[1:33:35] Speaker 3: like it stands out even more. But if I fire
[1:33:37] Speaker 3: a game and that's happening, that's already like a I'm
[1:33:41] Speaker 3: already like I'm already like writing off the dialogue and like, well,
[1:33:44] Speaker 3: this is a lost cause. Hope the rest of the
[1:33:45] Speaker 3: game can can pick up the slack.
[1:33:49] Speaker 2: I have one more, one more niche beige flag very niche,
[1:33:52] Speaker 2: my most niche.
[1:33:54] Speaker 1: Be quick because my food's been sitting outside in the
[1:33:56] Speaker 1: heat for like ten minutes now.
[1:34:00] Speaker 3: One day.
[1:34:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, hey when it games audio options are just bars.
[1:34:06] Speaker 2: Like if you don't let me choose headphones or speakers
[1:34:09] Speaker 2: or TV, I'm upset. I don't like that.
[1:34:12] Speaker 3: I don't like it's just a volume meter. I want
[1:34:15] Speaker 3: are you yes?
[1:34:17] Speaker 2: And I want the game to adapt to that. If
[1:34:19] Speaker 2: you don't beag flag, I like that.
[1:34:21] Speaker 3: That's interesting.
[1:34:23] Speaker 1: Well, that's gonna be it for the show this week, everybody.
[1:34:27] Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in. Of course, if you haven't,
[1:34:30] Speaker 1: pick up a copy of Game and Form a magazine
[1:34:32] Speaker 1: find us on newsstands, or pick up a subscribe to
[1:34:35] Speaker 1: the magazine, get a get a an actual subscription Gameformer
[1:34:39] Speaker 1: dot com slash subscribe. That'll be it for this week.
[1:34:42] Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. We'll see you next week, and
[1:34:45] Speaker 1: I hope you have a good one. Bye.

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