DGC Ep 433: Cave Story (part one)

Hello and welcome back to Dev Game Club, a weekly podcast in which two veteran game developers look at games from the past to discuss their relevance and impact today. I'm Brett Duvall, and I'm joined as always by my co-host, a man who's getting serious now that he's been knocked out by that monster.

Tim Longo. Yeah. I don't think you've even gotten to being knocked out by that monster, but no, I think I did. Yeah. Oh, did you? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That was, Oh yeah. I think that happens right around where you stopped. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I forget her name. Sue. That's Sue? Oh. No, I think you're thinking of something different. Oh, well, the character I'm thinking of does say something about getting knocked out.

Oh, okay. Because she wakes up and then you fight. And then later, a little bit later, you fight Balrog. Right, okay. No, that's, yeah, that's not Sue. Yeah, I'm speaking of Sue. Anyway, let's talk about our new game this week and we'll set it in its time and all of that. People might, they could know that quote. They're not going to know that quote.

We are playing Cave Story, a 2004 independently developed Japanese video game. And kind of, you know, it's kind of interesting because it sort of sits towards the end of Freeware. I mean, not that freeware has ever really ended, but like sort of the... Yeah, there was a heyday. There was definitely a heyday of freeware where it started with like, well, which reached kind of its apex with something like Doom.

you know, and, you know, but had been around, you know, for a while before that. And this feels like it kind of comes at the end of, you know, sort of the first, you know, the first big... you know, splash of that, I would say. And so it is kind of a different era from what we've been talking about previously in terms of indie games, which are more in the, oh, we've democratized video games kind of era of indie game development.

with the sort of, you know, later 2000s, you know, early 2000 teens. tweens um so we are we're now playing cave story i'm playing via the cave story plus uh version on the nintendo switch you are playing on your steam deck so we're both playing well i'm not playing here I don't play anything handheld, but I could play handheld and you are playing handheld. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. So, yeah.

It is a sort of a bit of a Metroidvania, some Metroid, some Castlevania in there, but it's definitely its own thing as well. But you can clearly see those inspirations. I think it's interesting to talk about.

um a game like this which influenced a lot of independent game developers um who came in that kind of second wave more democratized um you know sort of setting which is funny you know we played you know fez and you know, and some of the other games that were in that indie game, the movie are.

were also not developed on an engine. They developed their own engine as well. Daisuke Amaya, who was also known as Pixel. did this all himself over the course of five years while he was also working as you know one in japan they call a salaryman um which is to say he just had a day job um and You know, I don't I wasn't able to find much about what that job was, but he was basically doing this in his spare time. You know, we don't really think of Japan as necessarily having a big independent.

sort of game ethos. But part of that is sort of our... understanding of japanese culture and part of it is just our ignorance right because a lot of those games aren't going to make it here they're not going to get translated for example which makes it you know harder for them to to cross into the into the english-speaking world for example But for those who are interested, we won't go into it.

Kara Ellison, who went around the world couch surfing, talking with indie game developers all around the world back in, I think I said 2014. He did a couple of... articles with the guardian and uh she also these would have been a chapter in her book as well um so if people are interested in that kind of scene that is very much a scene and something like um

Downwell comes from that scene as well on the phones. So, I mean, there has been a scene. It's just something that's pretty opaque to me. And this game... as well as downwell strike me as like rare you know things that break out of that market and and cross to to our shores um what was your knowledge of cave story before we started doing this

this sort of indie kick? Not too much, actually. I mean, I knew of it from back in the day. We were... working on Republic Commando. Yeah, we were finishing Republic Commando, yeah. This actually came out in Japan I believe three days two days before my last day at lucas might have been my last day at lucas arts it came out on december 20th which which might have been my last day at lucas arts yeah so it might have been actually might have really mostly fallen into a gap for me because

I was, you know, I left the sort of left the industry for a bit there, but I do remember it being, having a bit of a infamous, you know, reputation for being this. Indie game that was high quality and kind of a I don't know. I'll call it a darling before there really were that many indie darlings. And then it ended up getting ported a lot and just was...

I don't know why it's a similar, similar answer to some of the other games that we've played and like Fez or whatever. I don't, I don't really can't put my finger on why I wouldn't have played it back then. Cause I love the genre so much, but it just never. Probably the Wii would have been the first one I would have, you know, had a chance to play it on. But even that, I guess I would have been at Crystal at that point.

So I was playing Nintendo games or something, you know, so just want to, I don't know, just never quite hit, but, you know, just had a bit of a reputation. But I honestly, until we started playing it and we were digging deep more deeply into. the history. I didn't know the details for sure about, you know, him doing it over five years in his free time, which seems like a rare thing to us. Um, and, uh,

And then, you know, having a sense of the timeline of everything, knowing that this game, you know, was an influence for other games post that, whether it be... you know, super meat boy or something like that. Right. So there was, I think, you know, I can imagine though, though wasn't, though he wasn't a part of the same direct community. We know that he did a talk at GDC for instance.

For Western developers, a lot of people, especially, though developers from all over the world go to GDC, I would say it's probably easily dominated by Western developers. Oh, yeah.

When Japanese developers do talks at GDC, which is fairly rare, because as we know, culturally, they don't tend to do a lot of open discourse talks like that. When he did his talk, I do remember that having a big... impact on Western developers because a lot of us are there and the sort of realization that what he did can be done do you know what I mean like oh

Oh, you actually can do this, you know, and, and though it started on freeware, then getting ported to everything and then doing the plus version and all that. So I'm glad we're playing it for sure. And I can. Now I'm piecing together some of the timeline and the lineage here for this game specifically. Now that I've started playing, it's like, oh, okay. I can see that, you know, how you could play this and imagine, okay, I'm going to...

i'll get to super meat boy or i'll you know if if metroid was his influence main influence and somebody else's influence was Mario, you can see how Super Meat Boy comes to pass. But probably not before Cave Story existed. It did need to exist first.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think we were talking in pre-show too that I think it influences Fez. I know it directly influences... a, uh, another designer who's in Sweden called Niflis, uh, who made these, uh, knit or night, um, games, which was about a tiny, a similarly tiny little person in a kind of big.

bigger world um this actually is even though i've played it before um when it came out on the switch in whatever that is 2017 uh or so um it was one of my few games i got actually ever for the switch i mean i don't have that many switch games um and uh and it was one i actually played in its entirety you know when it um when i got it um so i'm playing off an sd card uh which feels very quaint

But anyway, it definitely had some far-reaching influence, you know, I think, especially in the sort of indie world. And, I mean, if you were to play Knit... which is what i always call it another one would be maybe n you know or n plus or n plus plus you know those sort of those games you know i think definitely as well um and then the other people i would say maybe would be the pixel junk people at um

Oh, yeah. Q Games? Is that what it's called? Something like that, right? Yeah. So I think they'd probably... you know, have had at least, I mean, they may even know, um, Dice KMI as well. Cause he's, you know, he's in Japan as are they at Q games. So, um, and those were a lot, I mean, the core of that company was the Western developers who lived in Japan. That's right. Dylan Cuthbert as the leader. Well, let's quickly, now that we've kind of talked about the...

our history with the game. Let's at least put it a little bit in its time period. It's funny because 2004 is a great year, but when I look at the year, it's like, oh, but these are a ton of games where we've actually... for the cast played original you know the original games there's we have two games from this year uh world of warcraft and vampire the masquerade bloodlines but here are the sequels uh or related there is there are a couple here that are just related not direct sequels to things

we played but halo 2 half-life 2 the sims 2 metal gear solid 3 doom 3 which we played a fair amount for um republic mandu as well uh ratchet and clank up your arsenal i don't know what number that is um silent hill 4 the room which i have and maybe someday we'll actually get through uh gta san andreas All of those are sequels. Far Cry, which we also played a bit of at the time. Metroid Zero Mission.

metroid prime 2 echoes and we played metroid prime on the cast prince of persia warrior within uh which is a sequel to prince of persia uh sands of time um it's the grittier version. This is definitely an era of like, make it gritty, you know, because Prince of Persia, the Sands of Time is so kind of light and hopeful in a way. I mean, there's a lot of dark stuff in it, but the character is very.

kind of light and bantering and warrior with it is not that um knights of the old republic 2 star wars battlefront uh pikmin 2 sly 2 band of thieves My personal favorite of that trilogy, Jack 3, which I've never played, but also goes grittier.

Because, of course, when you've got this goofy, cartoony character, you want to definitely make him gritty. Chronicles of Riddick escaped from Butcher Bay. No grittiness needed to be added there. And the one game that kind of sticks it out and says, no, we're just going to be light and cheerful is... katamari damasi um i don't know the one game there's i'm sure other games from that were light and cheerful pikmin too i guess um but uh but yeah anyway that one stands out as a sort of

Not a sequel, not an IP, just a pure delight that maybe someday we should play, although I no longer have a copy. So I'd have to track that down. Which one? Katamari Damacy. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I never had a copy of that. Did the DS come? I was looking at this. Did the DS come out this year too? I don't know. Oh, yeah. The Nintendo DS was also launched. Okay. Maybe it was in Japan, but yeah. I will look it up. Oh, no, no. Let's see. PlayStation DS North America. Yeah. November.

Huh, okay. Just to give a hardware side of it. Yeah. It was also the year before the 360, right? So in 2005. and whatever you know later in that year um the 360 came out and then i guess the ps3 was almost the whole year behind it um and the we would have been around that time as well around the time is the, I think I could be wrong about that. I think it feels like 2006, but I don't remember.

um and i didn't look it up and i'm just gonna leave it but anyway that's you know we've we've played a couple of those games we played a lot of the predecessors to those games uh or the successor in the case of far cry we played far cry 2 um far cry and far cry 2 have uh basically the name in common i'm not sure you could really say that you know they have very much else in common um and in fact that series as a whole although it has maintained its sort of fun factory

you know, sort of systemic madness kind of thing. None of them have been quite as, you know, they've been more like, Hey, here's a new. you know, remote place to kind of be a war playground in, you know, Far Cry itself was kind of weird, had some kind of mutants in it or something. And like, it's very distinct from the rest of the series. And I guess it's the only one that was done by. cry uh what's the name of the company that does cry tech yeah cry tech um anyway um

Yeah, so that's kind of the year. A lot of sequels make sense. You're at the end of a cycle, more or less. One platform is definitely at the end of its cycle with the Xbox. In fact, this was a point at which the Xbox market was only taking games that had Xbox Live in them somehow. which is why Republic Commando has a multiplayer feature. And, you know, you can sort of see the end of the PS2 lifecycle as well. You know, some of these titles like Sly had another PS2 title.

et cetera. Um, and the game cube, you know, not a lot of game cube titles, uh, that I, you know, right off there, but you know, there would have been some, some additional, um, I think the thousand year door was that year as well, which got a. a remake or a remaster last year. So ever, evergreen Mario properties, of course, but.

But yeah, interesting and a good year. I mean, you look at that list again and you're like, that's a pretty good year. You'd be happy with that year. Yeah, sort of in the... which we've talked about before, the sort of 1998, 2002, 2004, you know, there's sort of like some really stellar years that kind of had, you know, every few years happened there for a while.

Before the onslaught of every year has something amazing happening, which wasn't always the case, but yeah. And to have the game shine. in that year and still make the impact that it made in that year is also impressive for at least the original version.

being developed by essentially just him, right? Yeah, it's solo development for the original release entirely, like not a... solo but you know i hired this person for this and that person for that and got some art from somebody but i think literally entirely himself and he even composed the music which is amazing yeah music so good some of the music in what we're playing um

along later but or was reorchestrated in some cases but largely it's his it's his melodies as well so yeah Well, and then I think the other thing we've talked a little bit about, maybe with Fez because of all the ports, but though it came out in that year.

The other trend that you see with the indie games of this caliber that have had this much impact is the sort of like... slow and steady over a long period of time, building momentum, you know, and having port upon port. It's not like, you know, commercial release in other ways where... You try to have as many SKUs hit at the same time, right? It's like, oh, it's a big launch. It's like, no, this came out of freeware. Oh, it had really good traction. Kind of came out of grassroots nowhere.

and then they made a ds version or a wii version then a ds version and then you know they kept going with it um and kept doing versions of it and that sort of like building That indie sort of, whether it's a community or whether it's just a sort of persona over a long period of time is another, feels like another.

uh staple of this progression for games yeah in particular in the early ports to WiiWare and DSi you're talking about actually not even full access to the hardware right you're talking about um the sort of light access that was granted um via you know a sort of standard api but not a limited i mean but a limited one that doesn't

you know get the updates doesn't have full access yeah the equivalent would be i mean and but uh you know there's no trcs or tcrs you know depending on your platform um you know you can kind of publish stuff out there independently on on those early nintendo platforms the sort of equivalent on the ps2 was that that linux platform i forget what that was called um

It was an add-on to the PS2 where you could basically get some access to the PS2. And then with the Xbox 360 and then the Xbox One, I think they had similar. I mean, you had XBLA, but you had full access to the hardware at that point. But I feel like there was also like a C-sharp environment for maybe 360 that you could develop in and things like that. oh you're right you're right the psp or the ps vita one of those had this it was the vita had a similar thing where you could develop

basically as if you were developing for Android, I seem to remember was like the C sharp libraries you were using, but they talked to the PS Vita hardware. Like, so there's been like, um, Oh, it was called Urosy, Net Urosy or whatever, I think was the PS2 thing. Or maybe that was the PS1 version of the same thing that I don't think was launched here in the US. But anyway, you know, the console holders.

have been sort of dabbling in ways to let the community in you know let let just sort of independent randos out there you know make stuff um you know they they won't host it for their platform if it doesn't meet you know certain guidelines, but there's not a strict publishing process either. So it's kind of an interesting space. I see sort of less of that right now, but at the time it was kind of interesting how they're trying to figure that out.

Well, I mean, in that era, 2004, 2005, 2006, looking at the SKUs for this, It feels like a miracle to me that they came out on so many Nintendo platforms. They even had ports, you know what I mean? Like, I guess they did sort of get hooked up with another company that maybe had... Yeah, which probably had some publishing capacity or some connections at Nintendo. But Nintendo wasn't doing a lot of that back then. They have now since embraced Nindies.

as they call them, the most ridiculous name. But it's like, okay, indie, you know, it's sort of all the publishers or all the platform holders eventually, like we talked about with... Xbox live, you know, a few times on this in this series, but also probably when we played Castlevania You know, people, the platform holders slowly came to the conclusion that indie games can sell on their platforms. And so they started. Sorry to allow. Yeah.

more officially but back then to get Cave Story onto the Wii is just amazing to me yeah I mean the you know and I think you know in the early days of the switch when there wasn't a lot of um you know first party or third party um you know games you know in that first six months or whatever there were actually what that was actually a great place to put an independent title at the time because there wasn't a lot of software available indie games tend to be less demanding on systems and so

relatively underpowered to its direct competitors piece of hardware. They're obviously not trying to compete head-to-head on that, and they never have. From that perspective, it's like, oh, this game that I've made that runs fine on, you know, on a PC and probably a not very high spec PC will.

probably also run fine you know on a switch uh or back then on a wii you know or or what have you um you know makes it a makes it a nice target and that's how we got to to nindies as it were right because because nintendo recognized like not only did this um you know not only uh can these make money but like they really filled a gap for them in that early lifetime of the switch for you know for obviously harder core high attach rate players but uh so well and i i mean we're we're mentioning it

pretty off the cuff because you're playing it on Switch, but it also is flabbergasting to me that there is a version of this game that was ported to the Switch, and that's the version you're playing. And that is... It's not that time necessarily makes something a classic, but in this case, it's the fact that...

It keeps getting ported to Nintendo platforms. It's on the Switch, which, yes, the Switch 2 just launched. But still, the Switch is a relatively modern console, albeit its power is not as modern. it's not its goal i still love that you can go to the switch store and buy this game now and somebody ported it to that you know it's not like this this steam deck's a little different like i actually had to go through a little bit of hoops to get it running

controls-wise well there. And people just throw stuff onto Steam, right? And it's like, it just kind of like, well, good luck. You know, it's out there with all the other games, but to get it onto the Switch to keep, you know, it just... to me it means that it's a classic like like people are spending enough effort to keep it alive as new platforms come come out you know so i think that's also a bit of a miracle to me yeah yeah

And it plays very well on the Switch. I remember playing it and beating it back in 2017 or whatever. Cause I also didn't have a ton that I was playing on it. Um, and it's, uh, yeah, it's solid, solid game. Um, totally, uh, totally recommend playing it.

let's talk a little bit about what it's like to play it. You know, we've already mentioned Metroid and Castlevania. I think there are other... you know mostly nintendo i mean it makes sense that this is a game that gets ported to nintendo systems because i think a lot of its influences are nintendo um yeah but let's talk about how you know what games you see in the mix you know and

What about those games you see in the mix? Because it isn't straight up Metroid, for example. It's got some things from Metroid, but some things that feel different. Yeah, you're kind of still early, but what are your impressions? Well, I've been happily surprised. In pre-show, I was kind of describing it as hybrid.

maybe genre merging or mixing or whatever. And we talked about that a lot on the podcast, but in this case I was surprised, you know, just to give a specific example, like, um, the web, I've only found the two weapons so far, but. Each weapon you can level up at least three levels. And that as an example of this intermixture of... combat mechanics with leveling but then taking hits can you know de-level your weapons and there's constant sort of back and forth

of that is very fascinating to me i get a i get a little bit of a megaman like capcom influence in there as well like capcom sort of tonal aspects of it and then the other sort of you know medium to large uh surprise which i'm trying to parse the influence here i guess maybe

I'm trying to think of maybe Bionic Commando might've had some of this going on, but like there's, there's, there's a story, there's a narrative, you know, and say Sega was doing some of that with, with. some of the sonic games at some point where they're trying to really give you know nintendo doesn't really spend but you know they introduced bowser

And he breaks a castle and then you go chase him, you know, whatever, you know, like there's not much. There's a little more than that in Metroid, for example. Metroid has some, yeah, but it's still sort of this general concept actually was.

playing super metroid actually last month um restarted it uh and you know it's it still just gives you the general concept of what's going on we played zero right when we played prime and there's a lot more going on there which was interesting but i think one of the pure elements of the nintendo

games that i appreciate i played fusion i think while we played uh oh sorry it was fusion no i'm you're right i might have also started zero but yeah i haven't played zero ever there's more going on more story going on fusion which it sounds like is they're piggybacking off for four prime four. But, um, anyway, I've always appreciated Nintendo's commitment and we've talked about this with Zelda as well. And they even do this. She would.

to a staggering degree in Breath of the Wild, even though the game is so big, the narrative, so to speak, is still very minimalistic. There's more there, but... Not a lot. You know, it's still very myth oriented. Right. And so the fact that in here, I feel like Sega, Capcom, some of the others have done a little more of this. Of course, Square, Square's bread and butter in this era.

I'm surprised to see dialogue come up. I'm surprised to see character portraits come up. There's actually multiple characters I'm starting to already have trouble keeping, you know, telling them apart. Because there's so many, or not telling them apart, but remembering them. Right. Because there's so many in play. So it's been a nice, like, it's more of an adventure, I guess I'll say, than I thought it was going to be. Yeah. I do consider Metroid an adventure.

But it's much more of a mission. It's a solo adventure, yeah. You know, this is like a world. There's...

you know, you're going to, uh, you know, it has some like earthbound in it. Right. In a way, that was the one I couldn't think of because especially the character. Yeah. Um, that was one that came to mind. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely, how about you? I mean, is that, that's one. comes to mind for you. That's what comes to mind in part because you've got this sort of you know this little village of people and you know I mean

Earth Bonds, it's definitely its own thing, and it's much more of a sort of JRPG. But just more tonally, I think. Tonally, I think it does very much fit in that mold. And I do think that there's even... in a way more castlevania in this than metroid just because of the you know castlevania has always been a little more narrative heavy right um not a lot uh obviously but but i think more more so than than metroid um

Well, I mean, it depends on the Metroid, but of this kind of prior to this game, I would say, you know, that there's kind of more story in that. And it definitely has that feel. I mean, you're in this place and there's... you know six or seven uh mimagi villagers that you're talking to and um

yeah i i don't keep their names straight there's like a there's a guy in there's a guy who's the head of the village and then his number two is the assistant to the regional manager yeah king and the assistant to the regional manager who's number two whose name i forget Togoro? Or To... Toroko. Toroko. I think... Yeah.

Anyway, and then there's a character who's basically, you know, kind of quivering in fear in one spot. And then there's Arthur and Sue. You don't even know that you've met Arthur as a player. yet um you may not realize that at all yet uh sue is kind of this headstrong uh mimagi who's not going to take you know no for an answer um

There's a dude who's fishing, but like in, you know, they're in different screens and like they move around, you know, so it definitely has some of that. There's a village, right? I feel a little Zelda-like in that way. Yeah. Well, and then I think the other thing is like... Oh yeah, Zelda's of course another good.

yeah the opening sets up some mysteries of like who who is kazuma um who is sue right and then there's even some mention not that we have to get into this too deeply i'm not intending to talk about the story it's more of just examples to prove the point that that one of them recently said to me oh are you from the surface or something, the letters on your hat are not from around here. So there's like, okay, clearly I'm like this.

I don't actually know what I am. I think I'm a little boy, but I look at some of the artwork and I'm like, maybe I'm not a boy per se, like a real boy. Maybe it's a Pinocchio thing. I don't know. Maybe I'm a robot. But I'm not a rabbit or whatever the... Yeah, they're sort of radical. So anyway, it's just that... And of course, they're in...

They're in caves, right? Yeah, and there's this underground. It's a floating island, apparently. They talk about islands and getting off the island. Then there's these weird eggs. So he just did a great job.

Again, this goes back to themes that I think we talked about, especially with Fez of within an indie space, especially a solo developer. All you have are yeses, right? You can do what you want and have fun and be playful with having a wide... range of those influences kind of be merged into one game and if you wanted the story to have some mystery and some you know in the Nintendo sort of playbook

I think that they probably do have a certain ceiling to complexity of story for their first party games. Yeah. Complexity of narrative, I'll just say generally, or of fiction. You know, when you're unleashed to be able to do what you want to do, like if he wants to add in some of this sort of these nuanced elements, then he can do that. And that's, I think, obviously a great thing about the indie space. Little did he know, I think, you know, of the influence.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, and I think that, you know, some of the, you've already mentioned some of the sort of systemic stuff that definitely sets it apart and makes it its own thing, you know, that there are, you know, like any other, like, you know, like a Metroid game, there are multiple weapons and things.

like that but these are leveled up by basically you know as you um you know as you kill things they might drop things that kind of level everything up um it's really charming and it's sort of i don't know small numbers you know it's like you need 15 points to level from level one to level two or whatever whatever it is i don't know if it's 15 but whatever it is it's some small double-digit number and you're like that is not how game like games typically

work. It's like it's it's uh you know it's like thousands of whatever to power up the thing and even though it might really only be 10 it's 10 000 you know it's you only get increments of a thousand as it turns out um but he just kind of like goes in that kind of small scale charming like mentally you know something you wrap your head around mentally um kind of scope of a thing of like oh i get 10 points or 12 points or 15 or whatever um you know when i finished you know i

you know, because I plugged it in again today, you know, I had my original save, which I kept and I was like, Oh, I had 45 health. you know, when I ended this game, you start with three. Like, so that's kind of like the scope, you know, that you're talking about in terms of growth. It's not a super long game. You know, we're going to play it in a couple of sessions.

I will endeavor to finish it again. I'm playing it uneasy this time out, which is nice, because I do remember towards the end it got a bit difficult for me, I think. I hope I'm remembering it correctly as this game. It has a bit of a reputation for that, so I'm not surprised to hear it. I'm playing uneasy as well for the same reason. Just to be able to get through it.

I definitely feel like it was, I played it on the sort of normal mode, I believe when I originally played it and it was, it was, you know, it had a spike at the end is my recollection. So it'd be nice to be on the easier mode. feel like we can get through it um yeah there's these eggs and the sky dragons in it

Pretty sure you fight one of those at the end. Not to spoil the ending for you, but you might be able to read that that's coming. It's good foreshadowing. I mean, they talk about it. Yeah, they do. Could they really exist? Yeah, you'll see more of it really soon after what you've played as well. And you'll be like, oh, oh, okay. They must be quite big because you'll see their eggs. And you're like, oh, that egg is... sizable like

Like even in D&D. Oh, have you? Oh, okay. You did get that far. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to have a hard time of envisioning where you are then. Yeah. Yeah. So they're, I mean, they're good size and you go inside them, you know, it's, it's pretty wild. So you did actually.

then that was a good sequence though you know like the concept of there's like a little bit of puzzling going on there exactly that's the thing i was talking about i appreciate it i didn't think you had gotten there yet and i didn't want to Yeah, spoil it for you to figure that out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so you're actually further along than I thought. So you're pretty close to where I am. Yeah, yes, correct. Right, they give you the clue in that one room. Of which eggs are important.

yeah very clever you know it's just it's just fun because it's like the reason again i keep coming back to genre mixing mixing um because the you know the big the big companies have sort of formulas that they want to stick to to mitigate risk and stuff you can have these little puzzly elements in these interactable elements like you find consoles there's like almost like emails or something you know you're seeing text and im's on some computers you find and then in that one room you're

reading each of the con the the consoles the computer consoles in there it tells you which eggs you can go inside essentially are you there that you should investigate um you're picking up items like you do in say a metal the original metal gear you know so there's which are basically keys that are keys um or in some cases actual keys

Yeah. You do pick up some straight up keys, but then there's some times where you pick up some ingredients where somebody is going to make you something out of those ingredients. That'll be a key and things like that. Yeah, that's great. And then like finding, you know, I found some like.

plants and red petals on the ground that are just like a little bit of information that i assume is going to come up later that's like huh it's like there's like a lot of little tidbits there um that are just very like just um fascinating and and intriguing to see in a game like this where there's just more like to be honest in in a metroid game even i haven't played dread but the one before that i'm blanking on um the two and a half d1

It was done by a third-party company. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was on your 3DS. That's why I have your 3DS. They still have their sort of what I would call myth-level story. But I still would love to have some more interactables like that where you find a computer console that gives you a little bit more narrative collectible. They just don't do that a lot.

Breath of the Wild is the only one that I've really seen them dabble in that, but even that is still very minimalistic. The biggest collectible in that game. was the visions, the memories or whatever they were called. And there's only like 10 of those in the whole game or something. And it barely gives you anything. They're beautiful, but they're just, that's their thing. But in this game, it's so nice that it was just such a surprise, I guess, to me to go in and read.

the chat from the previous person using that computer. You know what I mean? We're putting two and two together. Like another little great tidbit was you come upon the computer. that Sue would have been reading, and I can think it's in Arthur's house, that Sue would have been reading when Cosimo was trying to reach out to her. To get in touch, yeah. So you see the other side of the computer. So it's just...

It's really interesting ways of making those connections of like, oh, this character is important to this character, you know, and why, you know, and like this character is. you know who's supposed to be protecting the village and not doing a very good job as the mayor or whatever the king uh you know and like how they all connect together and why they're you know they have they have little threads of motivation and movement, right? I mean, the other thing I would say is that

To some degree, obviously, it's not nearly at this kind of level of depth or anything like that. But one of the things we talked a lot about going way back to Final Fantasy IX was... how they're sort of individually coded things, you know, in that, in that game. Right. You know, and I think that that's kind of a, you know, I don't know if that's still really an ethos with Japanese development, but it definitely was something that felt.

you know, of that time to be part of the ethos of, you know, 16-bit and then, you know, the 32-bit machines. going forward and all that stuff that they had this kind of like custom made stuff and this feels like you know as an indie You want to throw something in custom made for one thing that you're going to do? Why not? You know, it doesn't have to, it doesn't have to pay off by being repeated a thousand times. Right. It just, it could be the one thing, you know, and, and that's cool.

Yeah, I mean, I would be surprised. Maybe I would be wrong on this, but I bet I never go inside of an egg again. That's just probably that one puzzle.

But I just so many surprises. The fact that, well, and I think, I guess, to the influences and the genre mixing, I guess one conclusion I'm coming to is I just played what I played, which I'm obviously... very delightfully surprised by is that I think it's way too reductive to just call this a Metroidvania or to say Metroid and again I'm not saying you're saying that but I think the collective

distillation of this game has always when somebody has talked to me about it has always been oh it's a metroidvania it's like yeah okay yeah it is but he's having a lot more fun beyond that. I mean, there's even a little bit of JRPG feel sometimes to me as well, not in the systems and mechanics, but just in the sort of like presentation and the tone of it.

So and again, I already mentioned Mega Man and, you know, Mega Man is a robot. And then there's like a doctor or there's a scientist. I'm looking at the I'm staring at the. the start screen for the game and i'm realizing the doctor on that has green hair and now i'm like the back of kazima's head is also green hair wait a second you know so i'm like the fact that we are even talking about story at all or characters right is blowing my mind for this game and and that being said there's some

In my opinion, brilliant mechanics with the combat that I just didn't also did not anticipate the concept of leveling your weapons up, but then losing levels as you get hit. Yeah. Is like, so dark souls or something. It's like, Oh wow. So you really, this is, this is one of those games. This is a skill based don't get hit game.

if you really want to keep those levels maxed did not see that coming either so yeah i know it definitely is like the idea that it would take that stuff away from you it was like i had forgotten you know it's i don't mechanics for very long but uh

because i i sort of remembered oh yeah it's kind of not you know it's kind of its own thing you know cave story i mean it's got story right there in the title um and you you kind of forget you know with the some years distance from it like oh yeah there actually is you know, it's not a hyper deep story, obviously, but it's also way more than, you know, some of its antecedents or precedents rather. Um, well, even its antecedents, I guess. Um, but, uh, but yeah, and it's really.

um it's really having fun with that story and it does like i i definitely feel like Fez connects to it a lot, both in sort of in the character design, kind of the bigger heads, smaller bodies, but also just kind of the... the sort of lightness of touch you know of the you know people moving around they don't talk you know in mythic

terms of anything you know there's no it's like not the end of the world although it's it is kind of dire you know in the sense that like this village is shrinking um because of this you know outside force this character um you know so there's you know it's it's set up and the stakes are high for these people anyway but it's not like whole civilizations will end as a result of what's happening here. It's definitely a little lighter, defter touch on that as well.

you do meet a character soon after this. He was like, you're a really good person, you know, and it's just got that sort of, that always makes me think of the Seven Samurai. I don't know if you remember right, but when the really excellent quiet swordsman is down just practicing his draw down by the stream. And the original translation, and I'm sure this is really poor translation, but I think it captures sort of the feel a little bit, is like the newcomer, you know, the naive swordsman.

is like watching him do this. And then he runs up to him and he's like, you are really great. You know, it's like, and you've kind of had that sense here of like, you're a really good person, you know, kind of feels kind of of a similar flavor. Yeah, it's something else. I mean, obviously, I guess if it rose to the top of the list for us, then we're playing it for a reason, and I'm starting to now see that reason.

I do definitely think I was overly influenced on it being a pretty reduced down kind of game. I was like, well, okay, it looks like a cute Metroidvania. I don't know if I need to play that. you know i'm thinking i'm talking like 10 20 years ago or whatever right um but uh and i just i'm looking at this

page I'm on right now and I just spoiled something for myself. Yeah. I guess it's going to stop. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's one of the problems of, it's one of the problems of genre. Right. And, and one of the problems of not like. the industry not being really good at explaining to its potential customers. And it's even harder for Indies of like how these things are different and, you know, It would be hard for this game to find its audience, I think, today, which is a shame.

and it does kind of speak to like, you know, I don't know if it was pre-show that we're talking just about how much stuff is out there. You know, that, you know, it, things just disappear. Things, you know, come up that might be really, really interesting to a player. It's like, how would you know? Like, you know, you mentioned the Switch 2 came out and I'm kind of like, oh yeah, the Switch 2 came out, but it's like even a console.

sort of feels like it can a little bit get lost um in today's environment of games i mean part of it so i'm a little disconnected from the news right now but but yeah i don't know it feels it feels like uh, the time for this stuff and actually just like explaining to people that might enjoy it, you know, why they might enjoy it is, is a really hard thing that, that we've never really been very good at, you know?

because we're very reductive as an industry. Yeah, it's at a scale where you need to categorize things if you want to try to talk about things. I mean, luckily we've... For better or for worse, we're still doing this podcast all these many years later. And so we're able to go more deeply into, like, you know, say we did the podcast for two years and we played.

However many, whatever that is, like, you know, 40 games or something. I don't know. Yeah, probably more like 24, but yeah. 24 games. Yeah. You know, we would have gotten a very specific set. And we all know what they would have been probably. Right. Um, if we, We didn't do any sort of future planning, so who knows what. We still don't. We played Hitman for the second game, for Christ's sake. But anyway, my point being is because we've had enough time to go and play some of these.

off the beaten path maybe and not so obvious. I'm glad that we can talk about this game. not as just a metroidvania you know what i mean right yeah and i'm glad for even just for myself selfishly that i now know that there's more going on um and even though the title was cave story i didn't take that seriously you know

I figured that that was just, yeah, the story is the player doing a Metroidvania in the cave. I didn't intend for that to be that literal. Again, not that it has a very elaborate, but there's definitely more going on. So that's been nice. Yeah, it's very special so far. I'm excited to play more. I'm hoping I should, well, if it gets too hard, maybe I won't. Yeah, I mean, I looked up how long it is to beat this game, and it's sort of in the 7 to 10 hour.

kind of range so it is not you know and it's not a game where i mean there was some sort of backtracking around and things like that but it's not like that's one of the things about it being called the metroidvania that always kind of rankles us a little bit it's not like It's not that you'll see a door, you know, and there's like and now there's 20 of these doors spread around that you can only open once you've got the thing. I mean, there are definitely, you know.

Things that you get where you're like, oh, I can use this. I can think of a few places where I can use this. And they're not often doors. I mean, they're not only doors, I should say. So it does have some of that.

And there's definitely been a place, well, you've seen it too, near where you teleport to where the eggs are. If you look down, there's like a... you know a heart container or whatever to increase your health um and uh it's very hard to get that at the beginning of the game and i'm wondering is there a skill It comes later. I think there's one door that I saw that I couldn't see a way to even get up to. So I was kind of assuming that maybe there's a...

Maybe there's a farther jump or something at some point. Yeah. yeah so there's there's all of that that's happening as well but it's not a huge amount of retreading you know it's not a game where you probably need a map um you know you might make a few notes to yourself about things, but it does, it's not, it's not sort of like that. Um, and, uh, not like Fez, right. You know, which is like crazy amount of, you know, rooms and things like that. This is, this is not quite.

quite so large in that way so yeah um is my recollection right so we'll yeah maybe yeah yeah i i think it's just people don't know how to describe it You know, I've heard Firewatch called a Metroidvania or have Metroidvania in it. And I'm like, oh, sure. Like. Not really what I would think. And they have a couple places where you're gated because you haven't found the X yet. And they wanted more of that when they designed it, but they didn't have the time and space to do it.

You know, so they, you know, they, they kind of really isn't any of that, but, but yeah, it's. it is it's just that kind of reductive like well we don't know what to call it you know so it's a walking simulator right you know to to use the reductive term we used for our last kind of little trilogy of games

I wanted to ask you last how you feel about the sort of movement. We talked a little bit in pre-show about it being kind of a floatier game. You know, it's a game without fall damage. I think that might be partly why it's kind of floaty. But what are your thoughts playing it? You're not a platformer guy generally. So, you know, I'm always kind of wondering how you kind of react to...

different sort of movement mechanics in these sort of 2D games. Yeah, I mean, it's taking a little bit of getting used to it. I think there, I guess, I would... Put it between, say, the Fez and, you know, the Fez version of that. and Mario on the opposite side. So it's in the middle a little bit for me, but it is floatier than I like. And I think the discreteness of the Metroid...

Castlevania games, and obviously you throw Mario in there too, that's just very specific. My recollection is there's even some sliding once you land. There is, yeah. So it's like, it's got enough of that, that sort of like, you know, in precision that worries me about later in the game, if it does escalate, because.

It is very, very much a mastery. Once it's that, you know, once it gets that floaty, there's, there's a lot of mastery that's going to have to come into it. Um, that will, I think is a time commitment thing to really get the muscle memory. So I'm a little worried about that. Um, but, but it's still, it's still, I think high quality and implemented. Well, it's just more of a style.

yeah it's more of a feel thing yeah for sure and yeah i'm not crazy about that aspect either you know i definitely have already had times where i've jumped and tried to land on like a block i think i felt this way about um animal well which i didn't i didn't play much of but it was like oh i have to be like this precise yeah but also don't have tons didn't feel like i had tons of control like that i was gonna you know land and slide a little bit and like you know learning

Learning to anticipate those physics, you know, I'm never a huge fan of either, you know, because like, well, I'm going to figure this thing out, you know, then I'm going to go play someone that's, you know, some other game that's sort of in a similar style. And it's like, you know, three tenths of a millisecond different of sliding and it's going to feel all weird. And, you know, which is funny because Spelunky has some.

some momentum too. And it's like, I know the momentum is different on Spelunky too. And I'm like, well, I'm not ready to move on to Spelunky too. Then I'm just, I'm going to stick with the one I know, you know, because I've learned. Yeah. That's going to be.

that's going to be a cast yeah talking about that thing uh yeah which i don't know if that's a spoiler if we've said yet or not we have not said so yeah that's for people who have listened this long that is uh that is when we're going to look at uh next as sort of another 2d i mean it's a totally different style of game but another sort of 2d side uh you know game i i'm kind of i'll be very interested to see what you what you make of that one uh for sure because

Obviously, I'm a big fan of that game and always have been. Well, and I think I'm unpacking it a little bit, even just as you were asking, because we did talk about it with Fez as well, and I'm probably... Comparing it, you know, and talked about it with Mario. But I do think that for me it does come down to a... like i can i can respect and appreciate when somebody embraces some momentum based physics or at least the simulation of you know the in the

feel of that in a 2d game like this platformer game that we're platforming so important so i can appreciate that but i guess as i said earlier my my dislike of it often comes in where Like you said, the lack of control means that you really have to become one with the controller.

become one with the physics and the sense the muscle memory has to be something that is really like ingrained in you. I'm saying this a little bit because I'm deep into Dark Souls 2 right now and Dark Souls in a different, whole different genre and whole different like.

you know, engine, et cetera, physics engine and everything. There's, there's some of that too, right? Where it's like, there's, there's some unpredictable elements of even just jumping and rolling and things sometimes, right? Where.

you kind of you have to know where the slop is to leverage it but you kind of it's a feel thing yeah yeah and it's even it's been worse by the fact that in a game like that you can increase your whatever it is dexterity and like suddenly your roll speed is different you know and it's like

like you're learning that as well like that part of it is even changing yeah i can adapt your time timing of things gets faster um as you invest in certain skills and things like that right yeah the rpg nature because yeah in that game i've changed i've upped my poise quite a bit which apparently in that game makes my my iframes bigger i know of them so so that's helped me but every time i frames on

It's him. But to contrast it to a game that everyone knows I love as well, a somewhat recent game for me, but it's been a while, Hollow Knight. That has learned behavior when it comes to the jumping and the platforming, but it. it has more precision that i feel like i was able to memorize and grok more quickly even though they they give you the challenges they put you through are very challenging i think the basics of it are consistent enough for me to where i

At least for my style of play, I could rely on them more. So it'll be interesting to see for Cave Story because I did know that it had a little bit of an infamous difficulty curve. So I definitely am worried about that. I definitely could hit a wall. I could see myself hitting a wall in this game and not finishing it, but I'll do my best based on the way that the platforming is so far.

Well, we can ask for nothing more. I'm going to go ahead and put a pin in it there. We'll come back to it next week. But we did have one email sent to devgameclub at gmail.com that I thought I would read. it kind of, it lightly touches on, uh, the emotional reactions. Um, so I will, uh, and then I'll throw over to Tim for any reaction on that. It's called a gone home. And then in friends, it says alone.

I see what you did there. Ashton Herman. Hey, Tim and Brett. I genuinely appreciated hearing about the emotional reactions you had to gone home, and I wanted to share my own experience with the game.

My wife had taken our daughters out of town with her parents, leaving me home alone for the weekend. I don't really remember why I hadn't... been able to travel with them but for context let me tell you that i can count on one hand how many times i've had the house to myself for more than a few hours naturally i decided to spend the weekend catching up on games i had on my backlog one of which was gone home

I started the game late in the evening without really knowing what I was getting myself into. I'm a total chicken when it comes to horror games, and I'll admit I almost turned the game off when I realized that at some point I was going to have to enter its spooky attic. Little did I know.

I persevered and my terror turned to an epiphanic moment of joy and empathy. It's one of the most powerful moments I've ever had with a game. I'm a cisgender heterosexual man with next nothing in common with the story's hero, Sam. But there I was.

home alone in the dark at my desk, sobbing Ashton Herman. So, you know, just maybe some, some, uh, recognition there, Tim. I don't know. I'm tearing up right now thinking about Ashton's email. Yeah, thanks for writing in, Ashton. It's good to hear from you. It's been a little while.

Yeah, same thing. I mean, I talked about it probably on the episode, but not knowing what I was getting myself into, not even understanding if it was a horror game or not. And similarly, it sounds like I also... hadn't had not intended to play it in one sitting and started late in the evening and just couldn't like i think i've said in the episode couldn't put the book down kind of so to speak right and just kept playing

And it got the hooks into me so much from a narrative standpoint that I think it really benefited from playing it in one sitting because that final scene or the final few. few voice voiceovers um i think you know hit even harder so yeah it's it's a very very special thing for sure um and I wasn't sure what, I mean, I guess that's the thing about emotion and especially empathetic emotions, like how and why.

do you how can you describe it i'm not even sure how it happened to me i mean like ashton said it's like at one point it kind of it sneaks up on you and then all of a sudden there you are right and and That is a very, very special, very special thing.

it's catharsis right i mean i think is when you i mean that's that's why we have a word for it i think you know is like yeah exactly that's what you're trying to build to and and it's a distinct feeling right you know of catharsis of like Building up that emotional tension and empathy in yourself and then basically having the dam break, you know, is that moment of catharsis, which he calls, you know, epiphanic moment of joy and empathy, which is, you know, as good a description as I've heard.

That's sort of type of catharsis, although obviously many catharsis are... are not joyful um you know especially in tragedy but um but yeah i mean you're just kind of ratcheting up you know like he said he can sort of see the um he can he can see the elephant in the room like i'm gonna have to go up in that spooky attic as he as he points out um and you kind of you've been brought to that state very skillfully, I think, at that point. Amazing. Yeah, the pacing, the buildup, the...

The not knowing. Not knowing what you're going to find. Not knowing what you're going to find. And it just masterfully paced. You know, and the curve, you know, the sort of like emotional curve is not linear on purpose. Right. It really does kind of have that sort of.

that, that hockey stick at the end on intentionally. So, and so, you know, it, it really would be amazing to, to talk to somebody about it because, um, Because it was so well done and it would be interesting to hear sort of that journey for the developers to know like how that came about. Because I know they had other, you know, other influences from their past that they had worked on similar, you know, things that had narrative focus in the interactive space. So it's just that.

transgression you know that that translation over from that from like a bioshock kind of thing to this is just like yeah yeah and then i think to contrast to ashton's email the contrast the thing that I think his email is helping me with a little bit too, because I think you asked me about other games I had cried or been emotional on. Yeah, I did. The only other two I remembered, I think I mentioned, but to... To put, how do I put this diplomatically?

To put Last of Us 2 and Gone Home in the same, you know, Shadow of the Colossus is kind of a whole different beast. It's a whole different 16 beasts, in fact. Yeah, but all three of them are so very different games. I'm kind of thinking about this on the fly, but they're so very different.

But I had emotional reactions to all of them for different reasons. But in Last of Us 2's case, which for anyone who watches the show can see, even if you haven't played the games, you know what that's all about. It's orchestrated. They know what they're doing. They are trying to create a dramatic tension and dramatic catharsis for you in a tragic way.

Using these tropes from storytelling, father-daughter relationships and loss and lying and betrayal and all the sorts of, you know, all these things are tried and true things from storytelling throughout time.

And Gone Home is the case to some degree, but I don't feel as, you know, I'll just be blunt about it. I didn't feel manipulated in Gone Home. Right. But in something like Last of Us 2, which is at a... just this triple quadruple a scale they're gonna like fine-tune every little thing as you're going you know and it's like oh you know what we're gonna hit them over the head with this and so it's like yeah of course i'm emotional at the end of that game

But Gone Home just had a much bigger impact on me because of the way it was done and how unexpected it was and how graceful it was. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I think about, I watch a lot of.

films obviously and i think about how because they are a linear medium you know that you kind of kind of experience in time in one way they can more directly manipulate you and um you know it feels like that with games like last of us um in a similar way that they're using very cinematic yeah you know and part of that is like you know down to like music and like you know literally

pouring on the whatever you know kind of pouring on the strings as it were right so that like you you know you you can see a sort of weepy movie and be like ah this is this is getting to me not because it's actually skillfully done, but just because of all the, they're just using all the tropes, right? You know, and I've been taught to respond to those, right? You know, it's just like part of life. So.

Yeah, it's a whole thing. Well, it's an excellent point to bring up, and I know we're over-talking this, but to your point about the cinematic or linear version of that, I... feel like we talked about this when it came up before but the irony with last of us is that you know i think i i think i might have said something in the past of like could a movie version of this

you know, elicit the same reaction. Um, how much of the interactivity part of it was critical to its success. And I'm talking about all three examples for me personally. Yeah. Last of us two. Could have had the same, I believe, and I'm going to get mail about this probably. I don't know how many, you know, Uber fans are out of the game. Excellent game. Love the games. I'm not definitely not trying to.

you know talk talk badly about them but they could you know i i believe in a cinematic world they could have had the same reaction out of me to your point using the traditional methods, right? And the irony of that in that example is that there are two seasons of a show that proves my point. It's like, oh yeah, right. You can take Last of Us and just make it a TV show and it still works. Fine.

You know, it's like, so that's so funny that we have, we have actually the proof of that because the show is also successful. And I don't think, anyway, I won't go further, but then, you know. With Shadow of the Colossus, a lot of that was because my only companion in the game is this horse, right? Right.

and you're you're living your life with this horse and so that's that i think interactivity was critical for me and gone home it's like you're reliving your sisters you know it's just like it It had to happen in that way because I think we've seen a lot of linear stories with that subject matter fall flat when they kind of try to be heavy handed with it. Yeah, it's also super specific. Specificity, I think, really helps.

I know there was a lot of research that went into Gone Home's story to make it that specific and land that way. You know, I actually...

You know, I have this sleep problem where I wake up in the middle of the night and last night I did and I finished off a book I was reading and there is a surprising death, you know, in that I. came out of nowhere for me you know uh while reading the book and um it had i mean it had an emotional impact but nothing like you know what something like gone home had for me when i first played it right and um you know i was like oh man i did not

like that i had no expectation whatsoever that that this death would would occur like no Not at all. Just literally no idea was about to happen and it happened. I was like, oh my God, I can't believe that happened to that character. And it's kind of a... I don't know, literary fiction sort of thing. And it's a little bit more plotty, I guess, than most literary fiction. But, you know, it hit home, but still was like...

You know, like a, oh, okay, I see how I got built up to not expecting that. And like, it was the same thing. It was like, I see how that happened. I think with really spectacular writing, those impacts can be. even greater for me as a as a you know long time reader but they have to be really really really well written books you know where i just like disappear into the language and like lose myself um in a

you know, kind of marry myself to the text. Like if you read a ton of Shakespeare, for example, like you start getting into the Shakespeare mindset of like, you can just read it and like not have to translate. from the pentameter or like the archaic language in in cases or whatever because you've just read enough of it that you're like oh i know what that word means and like it just is you know it's like if you've learned a foreign language um well enough to do the same thing anyway

So, but yeah, I would agree with you that it kind of, yeah, it's definitely unique in that way. So, all right. Well, thanks for the email, Ashton. Again, that was sent to devgameclub at gmail.com.

Um, we will ourselves retire to our individual addicts, uh, as we move on from next week. Uh, we'd love to get your reviews as well. We see the ones on the Apple infrastructure, but you know, we think we're a star podcast if you want to put that out there somewhere else just let us know or give us a thumbs up or whatever you have on wherever you listen to your podcasts uh we're also on the web at debgameclub.com and my co-host here twitch is at twitch.tv slash

Tim Lago Jr. with a JR at the end. I wanted to share a little bit. I'm going to do, I will be back at streaming Outer World. Wilds. Outer Wilds. Those jerks, by the way. Outer Worlds. Outer Wilds this week. A fun thing happened last session, though, which would have been two weeks ago for those who were watching.

There was another streamer who had finished Outer Wilds. This game has apparently had such a big impact on people. There's another streamer who was playing her first playthrough for the first time as well, finished Outer Wilds.

on stream and raided randomly raided into my stream that's amazing viewers as she was like i don't want to stop playing this game i just want to keep playing and then found just randomly found somebody else who's doing their first playthrough and then uh and then two communities kind of came together because there were a bunch of our community was on there and people started chatting and

they were talking, uh, thanks to everybody who was plugging the podcast and stuff. So, um, uh, so yeah, anyway, it was just a nice internet, internet moment, internet moment. No, there's not enough of those. And I'm glad, uh, I'm glad you had that opportunity. Well, another place to find such interesting community moments is on our community run discord. There's a link for that in the show notes. And I guess some of your viewing community probably comes from that as well, mostly.

Our intro and outro music was written and performed by Kirk Hamilton, commissioned by a friend of the cast here, and our logo at Discord, our merch store, all by Mark Garcia. Have fun examining dragon eggs further this week, and good night. Good night.