DGC Ep 457: Pikmin (part three)

Hello, and welcome back to Dev Game Club, a weekly podcast in which two veteran game developers look at games from the past. I'm Brett Duville and I'm joined as always by my co-host, a man who is using the power of an alien brain to climb to the top of the natural order. Tim Longo. Yeah. That's what you're doing. Uh maybe it's maybe it's not what you're doing. Maybe it's what the Pikmin are doing.

Oh, I guess I haven't gotten to that You have not gotten to that point. There was a there's a part point later on in when you're close to the end where it's like he's musing You know, Olimar is musing like, What is going on with these Pikmin? Are they using me to get to the top of the food chain? Um He's got a lot of great uh musings. Yeah, he does. His his musings are a lot of fun. We talked about them a bit last week. Um, the sort of dynamic diary and his log.

That's cool. Um, but before we get to our final uh discussion of Pikmin, we have an email we're gonna read up here at the top. It is uh it is subject is defeating games hype promo email. Uh because I guess I don't do this well enough, but it is from uh from Nolan. He says, What is this? A crossover episode? Calamity Nolan and Biostats here with a special message from one pair of DGC hosts to the other.

Uh Defeating Games for Charity, our annual fundraiser for the incredibly rad Video Game History Foundation, is this upcoming weekend on January twenty-third through twenty-fifth. We've got twenty five streamers with over fifty hours of fun playing our fave games to save games. You can visit defeating games dot com to learn more. Fans of the GGC podcast will recognize many of the streamers as interview guests, including Kyle and Error thirteen with an untouchable silk song No Damage Run.

Lost Lake eighty six digging deep into decked out two, a Minecraft mod that turns it into a dungeon crawler deck builder. Oh uh Noiseless godlike gameplay adapting to the whims of the community in Hades with crowd control. Brad Smith exhibiting stylish art games Teenage Blob and Pilgrims, Kaon bookending the event with Wiley Antics in Untitled Goose Game and Mega Man X. Tim Longer junior with a JR at the end telling short stories in Dwarf Fortress.

Ha I see what he did there. Um VGA uh Video Games History Foundation Library Director Phil Salvador, demystifying mist while detailing their extensive cyan archive and best of all, maybe Calamity Nolan's color commentary on his Splatoon two speedrun. I don't know how you use speedrun a multiplayer game, but we will see. That's just a third of the streamers. It'll be a fun time whenever you tune in.

Excitingly, two of our interview guests are making a spy versus spy online shooter called Project Octavia, which streamers from the event will play with the devs if we raise$10,000 over the course of the weekend. But we need your help to get there.

Most direct way of reaching our goal is donating at defeatinggames.com slash donate, but you also greatly help us by sharing the website with your friends and family, reposting us on Blue Sky, and he gives a link, which I will uh share in the show notes. But it's basically defeating games dot be sky dot social and l liking our videos and shorts on YouTube, which is youtube.com slash at defeating games.

Uh that link will be in the show notes as well. Together, we can make this the biggest event ever. Hope to see you all this uh there this weekend. We now return you to the other DGC. Which I guess is us. I will say the Big Bang was probably the biggest event ever, but you know, I'm not gonna quibble. Altyazı M.K. A former a former physicist. Former physics major. Uh I am, sir. I am. Uh yeah, so that's coming up. Um I think a lot of that I've said before, but uh there are some

glances at who the hosts are. The schedule is also on that defeating games dot com site. It is a cool schedule, uh filled with cool people who are doing cool things. So uh come out and support and and show your love. Um Uh it'll be a good time. I'll be dropping in to streams from time to time. Tim I know watches a ton of it uh more than I usually do but

Yeah, I try. I try. I'm often in there lurking, but uh you know. I mean it's a commitment to watch everything, but we'll see we'll see how it goes. And there's obvious when I should be sleeping. But yeah. Yeah, I mean if you look at the schedule it's just like uh it just oh I wanna watch that. Oh I wanna watch that. Oh I wanna you know like every every one of them some And then and there there's just a lot of variety too and just diversity. Kudos to the to the group to that group.

Or of organizers. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of good lot of good stuff. Um, it's bigger than ever. Uh there's some there's even some things I've never seen before, you know, or seen rarely in some cases as well. So uh yeah, it's uh it'll be something. Um a lot of the streams I think do get uploaded later and they've been doing shorts and things on that YouTube channel, so you can go check that stuff out.

uh give them a subscribe and all of that stuff. Ring the bell, I think is the thing you say. So, you know, do that, uh whatever that means. And yeah. Uh hope hope we see you there. But now On to Pikmin, our uh our final episode, because of course you beat the final boss today, right?

Yeah. Uh I don't know. Yeah, I mean, you know, my memory. I'm sure we talked about the fact that we're doing three episodes for this. So I probably could have pushed harder for sure. I'm I'm on the cusp. I think I'm cl I I feel well, I don't know if I'll get thirty'cause you don't is it true that you don't have to get all thirty to finish the game? Is that true? I mean that's the cla I I haven't done that, so I c I can't say one way or the other. I mean it does sort of tell you

As you get like like I commented last week, it sort of tells you sort of relaxes that constraint and says, Well, I don't really need all the pieces of the ship to make it home. Um I got to the final area unless you get twenty nine pieces and then the thirtieth piece. Oh you can't get to the final piece. Right. So I wouldn't be able to see the boss. Okay. There are there are pieces that are less um necessary, I would say. One of the pieces that you find is his massage machine.

Um and he talks about, you know, how he's really looking forward to using that. There's like his pilot seat, which is like a I don't know. It's um it's like a beanbag. This probably was supposed to be. But it's like a you know, a cushion. Um, but it's like sewn together out of like random quilted bits and things like that. It's the least science fiction thing look, you know, piece of the ship in the game. Uh it's very funny. Um

It is really odd, uh, some of the things that are in it. Uh but yeah, anyway, it it he does sort of say, Well, maybe I could make it, you know, with fewer pieces, but I don't know I haven't tried to do that, so I don't I don't know. I'm you know, I'm sure it is, but I don't know which pieces are required

So interesting. Well now I'm kind of I mean, I would like to get all thirty and and endeavor to still finish at some point in my life, but now I'm kind of Well I will try to do that, but now I'm interested to know if that is possible if it is possible to finish early and if that is essentially an alternate ending. Yeah. Um and what what that

what what changes because of it. Uh there I got a blog from him at a log from him at one point that said something about think he was dreaming or some if he said something about being in a dreamlike state where he imagined where he realized that maybe not all Important. Um, but it wasn't like an explicit message that said you don't need to get all the pieces. He just said it in a very

Message logo. Yeah. I feel like that might be the first you hear about it. And then later on makes it more definitive. He m it's he seems but it's never like You only need this many or you only need these ones. It's never that clear. So Oh, so you're not even sure. Oh, great. Right.

Okay, well we'll see we'll see what happens. And so anyway, long story short, as as no as is n to no one's surprise, I did not finish by this session. Um But, you know, I feel like it I can see it being possible, but I don't know if you want me to launch into No, let's let's go uh let's go straight in let's go straight into your your issues.

Well, I mean, the the the TLDR version is I'm now remembering why. Because I kind of am in a state that I have like I think I just through the trauma of it the first time had just you know pushed down into the depths of my psyche and just forgot about It came back up this the last few sessions I played before this episode. And then I was like, oh, this is a familiar feeling that I'm.

And so I mentioned last episode that I had s a pretty catastrophic day, um, where it was definitely on me and made some mistakes and I should have left when I you know, I should have quit while I was ahead in some battles, you know, and and was stubborn and then just ended up losing too many because of it. And we talked about that last episode. And in retrospect, I should have replayed that day at the very least, but but now I'm at the point where I'm like.

I maybe I should have just started over, you know, like and I hate wow hate that feeling in any game. Where I feel like unless it's built in through, and I won't name names, but unless it's built in through the concept. Um Uh so So I you know, it's a demoralizing demoralizing state to be in when you're at that point. And so basically, as I said last episode, I lost, you know, especially blues and yellows. I think I was down to zero yellows.

one or two blues when I after after we recorded last episode. So sessions beyond that have has been have been I think I've gotten maybe one or two pieces um One or two more pieces, but but I've spent a lot of days and a lot of replaying of days because I'm putting all my time into rebuilding. you know, my army and also I spit a lot of time in opening doors. Like I go to the levels and I sp I'm kind of like

It's almost like busy work, you know, like breaking down walls, uh turning geysers on. Pushing bridges down, yeah. Yeah, yeah, getting bridges going. Opening the level. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I was like, well, I was ahead before I started this process. I can afford to eat some days up. Oh no, now I'm behind. And, you know, for lack of a better description, it just there's a point at this game where I feel like there's like a downward spiral problem.

Where I feel like and then the rebuilding, I'm you know, I'm bouncing around a lot here, but the rebuilding process also for me, and and and I I agree with what you said last time, it definitely is possible and they've tried But i if you were as down as far as I was, um

There's another sort of uh I don't know if it's kind of so I wanted to ask like what are you what are you doing to rebuild? I get let's start there. Well, I'm doing everything I can to be honest. Like using let's be specific. Like I get that you're trying but what are you what like actions are you taking? 'Cause maybe I can make some suggestions to help you over this difficult to get you through this difficult time.

Yeah. Maybe. As your as your therapist here. Your Pikmin therapist. Yeah, other than other than the flowers. Um, you know, I'm I'm basically focusing on enemies. Uhhuh. And, you know, using the reds, which I have more of, to take the enemies out and then using the blues and the yellows to to bring them back so they can replenish. Um so that's helped some, but the the tricky part of it is, which relates to another topic

Combat inherently is going to diminish, right? Uh no matter how good you are at it. Um, and if you're middling at it or poor at it, you're gonna lose a lot more. And so I just it's sort of a two steps forward, one step back feeling. You know, and so I'm definitely making progress and I'm I'm slowly building them up. But then inevitably I get frustrated or I make a mistake. I don't want to start this day over yet again.

And I didn't get as many as I wanted to. Uh, so you know, yeah, I mean, just the combination of those two. Well I I do have some recommendations. Um one is I mean you it sounds like you're definitely doing the thing with the the pellets and you know it's starting to build up at least a small force of the blues and yellows. Yeah. So that you can move things back. But you can actually let the reds bring it almost all the way back.

Oh yeah. And then pull them off. Um give them to somebody else. And give them to somebody else. And the other thing too that I would recommend just in general is using the nectar. Um yeah. To to to basically make your reds tougher, you know, so that yeah you more will survive. And then the final thing that I didn't hear you doing is that you can use the converter flowers.

Um, which admittedly took me a while to understand. Um but to convert reds yeah, to convert reds to other things, right? So that you can build up your forces that way as well. So um that's the only piece of it I I think you might be missing, but um you know in general you want to like get those big pucks

you know, from bosses and things and not just bosses though, some of the some of the enemies will drop a puck. And like you can have the Reds carrying them almost all the way back and then have you know, some some yellows, you know, and pick up the yellow puck and'cause a a yellow puck will You know, that's five will actually I think give you more than five if the yellow's in the back and things like that.

It's more like it's double, right? Yeah, something like that. So that's another way to build things up. Yeah, and paying attention to that. Because I was I was down to one yellow. Um and I ended the game with I don't know, north of fifty. I so I d I didn't need as many yellows as I needed reds and blues, I found. Um because yellows are mostly

I mean I at one point I needed something like fifteen or twenty um for a piece that was not reachable by any other type. For and there were a few of those actually. So there were times where I needed fifteen to twenty of the yellows. But but other than that I could do everything with reds and blues and so I just kinda built b yellow back up to where it's like, Oh, okay, I have a healthy amount. I was just kind of using targets of opportunity. You know, I would have bodies brought back

And I'd make sure I was there and, you know, counter them at the right time and just like, Hey, drop that um and have the yellows take over when they were close. Um and just not risk the yellows that I had, you know, and things like that. So I do think it's possible, but it is

S a slu it is a slog, you know. Slog yeah, it's not I don't find it that fun too, you know. It's it feels like I saw just coming back to the the word demoralizing, which I don't like. Don't play games to be demoralized. And in a multiplayer, you know, PvP setting, I get it because In a PvE setting, you know, anyway. And that's why I don't play those games, right? Yeah. I don't want to be I don't want to be demoralized by other people. I get it.

Um so you know it's it's it's um it's a bummer and I I think that probably everything would be fine if it wasn't for the data. Because the process that I'm going through is yielding results for sure. But it's sort of that again, two steps forward, one step back, because I'm gonna, in order to take enemies out, you're gonna lose something. And so it's sort of you know, you're kind of that give and take of who you're gonna lose some res or whatever and um and

And so that process just takes time, right? And I'm always under the gun. But every time a day goes by that I don't get a piece, I feel like I have not s done what I wanted to do in that day. Mm-hmm. And so I feel like, well, I spent my whole day

And then th the interesting thing that I'm that's kind of like not a mini takeaway for me is that This whole, these last few gaming sessions I've had, where it is this rebuilding process that I'm trying to do in a systematic way, it all spawned from this one day. You know, this one bad day that happened that has cascaded through the rest of the game. You know, early early ish third of the way through the game that's going to be a little bit.

And it's a really intriguing concept to me that that could be the case. You know what I mean? That it that it has that kind of a ripple of it. Um at least for me, right? For whatever reason. And all of this is I know all of this is psychology and I'm and I'm you know, I'm making Um it's good to know that you finished with with fifty with only fifty yellows because it reminds me that, you know, you don't necessarily need The full, you know, a f a full set of everything all the time to

Yeah, I had my standards are too high too. I had total two hundred and twenty six total Pikmin at surviving at the end. Um Okay. You know, they one of the things the the game does at the end is it gives you stats, you know, of of how many parts you got and how many days it took and like How many Pikmin survived, how many Pikmin you lost over the course of all the time, how many Pikmin you ever sprouted, um which I don't know why the surviving plus lost doesn't

add up to that. It doesn't even come close. So I don't really understand that. Um it's almost double, so I I'm not really sure why, but anyway. Um but th those are those kinds of stats that are at the kind of give you that that information. But yeah. Yeah. So that's reasonable. That's that's a reasonable number that that But I just uh every time I every time I go after a boss.

I'm so nervous about, you know, I guess the stakes are just so high for me and I don't know what it is in this game. I've been trying to figure out what it is in this game that like in a traditional RTS like StarCraft doesn't make me feel that way. I don't know if it's just the the expendability. Um and the building process of rebuilding units is very clear, you know, and precise. Um and this is actually gonna be a partner to another one of my top

Um but uh it's been uh it's definitely been some soul searching. I still love the game and I still think it's a brilliant game in many ways. And of course it's the first of its kind, so there's gonna be some things to bring you know, iron uh wrinkles. So I I bet that they have in the in the sequels. Yeah, we have an email about that later. So we'll get to that as well. Um Yeah, I you know, I definitely I hear you. Like, I mean there there were a lot of days I replayed.

'Cause I was just like or I quit midday. It was like, Okay. Oh yeah. I'm doing that all the time. Um but you know, there's a lot of times where I'm just like, Yeah, I'll probably be fine, you know, and I Where I'm like, uh, you know, like I had a day where I was so cl I had a the last piece on a level and I was like, oh man, it's you know, I'm it's counting down ten, you know, nine, eight and I can see them and I'm like, they're not gonna make it.

So I I just went out and I got them and I brought them in. I was like, Do I want to replay this whole day? I probably could have shaved off the time. I was like, you know what? Nah, you know, I have

I had quite a few I did I did copy the save at that point, um, after that day, just in case. Uh although it would have I don't I don't know that that I the time to copy it would have been before that day, but um I did copy it after and and just like okay, this was the branch point of like If things went south, this would have been when they went south, so I'd

might want to be more strategic from there about what I did. But I ended up just using that day to do some of the things I talked about as far as rebuilding. And then basically after that I never had I was never super low. I mean I w I got lower in red than I liked and but, you know, I got there was a level where I was like, Oh, I can actually

most of what I'm doing is with the blues. I can just have them bring back stuff and then have the Reds take it over when it gets close. Um so I was kind of managing managing the stuff pretty closely to rebuild red. But um but no in general I did not uh not have that kind of experience. But I can understand it, you know, for sure. When I w when I had one yellow, I was like, ooh, I don't mm.

This might go badly. Um but I I dug out of it and it it worked out. So Well and I it's yeah, you mentioned the yellows. I think the yellows were and the blues to a lesser degree, but the yellows specifically Now that you're talking about it, what I'm realizing is that It hit me at a specific time that combined together was pretty unforgiving. It's funny how the game tone tonally feels like a very forgiving game, but I'm not sure.

It is gameplay wise, you know, and systemically. And the what I what I realized is that um I lost the yellows right before I really needed to dig really deep. the forest navel, which has a lot of walls and a lot of things to use bombs on. And so I kind of was a double whammy for me because it's like to progress and to really progress and get 100% in the forest. I needed yellows, you know, and I started that I was at that step and I had none.

And so it's like, okay, I have to rebuild and then I also have to go through the process of breaking down all these walls, you know, and uh and in and in one of the bosses case use the So and every time you do that, you know, you're gonna lose some. So it was kind of like a double whammy for me. So kind of bad it was just bad luck, I think, in that regard. Um, or maybe I should have used

Um yeah. So anyway, yeah I think in the Forest Naval there's also an opportunity to convert them somewhere. There is. Yeah. There is a yellow. I just started using that. Yeah. Uh so yeah there's a there's a yellow flower there. Maybe an opportunity there. Yeah, I mean the the funny thing with those flowers is I didn't understand their purpose. Um I didn't realize they converted. I so early on I came across one that was red and I threw a bunch of reds in it.

And it spit out a bunch of reds and I was like, did this just Make the same number? Like I didn't re I wasn't tracking how many threw in there. I was just like, let me see what happens. Um, and then a bunch of reds came out and I was like, Okay, well I guess I'll pull up all those reds, but I don't really I don't really need that right now, so I just kinda moved on. But there was later a puzzle that made me understand, oh, this converts

whatever to the color, you know, it's like put in blues into a red flower and you will get reds out. You know, it's and, you know, whatever. You know, it's there's no round robin, it's just whatever anything else will whatever you put in here will turn to red or to yellow, whatever the color of the flower. Um and there's a cool I understood that because there was a puzzle where it's like, how am I gonna get I need yellows over there, but there's water in the way. How am I gonna oh

Oh, I see. There's flowers. I understand now. There's a yellow flower up there.

Or rather a blue flower no, a yellow flower up there so that I can convert some blues to yellow. And then on the other side there's a blue flower so I can get them back. Oh that's cool. You know. Yeah. It was a it was a neat puzzle. They don't do a lot of those Um they do have a you know a number of places where it's like, well, you really wanna get the thing with one color and then, you know, like give it to a bunch of reds'cause it's gonna cross some fire or um or you need to use

you know, blues for part of it and yellows for another part of it. Well that that was the first time that I actually was like, Oh, I've got a this thing that I didn't I totally didn't get. You know, I had to figure out what they were for. Um and I thought that that was kind of cool. That you could ignore an element until they tested you on it. Like, do you actually know what this does? Um and you could kind of figure it out from

you know, like, well, this would only work if I could somehow convert oh right from one to the other. So that was kinda cool. Um

One of the you you uh okay to shift. I wanted to shift to the sort of level size, game size question because having these, you know, these different these relatively small scale levels meant that you could encounter something like that um and not have it kind of throw off your whole day because it didn't take you forever to get to, it didn't

you know, there might be something else nearby. For me there was in that case. I was like'cause I didn't get it right away. I I was like, Well, there's another one over here. Let me go do that while I'm thinking about this, like how I'm gonna solve this problem. Um and then uh, you know, and things like that. You had you had mentioned this in the in pre-show.

Yeah, I on the positive note I'm I just was commenting on the fact that when you really look at the levels, there aren't that many to begin with for the And when you look at them, they're not that big in the grand scheme of things. And one uh not one of my main takeaways, but another sort of im thing that I was impressed by or that I biggie economy, but just the you know, the economical nature of the construction of the game.

Um, is really impressive. Like the levels are not that big, but they use them they're very dense in what their purpose purpose is and the different, you know landmarks and the flow of the levels. They use the walls and the doors. You know, I had wrote down a note, doors that aren't doors. Um uh you know, to go with the keys that aren't keys. Uh Um and and so they use blockers and the sort of um

Flow progression of the maps in really interesting ways. So they really make the most So when you start off a level, you might have to go kind of do a uh you know, quite a complicated route to get to a certain area and then you start slowly unlock and you know that opportunity some bombs and then the bombs unlock some of those doors. So pretty traditional flow stuff, but um if you were to look at a top down of the maps, uh as you as you do in the, you know, the UI.

Yeah, I'm just really impressed with that. And, you know, it's not a long game overall, but still it feels appropriately sized. And they just get a lot out of a little. um because of the way that the game is you know the systems work. Uh so yeah, that was my my main topic. Especially for a game where they didn't know what a level was for the game. Right. They're they're creating this from scratch.

with no preconceived notions. You can't really, even though we've talked about the genres, that it it has some um inspiration coming You can't really equate them in any way, uh, because of the puzzle aspect. So um I would love to see Which will n we never will, but I would love to see some of the early prototype bloc out levels um and the iterations that they went through to get to the footprints that they ended up with, you know.

Yeah, I mean it's really it's it's very cool. I mean I wanna say that um so there's only five levels. One of those levels, the the one you start in, only has two pieces, and then the final level is just the one piece.

So that leaves twenty seven pieces. So basically nine, I assume it's nine each, but you know, whatever. It might be eight, you know, eight, nine and ten or whatever. Um But basically they find a way to cram in nine pieces into each of those three sort of bigger levels, and and it still feels like it doesn't feel like a stretch to get it to any individual piece. Um, you know, it's not like, oh man, I've got to go all the way over there. You know, it's like, like you said, it's very compact.

Um, and part of how they manage that, you know, they they have sort of the doors but also the ecology of their um enemies. works to their advantage as well. So it's, you know, you kind of when you do look at the top down, you're sort of thinking, okay, I wanna kinda get this group first because if there's or together, not necessarily first, but I wanna get this group together because You know, there are enemies over there, but enemies don't repopulate.

you know, the next day necessarily. So I kinda wanna sweep, you know, in this direction. You know, and like I'm gonna get to those next because then I this area should be clear. I shouldn't have to re kill a bunch of stuff on the way there and things like that. So you have you also have that um going for you that you kind of can I'm sure there's a number of plans you could make, but it feels like you can make interesting and useful plans that will take you strategically across

these compact maps um as well, but have a ton of variety in them. So it it I don't know, it worked it works quite well. Um I'm I'm also impressed by that. Yeah, I mean seeing there's there's there's many times from the landing zone that you can see when you s especially when you first get to a map where you can see parts.

Um and but you don't know how to get to them, right? So they actually, as the crow flies, are not that far away, but the process to get to them, you know, inevitably has multiple steps. Uh and and that's I always love that.

Especially in the sort of the level design world of giving you those those uh those those landmarks and the composition of that as you see the camera, you know, and and then trying to figure out how to get there. Uh and then the shortcutting is obviously a great try too. It it kind of there's times in the level where I feel like they It makes me think about Mario sixty four a little bit, you know, and kind of like when they started to enter into the three D Mario.

world, how they would, you know, make maps work from a three-dimensional standpoint and giving him a flow that isn't new um uh a new axes added uh that third dimension and the thinking differently, right? They had to think differently about how to move Mario through that, uh, like they had never had to before.

And, you know, when you look at some of the Mario sixty four maps, my vague memory of it is there The footprint of them isn't that big, but they got a lot of use out of the flow to get from point A to point B. And this is not as three dimensional, of course, because the elevation isn't But they do because Olimar has his own limitations, right? And they solve that by geysers and things and other other

Um because he has his own limitations, they can really like push him around the map. And it is in an RTS way kind of a top-down kind of game in a way because because the you Or or I guess it's a one direction'cause you can fall down ledges, but you can't go back up the ledges. Right. Uh so yeah, it's just yeah, I just always am I'm always impressed. Yeah, I mean uh I w I would find that I was uh and this might shift topics as well, but I would find that I was also

because I was thinking across those sort of multi day strategies for taking on, because I could kind of see the whole level. I mean, there might be things that I didn't know yet, you know, or didn't know how I had to surmount. In in particular, there were some places where it felt like there are not enough bombs on this level to get this gate down. Um you know, and so I would have to keep I would have to remember every time to like, oh, make sure I also take a few yellows, get the bombs.

set them off on this door, this, you know, ex you know, obsidian door or whatever, you know, black door that takes more to to or black wall or whatever takes more to take out. Um, but I have to do it every time I'm here because Um otherwise I'll get to the you know

the end of the chain and be like, Oh, and now I just have to spend three days reloading into this level to get enough bombs to take things out. I mean there might have been enough bombs there and I just didn't see them. Uh but the ones I knew about, you know, were um you know, weren't weren't enough to take it down in one go. So I was like, huh, you know, that So there were times like that where I was like, Huh, that's a little more planning than I expected to have to do. Um

But uh, you know, once I recognized I was like, Oh, okay, I'm you know, I have to stay on top of that. It's just a task I'm gonna have to do every day. But uh to so that I'm set up for success later on. But I had enough to do to open up the level in other ways that that was just kind of something I was doing along the way.

Mm-hmm. That's no, that's actually a good point that I I hadn't also included time as one of the dimensions for this game, right? Days. Yeah. Or days rather, right? So the even in one run, there's the flow of it. And can you open certain doors or how where are the bombs placed as an example beyond the door? So you have to go get them and then come back to open up that shortcut. But then there's also the time or day demand.

myself tomorrow, which is what I've been doing a lot of Um my kind of OCD kicks in in that I like to clean I like to kind of do the busy work and get it out of the way so that I can have a really stellar day and do multiple piece, you know, multiple uh

ship pieces. And so that all you know, that does often make me feel good, but I, you know, it's still busy work, I feel like. So I it's probably easier I'd make it easier on myself if I did them as Um but it means that there are a few days and I'm setting up for the future that That's that's on me as a player. But I feel like as a a just a macro point that I just keep hitting in my head as we're talking, that my player type might push against the way that this

And that's not their fault. It's just Um there's enough slop in the game and enough um imprecision that would maybe be a segue to another topic. Um and then we can move on maybe. Um because I want to talk Uh that yeah, it's just sort of counter to my personality, my player personality, you know what I mean? That I don't like to lose Pikmin, but the game is designed.

Oh yeah. I believe. And so it's sort of like, ah, you know, and that and that's in particular the vertical the vertical throws are terrible. Um having to throw, you know, the I forget what the name of it is, but there's a there's a creature that flies and picks things up. I mentioned it um last week and

So there's that and then there's others where you you have to throw basically up and it just does not support that well. Um because it's hard to actually, especially things that are moving, to keep the target on it. Um, you know, at all. If you can get it, you know, like I think with some of the flying things, I never got the target on it. I was just trying to be close enough and face in the right general direction.

you know, and uh and hope that I manage to land something on it. Um And then there was a boss, as I think you mentioned earlier, where you needed the yellows because you could throw them higher to throw it at some central point, but it just hitting it was sort of difficult and you were kind of just trusting you know, and trying to pay attention, are they hitting or not? You know. So you're trying to both

you know, manage the throwing, but also like make sure you're tracking w whether they land or if they're hitting the thing in the air. And there wasn't a lot of good feedback on that for me, um, you know, to to make it clear that it was working.

um, you know, well. With some of them it was it was fine. It was pretty good. You know, it'd make a good sound, it would you know, and it would fall to the ground and be clear it was on the ground. But then of course it would shake them off and you're like, Oh, I gotta do it again, you know. Um, and I found that that loop often the most frustrating thing. Um, and it becomes part of the boss as well, the final boss rather, um, to have to throw

into the air. It wasn't difficult, but you did need to be the right distance and things like that. You just like there's a lot to manage um that it doesn't support well, I think, uh, with the throw throwing anything up into Yeah. Yeah, it's a very like yeah, I come back to the word slot, but it's it's a very kind of um

Flailing, I don't know, flailing kind of game. Spray and pray. You know, it's like you're just you're not going to be able to be precise. And I think they kind of designed You're gonna have a group. They're not fully you're not in full ill full control of them really. You're gonna lose some even going from point A to point B, which is like they're gonna get stuck on stuff or whatever. And then when you throw, it's like just not it's a numbers.

I know you probably can get really good at it if you play it a lot, but even when you throw and hit things on the back, sometimes I'm not sure if it hit on the back where it's like the enemy's blocking it and they're on the other side, you know? So Yeah. There's just a lot of um I mean it's even true of it's true of the environment stuff too. I mean sometimes I would throw them

Yeah, right. You know, and I would you know, throw them too far, they'd end up on top of things and um you know, or And and you know, sometimes that lack of precision, as we talked about last week with the box that I you thought you could reach but you couldn't, um, you know, it was it was because that clarity isn't there that it made it

difficult, you know, in a way that it really didn't wasn't, I don't think, intended to be difficult. Um, you know, it just wasn't it just wasn't clear, you know. You know, I'm sure that's something that they refine. This is the the first iteration. That's always you know, often an issue we have, right? Is that we're doing the first iteration of a thing. So Well and that's why I give I n I don't they don't.

They're not asking for forgiveness or anything, but I forgive them on this stuff, even though I have a lot of frustrations and complaints. Um, I still again love the game. It's I think it's there's a lot of brilliant stuff going on and I applaud them for coming up, even coming up with a new concept of you know, group groups of unit control. You know, I won't even say RTS control because it's maybe more general than that, but they found a way to have a game about groups of units.

And not use a mouse. You know what I mean? And and come up with something that would work on their controller and their console. applaud them at that. Throwing is a cool thing. I love throwing. I love the act of it. It's just not quite, you know, there as far as precision goes. And I had a quick analogy that I'll relate back to StarCraft. Main RTS touchstone. In StarCraft, for those who know the game or play, you know, know of of the factions in the game, um, I was I am always a Protoss player.

I never play Zerg because the Zerg are the whole concept of the Zerg is expendability. You're sending hordes of units in to their deaths on purpose. And Protoss are more designed. You're gonna lose units, but they're more designed, you're gonna have fewer units, they're each unit's more powerful, and you have to manage and take care of. They have shields, you know, they have recharging shields and things like that. So one of the things I love about that game is is that a um a cemetery.

And so just to give you an example of kind of player type wise, I hate the Zerg because it's all about losing units, you know, and just like that's where the Zerg rush. term comes from. You're just throwing bodies at them and overwhelming them and that does work. I just don't Yeah, that's why I like the Zerk.

Yeah, exactly. You're spreading their creep around their creep around and you're, you know, throwing them all over the place. You know, let me get a ton of zerglings and send them. Send them into the enemy base. They're all gonna die, you know? It's uh it's perfect.

Um well, do you have were there any other topics? I don't I mean, other than the final boss uh thing. Yeah, you should talk about your'cause I I didn't get there and I will, but yeah, you should you should maybe Yeah, so I I went into that, you know, I I ended with two hundred and twenty six, so I I probably started with Closer to three hundred, um, probably. Um and I I did really like that there was sort of a um final exam on like how to overcome environmental

challenges, not enemies to the first part of the level. I mean the level is basically like, hey, over there there's an arena with the final boss. Um, but you gotta get there. You gotta figure out how to get there at all. Um, and I appreciated that like, okay, there's there's basically two stages here.

Um what I didn't appreciate, and of course is partly on on me, I had several days left. As I mentioned, I finished with twenty-eight. So I was on the twenty-seventh day when I got there. And I kept replaying the first part of the day to open up the path to the boss. Um and then dying on the boss. Or, you know, I mean I didn't we didn't die, but I I lost so many units I was like

Well, I didn't figure out how to defeat it and I lost, you know, a hundred units. I guess I'm replaying this day. So I replayed that that same day several times, f I I think four times before I was like, you know what? I should just Not attack the boss. Just have the whole environment open and then go back, you know, having lost nothing.

Saved the day even though I have time. Um, you know, it's funny because I was it was getting more and more efficient at the first part of the day. By the time I actually figured out how to beat the boss, I probably could have done it all in one day, but it took like lots of tries.

you know, first of the of trying to do all at once and then the second and you know later like, okay, now everything's open. I just have to get everybody there and kind of prep for the battle and then execute. But even that took like I don't know, four tries. And um I definitely was at that point like this final level is too much. Um it's one enemy and it's too much enemy um for for me, for my team.

You know, I wanted to feel triumphant and I felt a little ground down, demoralized, I guess, as you said, um, by just like I don't know what to do. Some of the things that it that you've been trained to do, like we talked about last week, there's an enemy type that sucks in. will suck in a Pikmin and and rage it and like then you can attack it'cause it opens up. I thought something similar would be happening here, but no, you know, um

if it you you want to actually drop a bomb so that it sucks up the bomb. Um you don't want to throw things onto its back. You want to throw things onto its front. It like it like went topsy turvy on me in all these different ways. Um, and that made it like really hard to puzzle out like what am I doing here? What am I not doing here? What am I missing? And I didn't need the blues either to fight it.

Which also felt like a kind of a missed opportunity. I needed the blues to get to it but not to not to actually fight. So I don't know. Not not the best ending boss for me. I felt like. There are definitely some things that I would have liked to see different there. Um, I don't know what I would have done there. I'm not a designer, but uh, but definitely it felt like, man, why is this?

Why is I I if I had been there on the thirtieth day and had to do it all in one day, it would have taken me many, many tries and because um I would have been, you know, having to get there and actually have to be really efficient getting there and then be really efficient killing it. Um, yeah,'cause it took me like three quarters of a day, you know, to to beat it, you know, in the end. So it would have been really, really tight uh otherwise.

So it was just a little you know, a little bit downer ending. I didn't really remember it uh from despite the fact that I did. beat it before, but I definitely had that feeling of like, what am I doing? Um and thinking back, I was like, yeah, I don't remember knowing what I was doing on this either. And I didn't remember how to do it.

So it was definitely uh it was an uphill climb. And uh that's not what I I wanted to be kind of coasting down at the end. Yeah, you bank you bank those days, so you you think you're banking those days to give you which I guess it helped you somewhat. Yeah, I could just save per day. So that yeah that did help you, but you yeah, I mean you it sounds like you played in such a way where you should be rewarded by that, you know, more so.

Yeah, I I like the idea of having an the environment be the challenge for that final day. Like honestly, if I just had to get there to get the final piece and I had to do all these things together. That would have also been fine. Yeah. Like I didn't actually need a final boss. Um We've talked about that so many times where the final boss should be kind of more cake, right? Like make make it yeah. Um and it it is very weird.

to me that they we talked about this in pre-show, but there it's very weird to me that they were Teaching you things along they're they're usually much better at teaching you things along the way to prepare you for final bosses and things like that. Um it's weird. So yeah, that's that's non that doesn't sound like Nintendo Methodologies, I guess. Yeah.

Well, I will say, you know, a few a few odds and ends before we go to takeaways. Uh one is that um like I counted the number of devs. Uh you gotta guess how many devs? Oh that's a great that's a great ex that's a great question. Um oh I have a questi I have a question for you later too, but no. Um Thirty? That's that's a very good guess. I counted thirty-four. Oh, okay. I mean I once you once you brought it uh brought it up as a question, I thought maybe it was gonna be low, so I I I guess

I there were three that might have been producers, so I would probably count them in there as well. So then it it would be thirty seven. But then but they were kind of mixed in with like localization and tech support. So I was like, I don't know if these are Yeah,'cause the you know, credits are not standardized and they're certainly not standardized internationally. So um, you know, what they, you know, call different things is very different from what we call things. So I I uh

I had no idea really. But uh Wow. Yeah, but small team. Small team. Small team. Doing some pretty new stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Um yeah, it does count that did count like executive producer and producer in Miyamoto was the producer. There was another person who was on you know, the executive producer. Um

So there was a couple of produ production kind of level people, but um not what we think of as sort of line producers. Um, I'm not sure if those counted. Uh and another thing that I I don't think I've mentioned yet, but um Do you remember the code name for the GameCube? Is it a dolphin? It was, which is the name of the ship. Oh, nice, nice. So there you go. Uh and then the final piece, which I thought was very funny, um, is a was the secret safe. Um

I think is what it was called. And it was shaped like the top half of a piggy bank. I thought was very amusing, but also like Opens up a lot of questions. Is is Olimar from Earth, but he's really tiny? Or did he come to Earth? Like what happened here?

Uh well there in one of the levels there's like a bottle, like a like a coke bottle. I mean there's boxes as well, right? So it's Yeah, right. There's boxes. So it's yeah, it is it there's a lot of questions about the lore behind this uh world building. And we're building on this game. So I'm sure that beyond this Beyond this the the Pikmin world is very very well fleshed out. So yeah. So that's yeah.

Yeah, they're on they're on Pikmin four. Um let's turn now to takeaways. Um you, sir, will go first. We may have some overlap here. Let's see. Normally we have some.

Yeah, I mean the the f my first takeaway is is hitting the genre stuff directly. Um and and specifically the um well my first two takeaways are both But the first one is just the concept of taking whether we don't know, I don't think we know exactly the order of operations. Genres were inspiring them or not. We know um his garden inspired him, but of course, you know, that's more of a maybe a spiritual inspiration. Um, or what have you, more of a Abstract and then.

But when we talk about RTSs and puzzle, you know, taking these tried and true genres and forming some unexpected and new from it. For me was a takeaway just as a reminder that we have fallen as a medium in these russo genres so much. Plenty of great games out there. We play them on the podcast. There's plenty of things.

break genres and expand upon them. So, you know, people are still doing this today, every day. Uh there's a game that's released that's probably some new merger. But in the time that Pikmin came out, it wasn't thought to themselves, well I like this. I like peanut butter and I like chocolate. You know? What if we you know, because I would never at that time as a developer, I would never have thought to put RTS And a garden. You know, so

Well yeah, that one overlaps with me, uh, because I s I'm I put it this way. There are probably other genres that can take a different approach, um, which is to say to break their conventions. um into something different. You know, in particular in this case it was, hey, this thing that is very PC focused. Um, you know, how could we make it work on a console that is not just like

cramming a bunch of controls on onto the controller. Um, which I think was basically the approach prior to this. It was like, well let's minimize some things and then just like, I don't know, make people have you know, crab hands, uh, to try to do all the things that they need to be able to do.

And then make the camera move really fast. Like I don't even know how they did some of this stuff, um, you know, on RTSs that were on call souls before. This is like, you know what, let's kinda take the feeling of that and um and make it its own thing that can work well. You know, particularly on a you know a console that is not

you know, gonna be able to draw, you know, a billion units and things like that. I mean, the max is a hundred Pikmin, uh the Pikmin are very simple as a result. Their animations are very simple as well. Um, you know, they basically have a walk and a head bash and maybe a fly and a fall, a couple of things like that. But then, you know, because they're not many polys, they're kinda easy to do. Um

So they really just kinda broke down everything, you know, and and and rethought it. And uh I think that that's Uh that's really good. I'll also say you kinda touched on my other one, which is drawing your inspirations from anywhere. Um, you know, and and like you said, abstract. I said don't make it one to one. So this is not a gardening game. Um, but it is a game that's inspired by gardening. Um and uh not you know, you sometimes you can take the the feeling of the thing that you like

and turn it into a a game and not just make it exactly the thing um that you're you know, you're doing. So Um, so I will I will wrap that in there as well'cause that was my other takeaway that I think is is is pretty important. Um and uh and what I really appreciate about this game and and knowing its kind of genesis. So um since you touched on it I figured I'd wrap both both of those takeaways together.

So I'll throw it back to you. I know I know speaking for myself, I'd I definitely fall into the rut where inspirations for me, because I play so many games and you know person for fun. And we you and I talk about games, not just for the podcast. You know, we t all of us are always playing stuff. A a lot of times my A lot, I would say maybe almost 100 90 percent of my inspirations are coming from gaming. Um, and this game is a good reminder that.

I'm a I'm a gamer at heart and I play a lot of hours of game games every week. Inspirations don't have to come just from games, you know. Even if you're trying to genre blend or or genre best

Come from anywhere. Um, yeah, I mean, you kind of you actually ironically touched on my second one already too, and it really did come down to the translation of whatever this genre merger. So you kind your your summary was better in that, hey, we're gonna do this on a console or we're gonna do this on I won't even say console. We're gonna do this on a place that it wasn't before.

Um and you know, ensemble games and Halo Wars and there's you know there's been a handful of RTSs, quote unquote, or any we don't even have to focus on Like we did when we played Halo, you know, shooters going. So there's always a handful of them that are trying to do it in a very, I guess I'll say, not obvious because it's still hard, but in a very logical way, you know, trying to emulate.

Um like in Halo War Halo Wars case, like how are we gonna emulate an RTS um on a console, but to your point that you already made, they just came at it from a different approach. We're not going to try to pretend we are giving you the same verbs that a mouse and keyboard would have put on a console. We're just gonna rewrite the rule book on what it is. Yeah. It's still gonna be vaguely unit control ish, but we're not gonna Hamstrong by Trick.

I d I never played the StarCraft console version that I think was on the N sixty four or something. But I cannot imagine it being very No, I can't w I can't imagine it at all. Um Yeah, I mean things on consoles tended to be tactics. and uh turn based because of you know the lack of um

Yeah, buttons, frankly. I mean the lack of a whole keyboard. Final Fantasy Tactics is a good example. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Or, you know, any of the things that came before it, like Ogre Battle and all those sorts of things. Tactics Ogre and um Etc. So it's like you know, they they were like, Well, we want to have that kind of feel but

you know, we don't we don't wanna do this. And you know, other games have done this and taken their their very PC focused games and put them on consoles, um, but uh usually it's not quite so radical, so Um well mine my last one and I'll go to your last one is uh is my negative lesson that I touched at the end there is like your final boss maybe doesn't have to be this hard, dude. Um

Uh you know, and we talked I'm not gonna belabor it'cause it but it did today. It was just like, man, you know, it it leaves me like just exhausted at the end of the game when I shouldn't be. I should feel triumphant like I did it and there's not a there's not enough at the end of the game. to counteract the feeling of getting to that point. It's not like, and then there was something easy. There was just some cutscenes in the credits, right? So it

Um although there were there were little cutscenes for all of the enemy types and they told you all their names, which I I thought was fun. Um so that d that did kind of If you stuck around for that, you know, which I I did, um, I liked uh My favorite name was the fiery blowhog. I like that one. That's a good name. Oh, I remember that. Yeah. They go through each of the units. That's Yeah. Yeah, it's that's very fun. Um but anyway, it it did I definitely was like I'm surprised.

they made that. This is not a company I think makes that kind of mistake. Um usually, you know, like a Zelda game or something like that. The Final Boss is is a challenge. But it's not so much of a challenge. that you can't in theory get through it maybe on the first try. This one was so Like I don't even like it's not telling me what to do and a lot of the things countermanded, like we talked about in the discussion. Um a lot of the things I did with all the other enemies.

are not what I do here. You know, and so figuring out what to do was a whole puzzle that I didn't need. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I feel like um You haven't finished uh I don't think you've finished Breath of the Wild yet, have you? Um... No the breath of the wild. Yeah, so I was gonna bring up Calamity Ganon, not to be confused with Calamity Nolan, just to be clear. Similar same beard, I think. Yeah, that's very close. Um the that is a really good example of them doing

Like that was a really fulfilling experience, but I didn't feel like it was too hard, you know. And technically if you're really good You can go and do it any time, right? Yeah, right. So they had that on on them. But it's like it's a very bombastic, great, multiphase boss. But I think I've got it on the first try, you know? But I also was pretty leveled up. Yeah, yeah at all the killer. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, they they they still got it but

Um your last one. Yeah, my last one is um is a funny one because It's pretty, I guess, intangible in some ways, but context and tone can change gameplay perception, is what I wrote down, which is super designer-y, nerdy, silly. But what I mean by that is um They're cute. Yeah, it's they're cute. They're cute. And the game in general is very light, right? It's a light hearted game.

But midway through the game, it really starts to escalate, you know? And and they really it really um puts a stress on the controls. the what they're asking of the player, if you want to do do it, you know, I guess the best you can and get all you know and get and clear clearly And then the the final boss is kind of the cherry on top of that. But I've constantly found this tension between the tone and the context of the game.

as opposed to what I was doing in the game, you know, and how I felt about losing Pikmin, et cetera. There's even like Yeah, I won't go into the controls again'cause we've talked about it at Nauseum, but I think that they had programmed in Some random moments when some of the people one of the Pikmin will trip and fall as they're following you. Yeah. Unlike

That is adorable, but why did you put that in there? I don't wanna stop and wait for this Pikmin to get up that I had no control over, you know, and then so that's sort of for me it's a takeaway of like being careful. that the context and tone does not fight some of the core um

goals of the game. Do you know what I mean? Because they're both great in and of themselves. As an IP, Pikmin is amazing. Like gamers know Pikmin. It's it's adorable. The music, like it's got it's got every its identity is very clear. But you're doing some heavy gaming when you're playing this game sometimes and and and you're losing.

Your you're very cute units. So it was just an interesting takeaway for me that there's to think about that, I guess. You know, think about the the merger of those two things as best as you can. All right. Yeah, defin definitely a thing. They are they are cute. Yeah, I I also notice that they you know, they'll fall. I do think those will catch up. Um I know they do you can kind of ignore it and like they'll catch up and it'll be fine.

But yeah, I get it. I mean it's a psychological thing. It's like you see'em, you're like, uh yeah. Come on, guys. Yeah. Come on. It's hurt it's a game about hurt hur it's a game about hurting cats, you know, and and They're a little unruly and they get stuck on stuff and but it's like, no, I don't I'm low on Pikmin right now. I don't want I don't want to do any of that risk. Yeah, yeah. I get ya.

All right. Let's um just to do it, I want to make sure we get to the review we didn't technically get to last week. Um so I sent that to you. I think we'll skip the emails. I don't know what we'll do next week, so I'm I'll uh we'll leave the emails the next week. But we did actually get an email from um Benamanjaro who is like

Oh yeah, I didn't actually send the review. Um and he's he also said I'll I'll read a little bit from his email, he said, I loved Tim's immediate assumption to go to Spanish flair when pronouncing my name. It's so very quote unquote Tim to unknowingly attempt the most difficult path. On the streets, they call that taking the longo way. And he says in parentheses, they don't call it that. Uh, Brett got it with the Kilimanjaro Association, which I have sadly never visited. Um

So uh anyway, he said it's just a terrible name bestowed on him from some college friends. But uh we did track down I had already tracked down the review, he also sent it in. You go ahead and read it and we'll get to the email. Okay, um from Benemin Yarrow. Um Dev God he totally nailed it That's me. Um, Dev Game Club has, at the time of review, 469 episodes.

What? Uh each one is at least an hour long, most longer. That means I've spent more than twenty days of my life of my life listening to Brett and Tim Longa Jr. with the JR at the end, and I don't regret a single second of it. My ex exclamation. He just does a period. These guys are uh serve up uh entertaining, educational, in-depth. Favorite games of the past, and they do it with such intellect and wisdom that could only come from experienced industry vaccines.

Uh I love their authenticity and passion and my day is always brightened when I get to listen to Brett get into the weeds about how was architected or Tim gets excited about some obscure lore. Five thumbs up or stars. I mean I meant stars. Thank you, Benemjaro. Yes. So

There you go. Yeah, it's very kind. Um definitely appreciate that. And it's I think this is the only maybe uh there might have been one other time where, you know, somebody reviewed us on something other than iTunes and we're like, Yeah, I'm never gonna see that. So please Let us know when it happens and uh and Benamangero l did do that for us and we appreciate that. So I wanted to call that out. And of course.

He sent that to devgameclub at gmail dot com, uh which is where we get all your emails and reviews. We have some that we will read next week. Um I'm looking at this one here from a little preview from Nolan about Pikmin. So there's a lot of Pikmin info. That'll be our follow up on on Pikmin. But we're running long so and Tim wants to go uh see a movie. So I'm I'm gonna you know get us get us out of here.

Uh so anyway, you can send us an email as I mentioned. We're on the web at devgameclub.com and my co-host twitches at twitch.tv slash Tim Longo Jr. with the Gen. At the end. Lately it is the adventures of Renchi, I believe is his name. Yeah, Renchi the Clown. Yeah, the clown with the killer wrench. For those listening to this, tomorrow's stream You're gonna wanna watch. I took Nolan up on his challenge.

So I will be uh I will be in costume for Red City Clan. Brett has seen a preview. I I have seen a preview. I can't unsee the preview, so maybe I will stop by for a little spelunky at the beginning. Yeah, we'll definitely do the spelunky daily and that'll take about 30 seconds and then we'll I will put on a clown wig and nose and play as a clown. Um assassinating people. Yeah. I mean you'll look like a clown as you play as a clown as a clown. Anyway. It's very meta. Uh am I a clown to you? Yeah.

Uh we do. There is uh there is a fan run Discord, and they are this weekend. We will remind you doing A charity event. All the details were up top. They'll also be in the show notes as well. Our intro and outro music was written and performed by Kirk Hamilton, commissioned by Friend of the Cast Aaron Evers, and our logo, the Discord, our merch store, the site for defeating games dot com, all by Mark Garcia. Have fun getting home or expiring trying this week, and good night. Good night.