DGC Ep 459: Ultima IV (part two)

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 Duval, and I'm joined as always by my co-host, a man who will seek to solve the many quests before him, and honor shall be a reward. Tim Longo. Gotta get your honor. Gotta get your honor on, your honor.

I have. I've done one round of honor. Oh, good, good. Not that round apparently, because I appreciate it was learning some things about this game that I did not uh know or recollect uh or had not yet figured out. That's one of the beauty beautiful things about the game. Well, and that's I mean, it was because I didn't talk to someone. Um, and that's where I think we should start. Oh, yeah, that's a good, good segue. Oh, so you so that one that I was mentioning to you, which we can talk about.

You didn't you didn't get you I didn't find whoever that was that uh you got that bit of information. That's a bummer. That's also a bummer about the game is like there's some there can be some super important things but If you don't talk to that NPC. Yep. Well, I mean it says talk to every NPC. It literally says we're talking about multiple four, by the way. Um the there are so many and one thing that one thing that's frustrating is sometimes um a character presents

You look at them on the screen, you're like, oh, that's just like all the other ones that are like that. Because do you want to talk to every guard? And it's like, well, you probably should because who knows?

Yeah,'cause there's gotta be that one guard, you know. Yeah. I've been skipping guards which I will regret. I I s yeah, it it's like every town yeah, you just can't because every town will have Sort of like the repeated characters and then there will be one or two of the same artwork that will

Yeah. Right. Right. You know, and sometimes it's like, well, I'm a fighter. And it's like, okay. You know. And sometimes they'll introduce them s the same person will sometimes introduce themselves as a fighter or as their actual name, which is another thing that's funny. It's like The things you know to ask people about name, job, and health. Um, I think are the topics that are discussed in the in the guide. Oh, health. I didn't I don't why do you ask him health? What is that?

Um it usually doesn't matter, but if you ask Lord British he'll heal your party. Oh got it, got it, got it. Oh that's good to know. I didn't know that. But if you ask people like what's your general health, you know, they'll They'll say they're well or poorly or whatever. It's just another usually you already know. You can tell, oh, this g this person's not doing so well. They have the sleeping uh character uh icon icon, you know, or whatever, um, sprite.

Isn't it funny that the sleeping and the dead I think are the same? Yes. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how you Yeah. Anyway, I mean the the reason I bring up talking is it is a huge Part of this game. I mean, as I mentioned already, it's it's something that they tell you in the the history, which of course they also remind you to read twice in that intro, as we talked about last week.

They say like you really should talk to everybody in every town. And the, you know, you should why don't you I don't know if you've encountered This kind of I don't remember Ultima 3. I think it had this kind of dialect system, but you want to at least describe it for folks? Yeah, I mean when so you use the T command to talk in a direction. Cardinal directions and then um there's a sort of an int I don't you know, some simple introduction.

sentence. And then at that point, I mean the the the callback that I was going to actually mention is the King's question. Um or the Sierra games where, you know, f at least well, you know, of course graphic Or I'm sorry, text adventure games. Uh, but just this concept of okay, you have a prompt. You have a a cursor and a prompt to type in whatever you want.

you know, hypothetically, and there's always obviously the stopgap. Oh, I can't help you with that answer if it's something they can't. But like you said earlier, there's a couple ones they mentioned in the manual, like job. And those usually lead you at least job especially lead you to Some other keywords. Now it's not like hyperlinking where they tell you what the keywords are. You do also have to guess.

And usually try a bunch out or a few out that, you know, from the sentence that the last sentence that they said. But usually it's pretty obvious. And surprisingly, I'd say a lot of the times. There'll be a keyword in the sentence that you can ask them about that isn't critical, but they still thought to have an answer for. And I'm gonna not. Example, but well, I mean, in in any of the cities, if you ask about the the virtue for that particular city, right. Every character will have some.

Uh right. People will give you a sense of how they feel about the virtue. Yeah, that's a good example. So you can always pretty much ask. And they're always like we talked about in the first episode, they're always philosophically written and you know and and and very on brand for that sort of sensibility. So They also um I will note that in later games Um and I guess in the console adaptations of this game.

uh they they handle this in different ways. So in the in the console version of this game, the topics are things that after they're introduced, I guess you can pick because of course you can't type. Um so you have them visible to you. And in later versions of the game of the games and Ultima Six in particular, I haven't played five so I don't know if it was introduced there. Um when they're talking there will be words highlighted

in a different color. I think it's like, you know, the text is brown, but red signifies a topic that you can ask them about. Um so they will ha that is a you know, sort of a quality of life sort of thing. Um I mean the six engine presents very similarly to the to the four engine. It's just much, you know, higher quality of sprite.

Um Yeah, I mean we're starting to see I mean that's why I mentioned King's Quest and then to your point about the where they evolve, then you start seeing maybe kind of more LucasArts adventure game sort of you know, putting sentences together with with the noun. and verbs and things like that. But but um I just for I don't remember that much detail from three when I played it as a youngster. So I I'm sure there there was some version of this.

I would have to go back and look. But um it didn't make an impression on me, of course, because I d I don't remember that part, but um I'm just very impressed with the depth. And I mean, you know There's other games all at the same time trying to do the same stuff, I'm sure. But in in eighty four, is that what this one was? Eighty f eighty five. Eighty five. Still an eighty five having this much depth for this many NPCs with an open prompt.

At least on the PC versions, where you are having to discuss dialogue with NPCs. I mean it's just blowing my mind really at this point. And what do we have today? We have dialogue trees and elaborate conversations. We have you know, uh companion quests that this has, you know, and so the conversations are really delight I've I've found them delightful both in two ways. One because they obviously add to world build the sense of place and like we talked about the importance of the virtues.

philosophy of the of the game, but also they that's how they also interweave uh basically riddles and puzzles. Um a lot of the things you need to get or do like the shrines and the monsters.

You know, you have to talk to people. to, you know, get the next step in the You know, you don't have a quest log, but you're essentially you do. It's just not in the game. Right. And you're like, oh, my quest is it goes to find this person who knows where they are. They could be in this town, but they might not be, and save this one keyword to them. which you wouldn't know unless you talked to the previous person who was in another place. So it's essentially a quest without a quest.

Right so holy cow. Yeah, I mean in it Like like we talked about last week, the the sort of overarching quest is is hidden in in the history, you know, so you don't even really know that. I mean they do give you the instruction, like make sure you talk to everybody. you know, um as you as you go around. There is kind of that amount of guidance. But you don't really know what you're up to. I guess, you know, once you talk to a Lord British, you get more of a sense of it. Um

But um that might be not be for a little while. You certainly have had some of these conversations beforehand and even start to know, depending on where you start, um, what sorts of things you're looking for, you know. You know, you can if you talk to everybody you start hearing about the shrines and the the runes and the mantras. You know, so now you know like, oh, that's a common thing, you know, that's that's a thing I'm gonna wanna do. Multiple places.

Um as you achieve these things, if you go back to the seer, you know, in the castle, you can sort of ask about your progress in each of those virtues. Um Yeah. Seventy, seventy five, eighty, you know. Can I have a number? Um you know,'cause it's very hard to tell. What's going on under the hood, you know, in the in the you know, as far as that stuff. Because I do know, mechanically speaking, that there's basically a number associated with how humble you are. And how

Honorable you are. There are numbers that are associated with these these things that are um increased or decreased by actions you take. You know, if you if you kill um non-evil monsters, as you are admonished not to, both by a person in the world and by a vision, uh which we'll talk about probably at some other Um I believe that number will go down, right? For that particular virtue, right? Um, but you can't see that number critically. You know, you have to

kind of read the tea leaves from what the seer tells you. Um and you have to kind of do these quests and and hope. Like I understand that humility is the hard one, um, you know, which pfft can relate. So Hmm, I wonder how deep that goes,'cause now I'm kind of worried. Yeah, I didn't I guess it didn't. Well you can you can always recover, right? So Yeah, but how much let's just say I found some chests. Mmm.

Yeah, but they respawn. So my thought at the time was these are there to help you if you're in trouble. Um were they behind a locked door? They were not behind a locked door. They were behind a different Hmm. Oh, I see. A secret door perhaps.

Perhaps, yeah. Um a secret wall, yeah. So interesting. Well I mean, you know, I'll write it out and see what happens. But it's but yeah, and I assume you can just keep meditating to try to recover. But it'd be interesting to know if each one of those And I'm wondering too that once you do if you if if I'm right on the interpretation on that one line, once you do one, two and three meditation. cycles, maybe what he says is more definitive.

Like you're done kind of thing or Yeah, you think it's still vague? I think it I think it well, it might be I I don't think I've gotten any of these things to the max. So I don't think I know I guess we'll I guess we'll let you know. We will discover, yeah. Um I as as time goes on. So yeah, anyway. Um so yeah, talking is is is is a a very important part of exploring the game. Um in a way that feels very different from other

uh games of this type, I'll say. Yeah, and you know, we talked a little bit about in the in pre-show in terms of I just had I was one I was we don't have to talk about it now, but I was wondering about poison Complaining about it again, as everyone does.

It's uh one of those age old questions about video games, especially RPGs. But anyway, long story short, you know, it kinda traces back to D and D and if his goal or their goal Which a lot of these early C RPGs were, was the goal to emulate D. But at this time, you need to do that with extreme constraint.

Because you can't really emulate it. Um, in fact we still have trouble even today doing a good job at the end. It adapts it adapts poorly to Yeah, I mean having finished Baldur's Gate three, it's like it's in a stellar game, but you know it It will never you know it's it's what does D D add D and D add to it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's a and that's the funny thing about Larian is that the before that they were not making D I believe it's a good thing.

But anyway, long story short, like the role playing part is what I was getting to, right, at D D where you were talking to people and you were conversing and you were trying to get information. And if you think about it, I don't know if this is the case, but for for more British for Richard Garriot, it's like, Well, I want some of that in here. How would we do it? Well, we would need a few different, you know, common

questions we could ask people. We can't have it be infinite conversations, right? We're not there yet. But we can we can s you know scratch that itch a little bit by doing these things. here and I just love that sort of design challenge of we we only you know probably there's memory concerns too that you could talk about, but there's technical limitations and there's also just design and interface limitations that they were working with.

But I'm still amazed at how far they got. Yeah. With those limitations and what I feel when I move through the world, going from town to town, talking to literally everybody roaming around. Um it's pretty like I don't I don't get that from other other games of this era that I can remember, you know. They're this game this game influenced a lot.

Yeah. Well, first of all, sixty four K, it's all you'll ever need, you know? Um I mean text is text is really cheap, right? You know, so it's Um it's also a really good I mean it's the implement implementation may be difficult because Um, you know, there we already have run into questions between us about, well, you know, is our words kind of gated off, you know. uh will they only talk to you about something once a certain thing has happened in the world, for example, or you know, um

You know, or once you've actually been to a place, can you only then talk about it to somebody or something like that? Um, you know, and I and I don't the answer is I don't know, because I I don't think that's come up yet, for me anyway. Um and complexities of of that implementation aside, text is pretty cheap, right? You know, you and in fact in this game

Um, and I think my rec I think I discovered this in six, so it's and I tested it's true at four as well. You actually only have to type the first four letters. That's there. That's their lookup. Um so everything after the fourth letter is meaningless. Um Because w you know, well four letters is a nice uh is easy to compare on other systems. Not not so much the Apple two, but uh but on

on a 16-bit system, that's two compares instead of, you know, four compares. So for any giv you're saying for any given character you're talking to if you wanted to ask about trigger keywords would never have duplicate Beginning four letters. Correct. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. For a treasure you would just have to type T R E A. Yeah. You don't even have and it only has a input window of Uh eight to ten letters. I I it might be two. Yeah.

And maybe magensia or like the max out question, like those go those are the longest, maybe? You can ask those, yeah, but they're There's a there's a couple that I've I've asked that. There have been things where I've run up against the limit for sure. So interesting. Yeah. So how this might be too too detailed of a question and maybe kind of silly to ask, but when it comes to the programming side of

How does that work? Do they have like like I think because of my designer brain and maybe more modern brain, I think object-orientedness. But do they have it does is each character its own kind of programming, um, you

No. I think each character has a table. Okay. Okay. And the table is, you know, the key is the four letter index and the that outputs the answer. And then it just outputs yeah whatever the and the response is the the value. Okay. Um and then there might be there are of course there would be specific um implementation details of like, oh, this one follows up with a question, right? So you'd have to have some way of chaining those things together. Um but you know, that's just a

more details in the table. Yeah, it's like you know, oh this table has i if if it has two values, right, then the second value is a question and how they answer that. Like you can see like a row being longer. Um but fundamentally it's Yeah, it's just a table lookup. And then the reason why you have in some places multiple characters who have um the same thing is well it's easy to give

more life to a place in the sense of having more, you know, sprites on screen or whatever. Um, if all of them use the same table, right? I mean that's you know, you're not really costing that much more memory, right? So an instance of them or guards or whatever. Yeah.

Interesting. Yeah.'Cause sometimes as Brett was kinda saying there f for those who haven't played it, uh sometimes you'll get a question back from the your question and they won't, you know, sometimes it's a yes or no. Uh I guess most of the time Most of the time it's yes or no. Yeah. Yeah. But but there is a limitation to a chain of conversation. I don't know if it's two

I think it's not long. It's not many. Yeah, I don't think it's very long and I I on honestly wonder if you could just type yes and no to the people who have one of those and they'd give you the yes or no branch. I haven't tested it but Just before they ask you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, right, right. That would be a simple way.

To test it. Um interesting. So yeah. So it's uh But it's it's the perception that counts, right? It's like however I think what what you're what I'm pulling from what you're saying there, it's it's like Not only is it text, so you're imposing your own um you know, the voice of that character is in your head, just like reading a book. So there's there's that advantage they have. And then the other advantage is even if the

the logical flow is simpler than you think, you fill in the blanks as well there, like you're having a conversation. Um unless you go back to the same character and like really try to pick pick them apart. It flows okay. You know, it's like, yeah, we're having a conversation and a lot of times for the context of the game, I buy it and it feels I guess it's just again, I don't have great memory of three. But the world feels much more alive and robust than I.

Yeah. There's a lot here. There's a lot here for sure. And I do think with every game he iterated on These systems. Right. And and I was like, uh, you know, you don't it's like whenever you make a game, at the end of it you're like, uh, we didn't you know, uh I wish we could have pushed X, Y, or Z further, you know, and I think this this sense that the place is alive

is definitely one that he pushed way further, um, I w I would I would say, from from what I can recollect of one, two and three, which all which feel of a piece. I mean they are one kind of long story arc, but also Um, you know, and technically there are improvements, certainly. But, you know, here he's very kind of like, okay. I mean it's it's clear even from the manuals, like, okay, we're we're starting fresh with really new goals, you know, for ourselves.

You know, and you know we've gotten good at doing this this thing, let's push it, you know, and uh and do some different things. And I think that the the amount of structure he put to his his design and and the world are are really indicative that of that as well. And I'm, you know, it would be surprising not to also find it in his technical approach.

It feels very open worldly too, you know, and and the fact that you can get one keyword in one town that that goes to another character in another town, you know, and you can hypothetically you know, other than gates like sea travel and such um in mountains and water, you can get to a lot, you know, you can physically walk to most places.

Um and then you can uh and then they have fast travel. So it's like, oh, these are these are I mean fast travel's such a common commonly understood concept and you know, even you know, the early Um it's just interesting to I had forgotten I do have I think I mentioned the first episode I I have the sort of vague memory in three of cracking the code on on the the Moon Gates in three um as a youngster and how you know it took me so long to do it.

But um but it's such a cool thing to have it not just be a simple mechanic. Yeah. Yeah, no, I really love the um I I I really love the the way that the The eights keep turning up, you know. You know, there's there's eight phases of the moon, there's eight towns, eight major towns, there's eight virtues that are of course associated with those towns, there's eight classes, you know, etcetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then the moon gates

um to which you were referring as as is the fast travel. You know, it's it's one of those things that's really kind of mysterious um in the sense of You know, you could be walking around in an area and then suddenly a moon gate appears and you're like What is that? There's literally a yellow and blue door that has just appeared in one of the tiles on the map. And you can step through it and you're somewhere else, maybe.

Maybe. Yeah, maybe. Sometimes you're like, oh, okay. I I wouldn't want the first time I stepped through it to not be that. Uh because then I'd be like, what was the point of that? Um but the phases of the moon, which Uh I forget exactly the names of the uh of the moons, but they start with T and F. Uhhuh, yeah. To and from, maybe? Oh maybe. Yeah. Uh I don't know if they map that way. I I think the two might actually be the from and the

You know, the from might actually be the two. I'd I'd have to go and look at the interface description. It's in one of the manuals. But also I just like picked up that it was like, oh, it's T and F. Huh. How about that? Um but based on based on the phases of these two moons that the that the the planet of uh what cesarea has, uh you can learn, you know, slash write down in my case, like

Well, each of those phases of the moon are associated with a place that's near one of these towns. It does it doesn't drop you off right in the town. Um and Because I think you said in pre show the the so the the fo the moon on the left i in the in the interface is the from moon and that's where a one of the moon gates will appear. Um and it'll go from there uh to the other one, which is the one on the right. Um

And they're s they're kind of near the major towns. So the places that you're gonna go to a lot in the game, they're not the only places in the game, but they are the places you're gonna go. So um, you know, so this is this way uh to get you around pretty quickly. And you're there are places at the beginning of the game where you'd probably like to be able to get to. and spending the time to walk there or try to get a boat, which

You know, I have not even seen yet. Tim Tim has seen one, but I have not even seen a boat yet. I saw one and I ran away. It was like'cause it was shooting at me. I'm not gonna deal with those pirates. Um Yeah, I mean at some point I'm gonna have to go and start looking for one. I'm I'm more worried about it. Yeah. They they are real time like oh by the way, this in combat we should we'll talk about in in shortly, I'm sure, is turn based, but

the game doesn't pause. You know, it's don't the Moon Gates as a as a segue, the Moon Gates is an example, right? If you just stand in the wheelchair Time is marching on. Right. Is my point. Yes. Yeah, there are there are two ways to well, there are a couple of ways in which time is paused and the Um one is the if you have more than one person in your party, the Z key for stats.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. We'll pause the game because it's waiting for you to tell you for for you to tell it which character you want. Um although some things do change, the winds still change. I don't think the moon advances while you're pausing. And then the other is if you're in a city. Uh the moons don't change. The winds do change. The third way is kind of a meta way, is if you're playing in a DOS box window, you can uh right-click on the title bar of the DOS window. That will pop.

Pause the the whole the whole thing. Um that's just uh DOS windows work under Windows. So that's just uh, you know, lucky happenstance to have discovered that. There were times where I was like, I wanna look something up in the manual. Uh All right, alt-enter, alt tab. Uh okay, I don't want this to advance while I'm doing this, so here, right click. I don't want to get mobbed by a bunch of monsters.

Uh that's happened to me multiple times when I've all tapped. Yeah. I've come back and I've been luckily combat is turn based, so I've come back and I've been in combat, but it's waiting for me. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Um but you can end up ha coming out of them being like, Oh, suddenly I have trains of monsters around me, um, you know, in the overworld. So yeah. Yeah, the the the other cool thing about like

The mi like we're gonna talk about probably mystery throughout the whole series, and and then we'll come back to it time and time again. But the mystery behind the Moon Gate. Being such a Like, you know, and there's probably some example, maybe even we could use the eye of the beholder as an example or something, but there they could have just had these be portals, you know, that like went from one place place one to place

You know, there's simple ways to do this. But they chose to make their make to have there be mystery around. Related to the cycle of the moons. Like Brett said, he explained that. And then the moon gates themselves are up for. Three cycles. And so each of those three cycles additionally is a different location because the moons are constantly changing.

So right. Three moon cycles, not three computer cycles. Yeah. Right. Sorry, moon. Yeah. Moon shifts. Right. Yeah. Cycles. And so it comes up, the first time it comes up, it goes to one place. Then the next moon cycle is another place. And then the next moon cycle. And we were joking about in some degree.

the place you are, so you won't actually teleport. Um but it'll seem like you did. And but yeah, there's still the effect. The effect like you did. Yeah. It's very funny. Yeah. So which is funny they left that in there. Um But yeah, so it's there my point is it's like there's also a puzzle there, you know, and there's this kind of unraveling. You kinda you really because I don't think they explain this uh explicitly. I don't think so, no. No. So you really have to kinda

part I I mean I I think I had a vague memory from three about that fact, but I didn't remember it right away. And so I was just kind of willy-nilly going into gates and then I think I used the same gate a couple times but then ended up in different places. Oh. They're there for multiple cycles. And so I actually have to map out each state. Um so one gate can take you to potentially three places.

Yeah. The hint the hint is on the map as that that these are associated with places because on the map it shows the phases of the moon in the locations you'll teleport to. Yeah, right. Yeah, and that's and that's another cool thing though, right? Is because like oftentimes the maps are fun to have, and it's and this one is a cloth map to boot.

And so you're like, Yeah, yeah, I can use it generally to help me in the game, but And you know, you can see where the locations of um Towns are as well, but So you you know, but it's not a super literal, but it it's it's a general map. But the moon gates are really important.

for that piece of knowledge on the map. And so I don't know, it's just a really there's just all these little mysteries to solve, even with something that's so fundamental as the Moon Gates. Um, because you really are going to want Yeah. You have to until you get a ship. Right. So yeah.

Yeah. It's deep. There's just a lot. There is a lot. And and of course, you know, as we mentioned, like even the main quest of the game is itself kind of a mystery that you puzzle out, you know, that you kind of like, Oh, when I talk to everybody in this town I I kind of uncover

this mystery about this shrine that's nearby and this mantra you have to speak at it. Oh, and I need a special object to be able to even go in it. I was really annoyed at one point'cause I went for the one for compassion. And I couldn't get in and you have to pass through poison to get there. Yeah, right. Darn it. Um'cause I was walking and I was like, Well, I'll I'm gonna have to go back out, so I'll just like take the poison damage. But I got to the shrine and then I couldn't go in. I was like

Whoops. So I had to go I had to go back to the town and uh I found that rune accidentally, by the way. Oh really? I before Yeah, yeah. Which is a good which is a good point of about its persistence. Right. And I think you can just search in the right spot, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well it's at the end of a hallway that's the one that's conspicuously

There and I was like, Oh I'm gonna search in this nook and it was like you found a rune and I was like, I what? I wasn't even looking for a rune. Who knew? But then I uh talked to the people afterwards and realized that they point you there. Yeah. Which was cool. But but it's a point about sort of the persistence and object orientedness. Yeah, that's why I think in most cases this is not things are not gated. You just don't know to ask.

Yeah. Sort of like this game called Outer Wilds. Oh, I was gonna say her story. Uh okay, yeah. The Sam Barlow game and and other games that he's made are kind of in this vein, but that was the f the first one where you are doing searches of this database. You know, in this clunky like Windows 95 style interface of like, oh, it's an old computer, that's where the data is, and it's got all these video clips.

And you can search them. But if you know explicitly what to search for, you know, because you've played it before, or maybe you have good intuition, you could pick a keyword that'll take you to like really critical sort of quote unquote end game information. Um I don't think that there's and my recollection of the game is that there might be multiple interpretations of it or at least

We had multiple interpretations. The game kinda is open-ended that way. It's like, well, are you done? If you're done, then

Whatever you're, you know, comfortable walking away from with that game. But I mean, I think that's true here. It's like you talked to Lord British about some stuff that I didn't occur to me to ask. His table's probably pretty long. Yeah, his table's probably well pretty sure he has a lot of guests. But um bum. Um nice. Uh-huh. He's at the end of this very long table. He's like uh what's his name uh in uh Deadly Premonition.

Oh, oh. Uh remember when he's sitting at the table at the hotel and she's way at the other end and he's at the York. Um a scene. Yeah. Good callback. Um Yeah, I mean I asked him I asked him about the abyss. I asked him about uh the Sty Stygian? Stygian? Stygian. Uh Stygian Abyss. Which by the way, is where you go in Ultima Underworld. Right. So you know, like

That's another reason why. Yeah, anyway, we talk we have a whole series on that. But the fact that you go there in this game and maybe in the previous ones I forget, but that it becomes it's a whole game on an in and of itself in Ultimate. Brilliant move. But um I asked him about Exodus for some reason. I was like, I wonder what he's gonna say, because that was the last game, you know. And I was like, what? And there was a he has a line. He just said, Yes, Exodus is dead, and this exclamation.

You know, and and so the fact that they kind of fought to have some of that extra, you know, um, unnecessary Stuff is is interesting. I forget what he said about I didn't write down what he said about the abyss, but I did ask about. He said if you stare into it Yeah, he said something Yeah, exactly. No, he said something about being prepared, I think, and like Oh.

Ready for it. Yeah, I mean I I do think that uh based on some things I've talked to people about, you know, it might be a place we're going at some point. So, you know, it wouldn't surprise me. But again, like I guess that points again to like if you if you can sort of think ahead or if you do run into that person and think, Oh, I should ask Lord British about that next time I'm over by the castle, you know, um, you can kind of

get, you know, premonitions of where the game might be going, um, you know, based on based on that. So in in the same way that you can in in the Barlow games, uh, that I mentioned. So It's uh yeah that's pretty interesting. Because once you've played it once I if you were to ever play it again, you can shortcut you can just finish the game, right? And you can't un well, in my case you can forget, but you can't unknow that

It's just because it's always been there. Yeah. The the the s the answers were always there, you know? Yeah. So yeah, it's really cool. I d I haven't played her story. Yeah, it's it's similar in that way. Um the the one thing I think we should definitely touch on because we're already at thirty eight minutes, uh we have not talked a lot about

the other I mean, what was a lot of the time of me playing this time was combat. There was a lot of combat this time out. Um more so than last time because last time You know, basically both of us started in a town, talked to a bunch of people, went out of town, died.

and woke up with Lord British. And that was pretty much how much we played, you know, roughly. Um, maybe went a little a little further than that, but uh, you know, went to the second town. But that's also really close by to the castle. So you're not, you know, hightailing all over the place to to do those those couple of towns. Um and they are the easiest uh or that is the easiest town, I think, to to solve.

Um but uh but this time, yeah, there was combat all over the place. I mean, I had had a little bit last time and more and more of it this time, and it presents as So on in the overworld you'll see the creatures in the world. So you actually can sometimes sort of run away, especially from you know, things that are seabound and stuff like that. Sometimes if they're off on the edge of the map, you can sort of like

you know, go the other way and they'll just not notice you and you can that you can kinda get away. But in general, you're gonna go into an area, you'll have gone through some area that had a very short vision distance. where you could only see the trees around you or something like that. Where you had mountains on either side and suddenly there's a wandering or you know, sprite and it it comes after you. So you you turn and fight and you get then you go into a sec a new screen

which is like a zoomed in view of that screen. Um, and I think that's really what it is, is based on the tile you start on, you get one of a number of different battle maps. Um, which are all, you know, fairly simple, but you know, some of them have some obstacles in specific places. And then you have this top down view.

sort of in a, you know, almost chess like sort of view of you know, again, a tiled view, with the enemies at the top and you at your party members at you and your party members at the bottom, and you fight. Um How do you find combat in this game? Well for me is there anything you want to add to that description? Yeah, no, I think well I think in the manual they actually I don't remember where I read it, but they talk about using the maps and obstacles to your advantage.

Which I appreciate. And you know, it's like a very simple version of Final Fantasy Tacks. Um, and uh I I mean I've I so one thing I'm excited about. You said you have four companions or three Right. Four characters total and I still only have one companion, so I only have two of us. So my combat's pretty simple right now, and I am actually looking forward to uh more characters.

Uh, and we'll talk about dynamic difficulty later. But um but I've appreciated like it's very simple and And to be honest, like meditative for me, you know, and and with just the two characters, I I think they're auto balancing based on that. So it's it hasn't been too overwhelming. And I actually appreciate the little bit of tactics of I'm gonna hide behind this rock and force them to come around. And I have uh IOLO, so I have a ranged character.

my um my tinker, so I have a melee character and so I those two together have been a good team of just kind of like, you know, um bottlenecking and so it's it's actually there's more going on than I realize and I'm only Doing the sort of simple things I can do with my party. Once I have more magic and you know other stuff, uh, I'm excited. to see how that works. Yeah. Uh, but you know, uh, I can see if I'm gonna need to grind at some point, it's gonna get, you know, a little repetitive.

Yeah, I would started getting more advanced enemies.

Yeah, I have not um so I've been since I have four in my party and I've been I have played a few more hours than you have. Um, I'm definitely seeing a wider variety of monsters. I am or or different mixes of monsters, greater numbers of monsters. Um and I can, you know I can already see the potential for grindiness um because The last character I added uh is still well might be might be fourth level now, but was below the levels of the other characters at the time, and is the mage. So unless

She's casting spells, she's doing very little damage'cause she has a s you know, like a staff or something. Um and what I found was there was a point where I was like, She's really very squishy, you know. I had to resurrect resurrect her once even. Um So I've had some major resurrecting happening. Oh really? I just I've only had that's the only time I've had to do that. Um and I I I mean, I only just don't want to do it'cause it costs a fair amount of money. Um

That's the that's the big thing. Uh but anyway, so I I I found myself like Using her a lot? Which would drag out combat'cause she hits rarely and she doesn't hit very hard. You know, and so I'd be like trying to like soften up the creatures and then surround them, you know, so it it would tend to stretch combat out. But other than that, I you know, I do find it's like

it is a fun challenge to use the environment, to like try to eliminate them all. You you know, it's it's worth noting that you only get XP. Based on creatures you kill. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's it. That's the whole XP mechanic. Um and it's only the character who kills it. It's not a shared XP pool. Um, I didn't know that. Okay. Yeah, that actually explains things because YOLA

Killing it. Yeah, YOLO does all the killing. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, that's true for me as well. I mean he's he's got the most XP by far. Yeah. Can other can Can characters use more than one type of weapon or yes. If you look in the history, the the profession the professions tell you which ones they Yeah. Um but you can't switch weapons mid-combat probably. I think you can.

Oh okay. Yeah, see, you just don't you just don't need to, um, most of the time. But I think you can ready a weapon. You can't mix reagents, but you can, I think, ready a weapon. Mm. Um although that would be annoying, uh frankly, um, most of the time. So I Well, I was thinking like having, you know, shooting until they get close and then switching. Yeah, I can imagine wanting to use range and switching. It's just when you're done.

I wouldn't want to have to always switch back. I wonder it's gonna be inter neither of us have gone to gotten into a dungeon so Early first person wizardry style stuff, anyway, but it's going to be interesting to mix that in with this. Yeah, I'm really curious about that. Yeah, and how that works out.

Um,'cause last time I was like, Are there dungeons? And then I was watching the uh the opening video that's kind of playing of sprites. And there's a dungeon right there on that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, Oh yeah, of course there are. So Uh yeah, and people are talking about it. And people talk about them, yeah. But I don't think anybody had talked about it to me last week. So I was like, Huh, I don't know. Um I just thought it was funny.

that I had not noticed that was right there on the the opening screen. Well the other thing I wanted that that's that seems like a small thing but I I did want to call out for combat for Turn-based combat in the overworld is there's they there's audio and for that era there's audio sick uh uh telegraphing for each. major event. So misses, hit.

Um if you get poisoned. If you get poisoned, you know, spells that that are happening. I've only leaving the field of battle. Uh right, leaving right, exactly. Uh someone who escapes. So there's actually once you learn those, there's you know, you can really use use the audio to um understand the battlefield, you know, events way more deeply than So you don't have to do that. There is a technique.

uh text uh uh crawl going. Yeah. Yeah. You know, um a log rather. So the one it's in in the same in the same window that you see the dialogue. Same as everything else, yeah. Um but it to be honest, like Stuff's going by pretty fast and there's a lot of it. So Yeah, especially when the other team goes, right? So it's like

You know, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. You know, they all kind of like do all their thing. You know, they'll and you don't really see you really need the audio. Um I don't think you can scroll that anyway, right? You can't, no. No. So yeah, you're not relying on it too much. Uh so the audio actually is is much more useful.

I just want to call that because it you know it's the it's the old you know the old chipset uh beeps and boops. Uh it's not we're not using sound blaster for this stuff folks, uh but um I'm I'm impressed. Sound blaster. It's uh it is pretty cool. Yeah, the scroll bars existed before this, but they were only on experimental um

Experimental machines and languages like small talk and uh Xerox, you know, Xerox Park, you ever heard that phrase? They were inventing all that gooey stuff. And it would all turn up in the Mac. Right, right. Little bit of a little bit of history there. But yeah, it's um so yeah, something that was just like easily scrollable. I mean you could do it with like page up, page down or something, but uh I don't think it supports even that. Um I could be wrong, but I I don't think it has any.

No, it hasn't mentioned it in the key mappings. It uses almost every other key on the keyboard.

Um but uh but not Do you think the monsters are also a la Rogue alphabet based? Because I met a Zorn. And I've got no there are more monsters than there are letters Um I did I did I was looking for that when I read the manual, the history, uh is whether there were there were more. Um,'cause there is a Are there two of some letter? Yeah, there are multiples of some letters. I they're not coming to me right now, but there definitely are. Um

So yeah, I I I checked that. Oh, there's like a snake and the sea serpent, for example. Uh oh right, and a skeleton. Yeah. And a skeleton. Yeah. So Um the skeleton is not like the K. Uh so no no it's it there may only be twenty six of them. I d I didn't count how many there are, but they're definitely Yeah, I just I was just meaningcause of the commands and the spells. Commands and the spells are yeah.

It's very uh yeah. And it it felt it feels like something he would do because of the sort of consistency of so much in the game. Ja, ja, das. I kept wondering, you know, like, oh, what's you know, how is he gonna how is he gonna do the best the the bestiary? And it turned out that there was not.

Quite the same level of uh restriction, constraint on himself for that. And not, you know, who care who cares if there is? Um there's no need for those to be No, no, it's just it was more than a big thing. It just would be funny. Yeah. Um but I but as you level up the the combat does um dynamically level up with you, which is an interesting, you know

It's a debate even today. Right. Uh I don't know if we want to talk about the Elder Scrolls in that way again, but you know, it's sort of like the the there's different ways you can do that, of course, and sometimes games scale with you. the areas in a specific place, but in the overworld at least, so I guess it'll be interesting But the dungeon Um as far as a

if those level with you or not, I guess we'd I would like to test that out once we do them, but I I bet not. Um I yeah, I would assume not too, but it'd be interesting because my recollection from other Ultimas is that it's more based on the depth of the dungeon you're in. rather than anything about you. So for example, dungeons have um we know that you can go up and down in dungeons because you have the Y and Z spells um to go up and down floors in the dungeon.

And those are their uh the the basically the most difficult monsters are are deeper down. Period. Right. But if I but if I go I don't think it's re related to you your level when you go in. So you could grind and make it easier for yourself is my Yeah, to it to a degree. Yeah. Yeah, that's my'cause you know,'cause if you grind in the overworld, I'm now meeting Cyclops and Ettens and Damons right in the overworld when before I was meeting orcs and rogues and skeletons, you know. So

You'll be finding some headless soon and things like that. Yeah, I did I did fight some headless at one point. But they were pretty easy. I don't know. They're pretty easy. They're they're sort of like the cobalt of this world, believe it or not. They sort of uh they feel pretty I mean, they have no heads, Tim. Yeah, that's true. They were gonna fight their heads later. Um yeah, they were.

They were uh they were anticipating uh serious Sam. Uh yeah, I was gonna say headl the headless ring bell. Yeah. Um anyway. Uh So yeah, so we touched a little bit there on dynamic difficulty. We did talk uh so you didn't know about XP.

And you learned by surprise about leveling up. You wanna talk about that experience? And then maybe we can wrap up with some stories, I guess. You know, see what that sounds good. Yeah. Yeah, I um I don't I guess they must have explained this in the manual maybe and I missed it. I don't I don't know how I would have missed it. I did read, maybe it's in the reference card. Um so I don't remember it being mentioned anywhere.

So So you just knew inherently from other games or did you find it as well? Uh I knew from Ultima Six, I think, but I didn't even think about it. It just happened to me as well. And then I was like, Oh yeah. Right. Of course I was level two for the longest time and there's actually one character which

Um I was trying to get join my party who said I wasn't high enough experience. So I was like, I know. Can I I'm I think I have, why am I so why can I not level up? You know, I'm expecting the the typical you know ding to happen. me meant, you know, just automatically. And that conversation I was talking about when I returned to Lord British the second time, I was in oh, I had gone back to finally talk to Hawk.

Hawkwind Hawkwind. I was gonna say hawk I was gonna say Hawkwind. I was gonna say Hawkwind and then I thought, no, that's too silly. That's not a that's And unfortunately it is. Anyway, I was go I went back to talk to Hawkman, I was like, I'll just go up. Dr. Lord Bridge again. And then lo and behold, I leveled up. Two levels. Um two levels? Yeah, two more levels. I I went instantly to level four from two.

uh just by talking to Lord British. So of course, Lord British, being Lord British, uh you can't apparently level up unless you go back to talk to him. Right. Um so I didn't know about the health thing. That's gonna be Yeah, it's useful'cause you can usually get there fairly quickly. You know, you it's usually two steps away. You can get from any city to any other city in two steps. You might have to wait a little while while you're

Yeah. I almost died of starvation one time. Ooh, oops. Yeah, I didn't even know about mechanic. So that is in that is definitely in the uh manual. So Yeah, and I just I just didn't see it or something. But anyway, yeah, so you have to go back. So it's interesting that to level up, um, you know, you you go out and collect your XP but But you're not going to be able to do And he blesses you.

acquire your level. But we were debating in pre show, you know, what the what the flow of that is and the math behind it and it's not it's not linear, you know, or it's linear. It's not you every level is not the same amount, so I don't know right now how Yeah, I'm not sure it's linear.

Period. Yeah, yeah, I guess yeah. So it's it ramps up, so I don't know how much I need to get for my next level. So it's really interesting experience to like keep That's very early Dungeons and Dragons as well, right? Yeah, I guess. Actually that's true of Dungeons and Dragons maybe even today, although You know, we've got to do that. Well you have a chart though. I mean the old game is a lot of things.

Yeah. No, no, no, no. I just more meant that would be linear. You know. Unless the DM didn't want you to know you knew that what your target is. Yeah. So maybe there's a way to know that somewhere that I'd I haven't found, but I thought I need I had what I needed to get So well, I mean my thinking on that is that it is very much the same sense of mystery and I think that

You know, as you've discovered, you know, because Lord British has more to tell you, and also because you are more or less doing this for him, right? He's your boss. Like I think they want to reinforce that real re relationship. I mean, I think that that's That's the player's in dialogue with Richard Garriott, just as the character is in dialogue with Lord British. You know. And you know, I think that he he

He has that involvement in his games and he wants you to feel like there's a person in there and that is his representation in the games. Um you know, so I think that that's He named himself. I mean, yep. Maybe someday we'll tell the story about his appearance in Ultima online. Which was a legendary appearance that will forever be you know, an an important moment in gaming history. Yeah. Um which I won't and a big permaban. Yeah, but But it was you know, that was just like the ultimate

Finally It's a real Darren Johnson moment there. So Yeah, exactly. Killing Darth Vader. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um no, that's a good point of reinforcing the relationship there. That I hadn't thought of that and and it does I mean you know I I would even love it even more if there was some way to know Like say for inst I'm just spitballing, but say you could meditate to find out if you're ready to go back to see him. You know, just to like they don't tell you the number, but you could

than you know, go to a shrine or something and find out like, okay, right. Rather than having to kind of just trial and error go back when you think you have enough. But anyway, I think it's it's it is nice to go back. I'm pretty sure it's always a multiple of a hundred.

Uh yeah, it makes sense. It's just but I don't think that the numbers are known. I mean they're knowable. You could look it up on the internet. But um at the time it was you know, the first time you played it, you'd be discovering it. And I think that that is true of actually I am not sure that that is true of six. I think in six they actually put it in the mail. Probably people didn't like it. Um not knowing is that, you know, eventually we get to graphical representation.

Like when my bar is full. I know. Right, right. Yeah. You know, but then that's more automated. So it is an interesting trying to think of a mod you know. Well, it's it's interesting friction, right? You know? I just thought of one that I'm not gonna say. Okay. Uh you sure? You sure? I know what it is. I I might I don't know. I'm not sure, Tim. It could be Outer Wilds for all I know. No, it's the other one. Huh.

What a what's a game that that I talk about every episode where you have to go back to somebody? No, you have to go back to somebody to level up. Yeah, y you got me. I have no Dark Souls. Okay. I didn't want to be the one to say it, Tim. Oh I see. Yeah, sure. You tricked you tricked me into saying it. Yeah. You bastard. Um yeah, so Dark Souls. I mean you g you collect your souls, gotta go back. Right? Yeah, turn it on fire and whatever. Yeah. Depending on the game, I guess. Sometimes

So that cycle, right? I don't know. That's just we're we're looking for we're looking for tenet tendrils that aren't there, but it's uh it's kind of a fascinating The royal we probably. Maybe I I love looking for those connections that don't exist. I know you do. Um,'cause maybe sometimes they do and you're like it's a surprise. Yeah, maybe it's in the subcon you know, the the subconscious. Yeah. They just kinda make it. The collective unconscious of uh game game designer.

All right, let us uh turn to some uh oh, did you did you have a story? I think my story was really the one I already told about. getting to a shrine and discovering I didn't have what I needed to get in and how annoyed I was. um at all the poisoning that had gone on. Uh so do you have a story you'd like to share? Well like there's um trying to see if there's another one that I'd tell, but the the quick one that comes to my mind we've we've

mentioned a little bit or no, maybe we're talking in pre-show about it, but um in the in the history uh uh the book the history book that comes with it that we talked about last episode implore you to read. Um implore? Is that right? Uh yes. Uh they talk about this this city called Majinsi. and kind of how it became

uh a ruin and who who lived there and all this stuff. And, you know, I logged it in the back of my brain. And then I took a moon uh gate at one point to a location that ended up being an island, which I'm always to and land on an island because you know you can't get there otherwise. I haven't found a ship either. And then I was like, oh, there's this um landmark over there and the artwork looked different than

Um, than a town, but it also I guess it sort of looked like a dungeon. So there was a side of me who's like, Oh finally I found a dungeon. And then I go to it and I enter and it's magensia, but it's in ruins and there's ghosts wa you know, floating around. There's actually a demon who greets you.

Or a daemon um and doesn't attack you and but is like I'm the greeting you and this is the and you know Majinchi's whole thing is that the people there were too proud and their pride ruined, you know, ruined the the city. Their pride went before a fall.

Uh exactly. Yeah. Um but there's ghosts and the ghosts pass through walls and there's some skeletons there and they some of them have names and there's the ruins of like the pub, you know, and it's just it was just such a nice moment of discovery where I rem you know, then I remembered reading about the the city and uh I hadn't remembered that it was in previous games or

But it probably was. And it in fact was. And Brett found out that, you know, that sort of becomes an infamous location and you know forever after. But um but it was just like an I had been traveling to so many places and to the normal towns. It was just such a nice um surprise, you know. And and that's just the one that comes off of Yeah. As far as stories go,'cause there's a lot of different ones. discoveries like that, especially in towns with characters, but that one in particular

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it was similar for me. It's it's sort of a uh It sort of looks like a um missile command town that's been hit by a couple of missiles. Yeah, that's a great description. Yeah. You know, because the art is pretty simple. You know, the towns look a certain way, Lord Bridge's castle looks a certain way. It's funny too, Lloyd British's Castle, you can't enter from the top. You have to go around and enter from the front.

It's such a detail. It's like you can't walk through Lord Bridges. It's a definite choice. You gotta go through the gate. You gotta go through the you gotta come around and enter it from the south, you know. So it's very funny. Whereas any other town you can walk over the icon uh or the sprite. Um yeah, no, that's a good one. I liked uh discovering magensia as well Uh let us turn now to email. Um I

Uh sent one ahead I sent a couple ahead to you if you would go ahead and look at the thing. Yeah, we're finally getting to these. We we've been running. We've been lagging a little bit. Let's let's try to get uh two in. One one from each. Okay. Um I hope you have the other one that I know about because we definitely need to read that one. Yes. Uh okay.

Is it uh is it from somebody with no filter? Exactly. Yes. I have a read that. Uh control uh so this one is uh controllers and preservation from uh one meistery

Actually, just said mystery dip this time. Uh hey again, Brett and Tim. This discussion on Tim's controller woes in Pikmin got me thinking about. Experience. For a long time, we had game consoles with a joystick or a D-pad and one to four buttons. And while Xbox and PlayStation argue about what buttons are called, well, and Nintendo buttons. We basically have a solid user interface standard for a good portion of games in those categories.

Um and then there's oh there and then there's Nintendo who has made their uh their moat out of unique interfaces. Uh up through the GBA, things were pretty translatable to modern systems. But then we got dual screens with some touch. Three D effects, Wii Motes, asynchronous play with the Wii U.

etc. And even Nintendo wanted even if Nintendo wanted to re-release some of the titles for those systems, I don't see how they can without fundamentally altering the experience. These systems sold well at the time. Um, but as they age, there are going to be less functional examples to play these games on. The retro aftermarket seems to be focused on easier systems to play on the go. And while there are ways to make some of them work, many games.

For a bespoke layout of their console and controller. Do you see a future where these games are playable as originally as originally intended again? Or are we losing a generation? to the sands of time regards mystery dip. There is a really good example of this h about to happen or just happening now for Nintendo, which you may know about that I will now mentioned. Please please do. I'cause you're more the Nintendo guy than I am. Uh well, so well, I'm no calamity Nolan, but um

Uh no, it's just more that I'm read you know, I I read the news every day and et cetera. But they are about to or they have uh released the virtual some of the virtual boy content on Nintendo online. Oh I believe. You know, they're they're they're subscription service, right? Where they've been doing the back consoles and they release limited numbers of stuff. We've we've played some games that way uh for the Switch.

I believe if I understand this correctly, and people write in if I've gotten this wrong, please, but I believe they are also coming out with. some sort of head thing that you put on to play these games in their natural virtual boy way? I saw a picture of it at a Nintendo event and it looks kind of like a VR headset, but reminiscent of the original, but I I don't know if you put the switch In on your face or what?

Uh I don't I haven't done the research on this because I didn't know this email was coming. But I guess to his point, to Mystery's question, Virtual Boy is a great example of this problem. And at least it seems like unless these were AI slop images I was seeing. Somebody was faking me out. That their decision for this was to actually give you a

I guess if you buy that peripheral to play virtual boy games, which hypothetically should have been obsolete. Um so that's a weird one. To his point on like dual screen and stuff, like some

Yeah. I mean some of that stuff is just gone. Yeah. Yeah, well, and the the more popular one I'm trying to think. There is some good examples that I just can't blank on I'm blanking on. Maybe one of But they that they did port to switch and I'm And they did it in like you could swap to the other screen.

Right. Oh, okay. They could use the Z L button since it's not mapped to anything on those things. Right. But they found a way basically but to port it. But to Mystery's point, especially in Nintendo's case. they are notoriously in a uh, you know, hot w like a tricky spot for this because All what they basically have to decide is we're gonna put the resources to basically recreate this game in some fashion because it's popular enough, obviously like a Zelda or Mario.

People will want to play a new version of it on the Switch, but we basically have to, it's not just a port, it's a it's a redesign because we don't have um this, that, or the other functionality. But they're of course they're not gonna do that for everything. They're only gonna do for the ones that the P N L make sense for them to spend the money on. So Right. Yeah. So that that weird game that had uh you know, like a little solar panel on it. Um

They could tell when you were outdoors or not. Do you remember that game? It was an RPG, right? Yeah, there was also that little weird one that I think was a Kirby game that ca that had the its cart had Some like some sort of magnetic or was it a gyro? I forgot. Yeah, yeah. You're always gonna have issues like that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think frankly it's you know, unless it is to you know, unless it's to their bottom line.

you know, we are just gonna lose those. You know, they're just gonna go away. I mean I mean they'll have'em. But yeah, I mean to the to his b Yeah, they'll have they'll have some, but they probably won't get turned on too often. The original um systems become you know, more like valuable to people, right?'Cause it you want if you wanna play a

specific three D S game, you gotta get a three D S that works. Yeah, you know. And a cart and hopefully you have a cart. Yeah. Yeah. Because of course they get rid of the stores too. One example. Right, exactly. Yeah. I mean they don't bother pressure really is when when it got when it get down to it as well, right? Because when Sony wanted to shut down their PS three store, people were not happy about it and they let Sony know and Sony backed down.

Um, when Nintendo wants to do anything, people are just like, Yeah, I mean, whatever, I guess you're gonna do what you're gonna do. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. There was I saw on on on the Discord too, I think it was even Mystery maybe, or somebody mentioned that like even when they shut their stores. They s they're still at full price. Full price. The day they're shutting it down. They're going away. Nope. Sixty dollars. What?

Uh so yeah, Nintendo does their own thing. The example of a game that I that I can think of that's just coming to me is Ocom. Um, because of its original but yeah. Yeah. Um Okami, the the original Wii version, right?'Cause it had the um the gesture based spells and stuff, right? Yeah, you had that on the s on the PlayStation 3 as well. You did it with the right stick, I believe. Oh okay, but that wasn't its first implement the first version was the Wii. No

I think you have that bac actually it was PS two. I think you have that backwards, but I will I will check. Oh oh maybe the Wii was came out later. Okay. So it was actually PlayStation two. And then it came out on the Wii and then the PlayStation 4 um had a Okay, so that's not a good example then, because that was originally built for a non- Yeah, no, that was built for I played it on the control. On the PS two. Yeah. I it was a very late PS two era type.

Um in fact the PS three may have already been out or was s certainly soon to come out. It was like one of those one of those games that comes out really, really late in the cycle and you're like, Really? There's still life in this thing? Um

All right, let's let's get this one here. Pikmin thoughts from one Nolan filter. Uh hello, Brett and Tim, Calamity Nolan here with some thoughts on Pikmin. Put your minds at ease. There's only a two percent chance I am mystery dip in disguise. Pikmin is one of my favorite game series, and I've been enjoying listening to your playthroughs of it. I wanted to give some context on how the sequels evolve, which might clear up some of the design decisions in the original.

They do remove the hard day limit in subsequent games, opting for different ways to challenge the play. Pikmin two adds massive procedural caves where time stands still, but you only get the Pikmin you bring in with you. Pikmin three makes you forage for food while your supply runs out, and Pikmin four leaves it totally open except for an optional mode where you must recover thirty ship parts in fifteen days, which I love and speedrun.

To balance this, they also complicate your in-day action. In Pikmin 1, you play as one captain. In Pikmin two, you play as two captains. In Pikmin three, you play as three captains. And as you probably guessed, in Pikmin four you play as one captain and a dog. Um So same number of legs as in three people is what I'm hearing. Yeah. And that's a dog is worth two people. Um four. What? The fourth is. It's the same as three.

Yeah well whatever. We how you count this. Uh anyway, since you're controlling multiple entities at the same time, switching between them at will, it behooves you to execute tasks in parallel. By the fourth game, it becomes clear that Pikmin is a logistics game with a focus on finding joy and productivity.

They even introduced introduced a term for it, quote, Dandori, described in game as quote, the art of organizing your tasks strategically and working with maximum efficiency to execute your plans quickly. Close quote. Under this retroactive lens, Pikmin 1's hard day limit, ability to redo days, and cute unit design may make more sense. Beating a boss is a task to be completed, not a battle between individuals. Not sure if that makes it better or worse, but something to think about now.

Anyways, if you want to skip all that stuff above, I have a question for you both. Which is your favorite Pikmin type and why? Thanks for casting this pod Nolan. Tim, your favorite Pikmin type? Well, I mean I'm only really exposed to the first game. And I I understand they keep adding different Pikmin types, but in the first game Um I think I'd have to go with the water, the blue ones. The blue Pikmin. I I do appreciate being able to bring them place.

But I feel like the variety is not as as interesting in the first game as it probably gets. Yeah. I'm just gonna go with the red Pikmin. You have the most of'em. Tried and true. You've got the most of'em. Yeah. Poor old Bart always picks rock. Um You know, there's so many of'em. You're gonna you know, they're the ones that take out pretty much everything. There there's only there's only the, you know, a couple of places where I had to use the blues or the yellows because

They were in water or I had to throw it high with that weird spider one. But um but in general, I wanted a lot of red.

You know. So yeah, the workhorses. I think I just was so afraid be this uh this goes back to my I don't like losing paranoia, yeah. I d I don't like losing any. It was like reds, I'm like, crush'em all you want, you know? Yeah. Or drown like if they get in the water. I'm like, they're drowning. You know what'll you know what'll happen, you're here. Oh it's terrible. It's terrible. So the blues don't That is that is true. So the blues don't give you the blues, I guess is what you're doing.

Well there you go. Thank you, Calamity, for clearing that up. Um I am not likely to to get to two, three, or four, but uh I did quite enjoy replaying one. So Uh it was it was fun and I will I will miss the hundred and eighty or whatever red Pikmin I ended up.

So those were sent of course to devgameclub at gmail.com. We also love to get your reviews and uh that's basically the only way we reach out to other people. So if you want to go ahead and give us a thumbs up or a five star or whatever on whatever your podcast uh uh app of choices, that would be splendid. Uh you can find us on the web at devgameclub.com or my co-host Twitches at twitch.tv slash

Tim Longo Jr. with the JR at the end as a little bit of a plug. It sounds like we're organizing finally some. Unlocks for the charity event that happened a couple weekends. go. Yeah. So there are three unlocks. Um Asher, uh FF F S S Zilla and myself have uh some things to some obligations, let's say. And so next Wednesday.

Um, I think is where it's gonna land. It might change, so don't call me on, but it looks like that's it's gonna be we're gonna do a mini raid on Twitch between the three of our channels. It'll it'll go Asher, I think me. Zilla. And so I think we have Cuphead, Hitman, and uh Metal Gear Solid VR missions. So a little mini addendum to the charity event uh as we're Um next Wednesday.

All right, cool. In the meantime, are you gonna you gonna dwarf it up or I'm gonna dwarf it up this week, yep. We got more more dwarf activities. I don't know. I don't you weren't there last week, but I was not, no. Yeah, there's there's been some fun stuff going on. So there was a Capybara Capybara attack? Wow. Of all things. I didn't expect I thought jaguars or

Who knows, wolves maybe, but nope, capibara attacked my fortress. They invaded. There was a lot of bloodshed. Um, I don't think any people died, but a lot of capibara. Uh well Cappy Bar are people, Tim. You know, uh I hate to tell you. Alright, well you can see announcements of that and catch up with uh whatever's going on with this uh bonus these bonus streams from the charity event in the Discord.

There's a link in the show notes. Our intro and outro music was written and performed by Kirk Hamilton, commissioned by the friend of the cast, Aaron Everett's and our logo, the Discord, our merch store, all by Mark Garcia. Have fun meditating at every shrine you can find this week, and good night. Good night. That makes you a shriner? Oh wow.