DGC Ep 470: Dungeon Keeper (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. Tim Longo. Well I I torture my subjects. I actually actually torture our intros most of the time is really what it comes down to. Yeah, we're torturing the audience. Yeah. Uh proudly for ten years torturing the audience. Uh yeah, so we are back to our uh dungeon keeper. Uh I am stalled out. Um so we'll get we'll get to that. Um I mean I am too, just not on the same level.

Yeah, on the same level. So yeah, maybe we're who knows what's happening with us, uh with this with this game. But you You may want to do a multiplayer. Yeah. Oh yeah, we should have to do that. Maybe that maybe that is. Yeah, we should talk about that, see if that is possible for your stream night. That's tomorrow. So tomorrow will Oh right. Try to do a test during the day. See if that see if that can happen. Anyway.

Uh you will see announced in the Discord. There's a link for that in the show notes, if that is what we decide to do. And if you stick around to the end you can hear Tim's Twitch channel. Anyway, uh you were saying in pre show how you are, you know, the m the more you play, the more you are grooving with the uh the odd genre uh mixture that we have here. And uh thought thought we'd start there and then get into particular

Yeah, I it's just um I mean I think I think we talked about in the pre-show that I think there's maybe twenty levels total and we're about, you know, kind of halfway-ish. And I don't know how far we're gonna get. Um but despite that I Bye. I just really and I think I mentioned this a tiny bit last episode, but the the farther in I'm going, I'm just really because of sp especially because of level nine.

that um I think, you know, you haven't played yet, but It's just such an interesting a mixture of genres that I can't think of. I mean, you mentioned Overlord. There's a few that are kind of adjacent. Maybe it's just because it's too complex at the end of the day, but the fact that if you think about some of my favorite genres,

over time, like I you RTS is I love. Um, I love a good sim, you know, at the right time in my life, you know, as far as like Civ or whatever, I'll I'll lose myself in Civ. Uh when we played Civ Beyond uh Earth, you know, I I sunk, you know, twenty hours into that after Yeah. After the podcast was over. So it's like, you know, they're they'll hit with me. And then, you know, essentially mining or building kind of games. And this has all three of them in one game. And

Then there's all oh, I actually a fourth sort of like bonus that I just thought of is that thematically I love fantasy stuff too, you know? Sure, yeah. And so even though you're playing the the bad fact. Yeah, that's more of a narrative genre rather than a game genre. Yeah, exactly. You know, so the setting matters for me though and and so it's just the more I play, the more I realize that the Venn diagram here for me is like

is, you know, it's right in the center of these circles. And and I think both of us are hit potentially wall missions where you start to see the complexity of the genre mixing. come into the forefront and really become a challenge because I'm sure I don't remember this from back in the day. I think I finished it back in the back when it came out, but I can't even be positive on that. Um I think it's now that I'm now that we're both deeper in, I think it's highly likely it didn't. Yeah.

I know that I didn't. Um and and actually talk. It was actually a there's there's really two reasons why. One is the mix. So I mean, back when this came out, I was a RTS player. I was never a sim player. Um w we've played some for the cast, but it's never been my genre and really not the mining

building stuff either, right? So like this doesn't this actually hits me only really on the narrative end these days. Um I really do like the feeling of like, you know, being the evil, you know, the the mad genius. That's actually another one. Um The Evil Genius is a... cr a building uh where you're building a lair, um a villain's lair. It's sort of a comic book fantasy or a James Bond fantasy where you're the, you know, you're the evil villain. Um

So and I've I have one of those but I've I've never gotten around, I don't think th I maybe played the demo back in the day, uh when that the first version of that came out. I think there was a sequel. And I think that's actually pretty similar in vibe to this. So that might be one that that is worth looking at. Um

Yeah, but for me the thing that does carry me forward is just like I love going all I love when games go all all in on a theme and like just build everything around that theme. Um like we talked about. So that's the thing that that hooks me. Um, you know, the reason why I didn't get past it back in n I think it was ninety nine is is that this game did not um correct for time.

Um, so if you had a CPU that was faster and as a developer I had a you know, a a really good CPU for ninety nine, which was, you know a factor of two better than the systems that would have been recommended for this game when it uh came out, at least, you know, maybe more,'cause of Murphy's uh not Murphy's Law. Um Oh whatever. I'm I'm sundown.

Did how did you forget that that one? That's the one law that I think you shouldn't always know. I know. Yeah, I'm blanking on his name. Yeah. It is an M, right? Yeah. Now uh I'm gonna have to cut all this. Um anyway, the uh keep Yeah. The the reason why I wasn't able to get passes because the game started to get really, really I mean, the game was fast to begin with, but it became fa so fast

that it was impossible to manage. Like there was so much going on. Like the early levels, I was like, wow, this moves pretty quick. You know, didn't know that it wasn't corrected for time. Uh just by which I mean they didn't factor into the you know, how much time was happening for to render a frame, they were just assuming it was running at thirty.

Um and if thirty happened to, you know, take half a second instead of a second, uh, it ran twice as fast. And so all your interactions were had to be twice as fast. So for the a number of levels, I was perfectly fine because it it's not too hard. Um, and then I'm I think I might have gotten to this level that I'm stuck on now, level eight. Um It might it might have been earlier, it might have been level six, but uh you know, where I just was like, Wow, this is really a lot and um

Chris Corey, who I shared an office with at the time, is the lead programmer on uh Starfighter and a friend both of ours. Um He came over and was like, Oh, that's that's not right. He just was watching me try to play. I'm like, Chris, this game's really hard'cause he had recommended it to me. Um and uh And he's like, No, it's it's shouldn't be that bad and he comes over and he's watching and he's like, Oh, there's something wrong here. Ha ha. So uh yeah, it was uh it's quite a time.

Superhero mode. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I well and I think the interesting the takeaway for me on this, which which actually now that I now that I think about it, I probably w will have to be one of my takeaways for the the last episode. You know, it's like and we've talked about mo genre merging many times over the ten years because a lot of these games are either creating genres that we play for the podcast or creating genres or or at least combining them.

But when you when you're trailblazing like they're doing with this game You don't You don't have a model like with StarCraft, you know, that came from Warcraft and you have C Command and Conquer, and you you know, you have there's kind of like some not rules, but there's some preconceived notions that players are Conventions, yeah, yeah, uh correct that that's a good word for it.

um the correct word for it. And so with this they have some conventions from those genres they're pulling from, but by and large, they're either conventions that they're pulling from themselves, i.e. populace, or such. Um, but because they've no one has really combined at this time nobody had combined these things together. Guiding the player and difficulty for guiding the player is not really known. So really your only I would assume their only tool they had was playtest.

And then we also knew or know that traditionally challenging in this era that not enough peop not enough developers playtested their games.

Yeah. I mean us case in point ourselves, right? Like even despite LucasArts's resources, uh, Republic Commander was too hard, you know, as we talked about when we did that series. So Um So I think we're both, you know, hitting a place where you're like, okay, if you don't really know this game well and you don't really understand the curves that have to happen for you to get to certain certain places in a match at certain times.

you're gonna hit these walls because the CPU is just gonna be faster than Yeah. And cheat. I j I shouldn't say cheating because what does that even mean in the context of

Yeah, they're balancing for a certain level of difficulty that they expect the player to overcome and they achieve that however they achieve that. Like by scripting. You know, there's been times in this wall um this wall mission for me where I'm like, is this because I'm going after this thing over here that it's like triggering

a s a phase where they get they develop faster, like they get a bunch of units or something like that. Like I've been wondering if it's if it's literally just I am, you know, going after you know, I felt that way with six, I think, as well, where I felt like, oh, maybe I wasn't supposed to do that so soon because I thought it got harder. Um, but I mean that's player perception. Who knows, right? You know, it's it's it's difficult to tell.

unless you're literally watching the computer do its stuff, which is hard to do, right? You have a spell where you can put it down in one place, I think, you know, and you could watch one area if you wanted. Um You're not gonna see everything happen, so you know, y you you'll probably miss some things if if that's what you're trying to do. So yeah, it's

It there's a lot that feels opaque. It's definitely a time where you're expected to read the manual and understand it and kinda and it's a thick manual for this one. It's, you know, like fifty pages of

of information. Oh wow. Yeah. I mean every room and every unit is laid out and each each one is basically half a page of of stuff. I mean they're not Um, there's not a lot of flavor, but there's also not um it's funny because I I went and looked because I was like, well, what happens and we'll talk about some of the room side effects in a minute, but it it's not like

There's there's a lot of stuff like you well, you need to have this and you need to have that in order to have this room or this room will allow you to have this unit. Like that information is there. Um There is some information like with the prison, like, oh, if you have the prison, then if you want to actually imprison people you have to hit this button to knock to knock them out basically and drag them to your prison. Yeah. Um

Which I d I do a lot because I like getting, you know, but it takes forever for them to starve. Um I yeah, I have a I have a story about that for level nine that I want to tell. Yeah, we'll we'll get to that later in the episode. Anyway, so you it's hard to look and be like to get everything you need from the manual even That sounds like Yeah, but not really the relationship.

Right. And not and not in particular, one of the things that we're theorizing about in pre show is like what size do rooms need to be? And why do they need to be those sizes? Um it seems like you need A five by five uh or possibly larger room uh uh lair and a five by five hatchery both to get the Biel Demon, who is pretty powerful. Really good melee unit. It doesn't move very fast, but uh really packs a punch.

And you'd like to get some of those early so you can, you know, get a training room up and get them punching, you know. And I mean the training room feels more like um The enclosed area is all that matters. So I was theorizing in pre show that they th that they like squares just because they're efficient in terms of perimeter to enclosed area. So a square is the you know, in a in a rectangle world, so grid world like this, a square is the most efficient enclosure of area.

Just as a circle would be if you were in you know, not constrained to a grid. So it sort of feels like that's maybe why the squares that might be a side effect. It also might be designed like that they actually wanna know or something. I like I don't I don't even know what what you would do, you know, to determine that. But anyway it it basically generates

a certain number of slots in the enclosed area for creatures to work out in, you know, in that in the training room, for example. Or in the torture chamber, there's a certain number of tables, you know, for them to be strapped down to. Um If, you know, at different sizes of room and things like that. So it's just a whole you know thing that you have to be paying attention to. Um And I played this eighth level several times before I was like, it's really weird that I'm not getting that.

Bile Demon because I've had it before and only on the third time playing it did I get it and that was because I was like, Well, I know I'm gonna because I'd played it several times, I'm like, Well, I know I'm ultimately gonna need a lair this big and a hatchery this big. And so I just did it at the beginning. Right. So I just kind of I kind of learned it, but I didn't really it wasn't like I learned a rule. I just was like, well ultimately I'm gonna need it to be this big. I don't feel like

all the management of dashing around and resizing rooms all the time, which is normally how I play. Um, it's like, oh, I build a small treasure room and I build a small um, you know, whatever, layer and a small hatchery. And I, you know, I just manage that and then like when they start when I start gathering messages like your treasure room's too small, I go and expand it, right? That's just kinda how I

try to manage my time. And this time I was like, well, this is my third time trying this level. I know these are going to get to be this big. So I'm just going to start them that big so I don't have to do that again. Um and then I started getting the Bio D. I'm like, huh. So I would have liked to know that. But Yeah. Yeah, it's it's I mean, it's definitely an era when there was that kind of weird middle ground of there's the manual But then also strategy guides and also you know I it just

I don't know, it wasn't the most it wasn't the clearest era for games, I feel like. And and Well no we were just on the cusp of teaching players better in games, right?'Cause you know, as consoles became more of a big part of the audience, right? You know, the PC it was expected You read the manual, right? And then we all had a rude awakening when we started making games for the PS two. Like, oh no, you don't, you can't. Nobody's gonna read that. Um it was a real switch.

They don't care, yeah. Yeah, I it's um There's especially with games like this, there's well with each, if you take each subgenre that they're mixing here, there's always that moment. For me at least in games like this where you I mean, there's many terms we could use, but I'll I'll be silly and call it, you know, when you see the matrix, right? Where you're like You kind of subconsciously start playing the game in a way because you know it so well that

And you kind of know, like to your point on the bile demons, you kind of know what you need to do. So it just kind of becomes second nature, right? To play and and that's and RTS's like StarCraft is the one I played probably the most. At some point you get to a point where you're just like, Yeah, I'm just I'm doing this. You know, I know I know enough about I'm not maybe a pro, but I'm I know enough about the game to be very comfortable.

when I set my set a goal for myself, I know how to achieve that goal. And with this game, because they've combined different elements, you know, in different genres. It seems to me like it's tri it's even even more tricky to exp you know explain that to the player in a graceful way, to where they can be have us, you know, have this game be second nature.

And and I I I described it earlier as as far as getting over the hump is the other term that that I think we use or that I use. And until you get over that hump, it's just a confounding experience and you do hit Walmart. 'Cause you're like, I don't get it, or what am I doing wrong?

But you do get over it. You mentioned in pre show Dwarf Fortress as well. And as I've been streaming that, you know, and I'm intentionally not looking at guides, though I've had some guides in the form of humans come online or Expert. Explain some things, you know, people who played the game thousands of hours. But but Dwarf Fortress is another one of those where it's like they're intentionally not telling.

uh for some reason and you do have to kind of like figure it out in a way or look at a guide. So it's interesting to play that that way and this the in this the same way. So I I don't, you know, I'm getting It's like for RTSs and strategy games in general, I think there's always like Because it's so repetitious in each phase, like we talked about last episode, um, you get really good at early game, right? And then you start working on your mid-game.

And then you get really good at mid game and then you start working on your late game. You know, and there's these cycles that you go through from a knowledge standpoint and a kind of a a practicing standpoint. Uh and once you get all three, then you feel like you see the Matrix, you know. But until It's almost like there's a Moore's Law for understanding. I remember the name. Wow, you worked it into Some other Irish name. Well in knowledge in knowledge, right?

Yeah. So yeah, it's it's we're both you you are yeah, you I'm a couple levels ahead of you but also stuck and I can explain that later, but um But it is, it is because there's something I'm not I do have this feeling, whether true or not, like you mentioned earlier, it could be player perception. I have this feeling that I'm not understanding something and I don't know what is going on.

Yeah. But I played it four times. I mean, one of the things that you talked about with the the mission I'm on, which gave you no trouble. Thanks very much. Um is just having this sense of when to go, you know, and Yeah. Which is funny'cause I've been in partly of in response to like past episodes is like I'm trying to explore the map more. To look for those special items. I mean, I found one on level eight. Um Which was transfer creature and I don't know what it does. Yeah.

Oh wait till I tell you. Okay. Um Well I don't exactly know how it works, but I know what it does. Felt like a I felt at first I thought I was Taking a creature from the From them. Um, but I wasn't seeing a creature appear on my side. So it feels like I'm stealing a creature for the future. Yeah.

Yeah, please please do because I I'm spending all this time going after that thing um and I don't know what it does, you know. It might be in the manual. I have not I've gone and looked at the manual for Oh maybe it's in the manual. Like curiosity, like What is how does the torture room in particular? I was like, How does that work? Um So uh we'll talk about that in a little bit. But yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, it it it um I don't know how the interface for it works, so it sounds like maybe you've actually used it. Um, but uh it it transfers a creature to the next level. Uh huh. Yeah. So So So you can like level something up really high. Yeah. Take that with you. Well then I got the transfer creature and it I knew the enemy didn't have hellhounds.

Um because I had fought the enemy enough at that point to know they didn't have any of those. Um So I just I realized it was coming from my list of creatures and then at that point I was like, Well, what could it mean? transfer. I mean it only makes sense if it's like put it in the put it in your pocket and bring it with you. Um it's the only thing that made sense at that point. And the the hounds were like level seven, so

You know, those that would be what I would pick, but I was like, I'm not getting a bonus creature. This is weird. What's going on? Um Yeah. Yeah, so weird. It's probably in the manual then. But yeah. I mean I'm sure a lot of that stuff is it. And I just uh. Can't be can't be bothered. Um, this is a playing podcast, not a reading podcast. Um Well there is a book. segment that we haven't done in a while.

No, it's it's it's gone. Like the singer reviews, you know. You see we try them, we do'em for a while, we let'em go. Um The room the rooms have these uh um side effects as well, which which is a reason to read the manual. Um, you know, and I will give the torture room in particular because that's the one I looked up. Um the barracks actually I looked up too'cause that was interesting. I don't know if you've been building barracks. Um I

Have but only out of habit. I think it's because I want orcs, but Yes, if so what it'll bring it works. You'll like this. Uh so actually I'll talk I'll talk about that. But some rooms have basically special effects. The torture room, if you are torturing a creature, Um you only need to put one creature of a type, you know, so warlock, for example. Don't put two warlocks in, it doesn't help. Just put one warlock in and all the other warlocks

for half the money. So on payday they cost half as much. Um as long as that warlock is alive, yeah, and of course you can release them at any time. You just kind of click on their um square and it releases. uh and I think they get angry or sad, I don't remember which. And then a temple will improve the moods of creatures and then the barracks, um

The so yeah it does I think it does bring in the orc. Um I think you need a barracks to bring in the orc. But what it what it does is you put creatures into the barracks And then you can go and in the room In the barracks room, whatever creatures are in there, you pick one and possess it, and the rest will follow as a group with you or the one you have possessed. Wow. So you're basically become a leader of a little squad by possessing someone in the barracks. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. Yeah.

Just inhabited a dragon recently and and tried to infiltrate their base with my dragon. That's a quiet entry. Uh yeah, exactly. They're really slow though, so it wasn't effective. But Um I did recently possess and then I possessed a warlock too. So I still do some of that for fun. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it might be valuable, right? I mean there might be strategic reasons to do that. I mean one of the things about the game is it doesn't

it's not clear to me what the value is of doing that versus letting the AI do it. Um, so that's another point where there's some Well, this mission I'm on now, like I think so to to to spoil it a little bit, um, I think that the way that the mission that ten is set up and the reason I'm having such trouble with it is

I think it's designed for you to rush. Um,'cause they're very aggressive and they're very close and they will and so you can kind of get into combat pretty quickly and there's no way you can outlevel them because They're the CPU is just gonna level faster. Right. So every time I meet them, they're you know, their units are higher level. But I think. If you possess and go in yourself, because you can't directly control if you have them attack the heart.

I think you just go in with some somebody high enough level early And just, you know, clean house. Cause once you know, cause you can't drop enemy you can't drop your units in behind enemy lines, but you can possess a unit and go behind enemy lines. Right. And be very targeted and just go out and take. Oh, and the other thing, which is an old good old RTS tactic, is take out their M.

'Cause they're gonna be low level and easy to kill. And once they lose too many imps, it's like, you know, everything grinds to a halt. So that's a common uh common tactic that uh yeah, so I'm in the process of Be economically starved to do that because making new imps is not expensive. Yeah, that's true, but they they they they will lose the ability to get more. Yeah. I mean if they're not economically starved, but um but I've I've have had some success with it. So Okay.

It like that it would rank that lower as a tactic among the things that we'd be choosing from. So that could be it as well. Well yeah, if they if they can make him instantly, um But uh yeah, they also yeah, I don't know. I mean they have to carry the gold back and things like that. So it's hard to say, but Yeah.

I don't know. If you don't have any it might be as low as like two hundred or something like that and they get more expensive each one you make. But crucially it's based on the number you have, not the number you've ever created. So like If you don't have any, then it's really cheap to create one. Um regardless of how many you've lost. Um so uh you know, at the beginning you at the start I think you can make one for like

four hundred or five hundred gold or something like that, you could go from four to five. Yeah. Sounds right. Yeah, it's like uh you know, it goes up by a hundred, then it goes up by one fifty, then it goes up by two fifty or something like that. I not that I've made that many. Um I usually just let the the four do their work. Uh the four that you always start with. Um but maybe that's another thing I could do to uh speed speed my level eight troubles. Um

Anyway, uh so we've both talked a lot about kind of the wall missions that we're on. It's a real problem for this sort of game. Um, and this game in particular is does feel like there is a puzzle aspect

To some I mean not not entirely a puzzle, but more a like a very like strategic thinking of like, well think about what you're looking at here. So you're talking about, I think you said in pre show, um you know, where they're using the rock walls, the impenetrable walls that you can't carve through, um, to sort of guide the player.

Mm-hmm. And if you know that you've got that pinch point, presumably you want to control that first, um, so that you can deploy units there quickly, right? For example, because you can't like you said, you can't deploy behind enemy lines. Um, so some of those things might be some of those things sort of contribute to the puzzle aspect. I mean, in level I think it was six, I described last week it had sort of the C shape in the middle, which is where the

Dark Maidens were and the built already built torture chamber. Um, but there was a ton of gold. And I was like, Well, I gotta get there first, right? I mean that was a clear signal Mm-hmm. To win the economic game, you had to control that area, you know, and so you could just sit there and, you know, mine to your heart's content. Um, but have you found other puzzly aspects that you I mean, maybe level eight is a puzzle. That's why I'm having trouble. And you just happen to solve it. Um

Yeah, I don't remember yeah, I just I rem I I remember the playing the level, but I don't remember yeah, why I didn't have trouble with it. I mean I I I think it goes back to the when do you attack um topic, which We might dig into deeper, but um I think'cause that is another There there is a tension with especially RTSs that I have always loved with that because Mm. Paul's instincts will be to build up as much as you can before going.

But with especially against AI, you know, they're building up as well. And most likely if you wait too long, they'll be higher than you. So there's always this sweet spot i found to Yeah. to attack and if you if you wait too long it could actually work against you. So maybe I just got lucky.

Yeah, I mean I think that for me that that's but well there's been two parts of it. One is that The way you're describing it, it sounds like you didn't spend a lot of time going after sort of the left side of the map, uh, the west side of the map. And you really just kinda like did an end run around the east side of the map, which is where their dungeon heart was. and I've been sort of like turtling to build up to take on the

the west side of the map, you know, build up some forces that are strong enough to take out the various things that are there. And like you said, that's basically giving the CPU heroes or s I guess it's another keeper, the CPU keeper just time to really build its forces so that I mean I've got like level six bile demons coming coming against me and I'm just like, oh, you know, like crushed, you know. Um so I it might be something like that where I'm just

I'm just going after the wrong things. I you know, I'm reading the signals wrong as far as what the level wants me to do. Yeah, I mean well yeah, reading them wrong is one thing, but also it may not be sending the right signals to Well, yeah, no. Yeah. And that's to the to the point on the flow, which you know, obviously

X level designer here. Like I'm always thinking about this stuff, though I've never obviously built a game like this or a level like this. But it's interesting to me to know to think about how the level designers, the map designers were trying to guide the flow of the map and so impenetrable rock is an obvious one, but also gold placement is another one, right?'Cause they can

um flow the level based on that and connect enemies to gold veins that you will then uncover that will then you know connect the two, you know, realms, et cetera, and then you'll fight, fighting will happen, etc. So it's just interesting. But with impenetrable rock in in level nine, it's very um very designed because there's uh there's a section of the map that is sort of this elaborate um dungeon crawl area that's very D D feeling. And then the specific objective areas are completely

um in you know, designed shape wise, uh and flow wise with the impenetrable rock. Like you literally can't dig anywhere that you usually can. So you have to find the right opening essentially. Um the center of the map is it's hilarious because the gold veins are all in question marks and there's four question marks, gold veins in the middle of the map. And then um and

uh like literally the shape of a question mark and then there's four quadrants. Um but it's just I think it might be my favorite map so far because there is building around your base and such, but then there's this sort of like exploration phase where you're almost doing a dungeon crawl because It's so, you know, um constrained in a way. And the objectives are very clear and

um and specific, uh, which I guess I'll spoil it for you, it doesn't matter, but um I don't think you'll care. But so in that in that mission, I don't think there's another dungeon keeper. But a couple of them have had dungeon keepers and heroes, which I think has been interesting.

But in this one, it's just heroes, but there's four wizards that are hidden essentially throughout the level in the four kind of quadrants, um, and then supported with other hero types. And you have to kill those four wizards basically. Oh. Um, but each of those four wizards are locked behind doors of some kind in their own libraries. Which is cool. And so and I think they're all level sevens. And so it was it was just this really cool, interesting

process of uncovering the map, trying to figure out where they were. Um it wasn't totally symmetrical or anything, so so you weren't quite sure sometimes where, you know, one of the wizards was gonna be.

Other than knowing there was a door. Some of them had traps outside the door, so you had to deal with the traps and it was just kind of a little bit more You know, like I said, it was like the I guess there is in that in this mission's case, there's another genre thrown in there, and that is the dungeon crawl.

Right. Even though I guess actually in that level I forgot to possess. If I had possessed, it would have been a whole different game.'Cause I could have just I could have just run through these, you know, these areas. Um I got the I I know that you don't do the possession very much, but it's like At all. It's still mind it's still mind boggles. It's just mind boggling that it's into the game.'Cause it's like

I did do it in nineteen ninety nine or whatever and I dropped in and I totally remembered the experience. It definitely is a very striking experience. But at the same time I was like This is not the way to play the game. Like I lose so much information that the you know, that the enemy has, right? If they're not presumably they're not playing this way. So, you know. Um, I just was like, Well, I'm not gonna that's not gonna be how I spend my time this time, but uh It's so good.

having trouble enough, you know, without without you know going into that sort of It's just weird. It's so weird. Such a weird inclusion, you know, but but novel, I guess at the very least. Yeah. So this um so th they used impenetrable rock and and gold to really guide guide you through that experience. And that was You know, even in an open genre like RTS's, which the maps tend to be pretty open to give players lots of options, other than like

In this in the blizzard sense, there's there's always the linear levels, right? Where you're taking one squad through a whole level that Right, right. survive. So not I'm not talking about those, but generally you need maps to be pretty open and To find a way to have the flexibility that this game has, but still guide the player through a map is really sounds very challenging as a level

Um so I I've liked thinking about that. And level nine was like I I had a feeling and and hoped that they would get pretty clever with the levels as it goes on and this one was done. Um but I can I can I have a funny ending to this story. Let's go into your story on level nine while we're while we're talking about it,'cause who knows if I'll get there. Um so might as well hurt it now.

Yeah, I mean I'll just finish it up. It's just I basically told most of it there but Um but the ending was the funny part because it was it was again Sort of like what we were talking, I'll I'll actually connect it to a previous topic of of the confounding nature of the game. So you're supposed to kill these four wizards, find them and take them out.

Um, and as the description in the beginning, in its very snarkily written way, you know, said, you know, these it said something like, These wizards are too cocky, they're too they're too confident, you need to knock them down a notch or something. And so there sets that sets up this really clear goal. It sets up that there's these wizards who are, you know, who are overconfident. So like as far as like the fiction goes, I'm like, I'm in, right? I'm I'm in the mood.

And then I find them and I, you know, um but I did have imprisonment on. And so uh and so I started basically taking out the heroes because there's a lot of heroes around them, protecting them and helping them. So my prison got pretty full with heroes. And I I got toward the end of the map and I real and I was like, what's going on? I got, I found everybody, I found everything. Mm-hmm. And and I realized, oh, they actually have to be dead to win the match.

Not uh imprisoned, not waiting to starve. Not waiting. Yeah. So I mean, if they would have starved, I would have eventually won. So I was like, Well, I'm not gonna wait for them to starve. That's you know, which is a A whole other thing. Yeah, I go some good grim grim places, yeah. Grim places. So what I ended up doing, um, because I think I had three wizards who were still alive and in prison with all these other heroes. Uh, and I was like, I got you all

Um so I basically put a uh rallying flag outside the prison and put all my all my best creatures. And when people are in prison, as you probably know, you can pick up the prisoners. Oh I didn't know that. As units and drop them places. And in fact, you can set them if you drop them out of the prison, they're free and they'll roam around and you they'll attack you. Yeah. So I just basically tried up each wizard one by one and put them right.

Well, so you're so your mind is starving but not individually picking out a uh prisoner and giving it the beatdown. Just I'm just trying to cut the cut the moral lines as fine as I can here.

Yeah, exactly. Well, I was like, I want this mission to be over, so I'm gonna do this because I don't I actually don't know how long it would have taken for them. To starve, die the other. It takes a just a little too long, to be honest. Yeah. Right. 'Cause I've I've imprisoned the barbarians on level eight a couple of times. That's it's cool because you end up if if they do starve, you end up with their skeletons which are the same level as they were. Oh I didn't know that.

Yeah, so like I I think the barbarians are all like level five. So it's like, oh, suddenly you have depending on how many you were able to imprison, you have up to th I don't maybe up to six. There's like three to six barbarians, I think, in that area. Um I think three in the early game. Maybe the rest were just um enemy units and I just wasn't noticing. But

There's certainly three barbarians. So you could have three f level five skeletons that you get basically for not doing any extra work. I mean you're you have to wait while that happens, but um Yeah. Yeah, that was a uh that was a thing. Um Anyway. That's cool. Yeah, so are these hidden rooms you were talking about in pre show or are there other hidden rooms you were talking about in pre show? Well, so I would say my experience so far is that every

Almost every map has like a little hidden mini dungeon in it someplace. Mm. And I call to call it a dungeon because it's more than just one room. It's usually like some hallways and a couple rooms or whatever. And it out to look like I would say a little dungeon. Um and That's an I guess like I said just a few minutes ago, there is sort of another genre thrown in here and that is the that sort of dungeon crawl exploration feel and

I gotta tell you, I love finding those things um because they're just such a delight, you know. I mean it's weird to say delight in this game, but it's such a cool discovery because You are this dungeon keeper and you found somebody else's in a way, like some ancient dungeon that was there before you. And sometimes there's gold in it, or some most of the time there's a power-up. Which um you know, you can pick up manually or you can have your units pick up.

And oh, another thing I didn't know is that like for a resurrect creature, if you find one of those. I don't know what happens if you pick it up, but if your creature picks it up, they bring it back to your library and you can use it at any time. Which I thought was cool. Um Okay. So

I I was picking it up. Um I mean I normally had units had that had died at that point.'Cause I found this on level level seven, I think I found it and I used it right away. And yeah, you basically get to pick of your creatures that have died, which one do you want? Um there's just so much in this game. There's so many things. They just There's a lot I mean it's a it's a lot of different kind of mechanics, interaction mechanics, right? I mean it's just

Like you find these things, it doesn't automatically happen. Um if they picked it up and brought it back to my library, uh you might not even notice that. Like so there's No, I found it accidentally. Yeah, there's a real attention thing going on there. Um I did also find a level

Level everybody one, I forgot what that's called. Increase level or something like that. I think that's a good thing. Yeah, those are I mean it was certainly helpful. That was on level seven. Um, I found that. I mean on on level eight I have found sort of what you're talking about, but it's a huge I mean, I think it's just the enemy keepers area because it's a huge area. I mean I think basically the because of my sort of turtle approach has been has been too slow.

I think basically the enemy is just like tunneling everywhere. So he you end up with these long corridors, you know, and I'm just I I mean, I was at a point where I'm like, Well, I've lost again. you know, just before recording and but I had one m one imp who was up there lost in their, you know, shenanigans just taking territory. I mean ultimately he he ran into

you know, a force that he couldn't uh reckon with. But um but he was just kinda like claiming square by square as he went. You know, I was just kind of watching him go'cause I was curious, like, how where does this go? You know, um but I think it all just you know, it was just one of the many tentacles of the the great enemy empire at that point. Um great underground empire at that point. So it was uh a little a little annoying but Uh

Anyway, let's uh let's turn to kind of our grab bag of additional topics then. We wanted to talk a little bit about audio design as well. Um I mean, I have been hearing, you know, I've been paying more attention to the Hearing the enemies where they might break through, which was I think they actually do a gr little graphical effect as well to show you like there's uh there's something going on in this area. Um, on level eight.

I I actually use the um The way you can reinforce your walls to make them unbreakable. I use that to close off an area from which the enemy could you know, infiltrate'cause that was how I lost a lot th the first time I tried the level. Can you do that manually, you mean? You can I mean putting a putting a imp there. Yeah, you put an imp there in

in ground you've already claimed. So I I dug a corridor across a gap that went to gold. But I could see the I could see that they were there doing and hear them um doing that stuff. Uh and it's it's kind of a I don't know, it's like a grid that's maybe six squares wide of like this gap and they're like, they're getting all that gold. And I'm like, Well, I can't get at the gold, but I can stop them getting into my base this way.

So I went, I claimed the squares and then I dropped an imp specifically to reinforce the The the north facing walls, um or the north backing walls. Uh to prevent To prevent them breaking through and getting into my base. So it that was a that was a kind of a neat mental discovery of like, oh okay, here's how I can protect my base.

Yeah.'Cause I thought about earlier more open levels being like, well, I could just surround my base with like effectively a moat, right? I could make a a big square around my base and reinforce all the walls that face out so that they have to come in. through the one place I want them to come in. I could do that. I mean

probably take a bunch of imps, but you could do it, right? Um so it's been it that's been interesting to kind of make those kind of discoveries and be like, oh, I can use that in this way. I just don't think I'm learning those things as fast as I need to be in order to be good at the game. Um so but anyway, to to the audio design, I just wanted to point out that I had picked up on the

You know, the thing that you were talking about where you can hear them, they're just on the other side of this wall, you know. Uh oh. Uh kind of problem. That's one of my favorites, yeah. When the heroes are trying to break in, yeah. Um well I yeah, I just um I just wanted to make the point that we probably I hope we talked about when we played Some of the other RTSs, I guess, would have been Warcraft and Homeworld, but is that all we've played? Um Yeah, pretty much.

But anyway, like RTSs especially because there's always so much going on and so much plate spinning, um Audio design is so important. I would say dynamic music is as well. And um as a player it's like, you know, you Even once you Mm. Well, dynamic music meaning music that's reacting to the state of the game. Okay. Right. Um and so Players who maybe haven't heard that.

Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah. And it's wasn't, you know, it's not always a common thing. It wasn't back then, but um and I think in this era it's mostly gonna be like combat or not combat, you know, is uh but they get more complex. those systems get more complex over the years and and now they you know, there's games that have completely dynamic music based on um basically mixing on the fly, uh based on the state of the game. So it gives you different signals about what's happening.

Um and it's actually important part of gameplay, not just um for an you know, ambient feel. Or even different instruments. You know, I've I've definitely played games where based on the units that were present, you got You know, oh suddenly you've got a tuba, that means you know. Um, you know, and things like that. So the dynamic aspect of things can be things like melody or my major minor keying, you know. Another way to frame the melody, I guess. I harmonies too. But um

But literally like what instruments are present in the mix, we have way more channels these days to to do those sorts of things. The and the uh you know, the middleware, nobody really writes these systems themselves that much anymore. Um The middleware is really, really good to do all of these things. You know, and you really just need some, you know, game side, you know, gameplay programmer support to be like, hey, what information do you need to make these these decisions? Um anyway, continue.

Well and I mean Продолжение следует... Yeah, thank you. Yeah. The music um to hit the music really quickly, there's not a lot to talk about there, but I have been impressed with it's got this um It's got this sort of like early nineties John Carpenter horror. feel to it because it's got synthesized you know it's got synthesized music, but it's got it's kind of spooky, but then there's times when it's like this weird

uh gothic nursery rhyme music. Like wow. It's just I just feel like it's very on point. It's very uh it's it's very um uh a a good partner to everything that's happening in in the game. I feel like the music helps me get in the mood quite a bit and, you know, when good music is matched well with the game play. Uh that's always something that I I like I like to appreciate. But they definitely cho chose a j a genre and I think their genre was John Carpenter.

Yeah. No, that's that's good. No, it's funny I've been um You know,'cause I pick a little I know you don't listen, but I pick a little musical stinger from the game to start the episode. We play our theme song and then I play a little bit of music and I try to do a different one each week. But the tracks for this game, there's only like six or something on the original soundtrack.

Um, but they're all like they start off with something spooky and actually not very melodic, and then later they go into kind of more of a heavy Uh almost there's a metal. Yeah, there's some metal feeling. And then later in the track, and this will all be in one big long track, it'll be like something else. And they so they basically I think

are composing their sound this the soundtrack that I that must have been released at some point um out of these different elements of like these are different ways you might hear the level. So it's it's interesting just trying

something representative to to front load the episode with has been a little like, huh, I like this is the feel that's like partly this feel, but it's also partly this feel. Like how do I pick, you know thirty seconds of something to uh to represent what the game sounds like. It's been a challenge.

So yeah, well, thank you for doing that. Yeah. This sounds like extra challenging this time. Yeah, I mean I think so the I the I won't spend too much more time on it, but when it again with RTSs, especially because there's so many units going and doing their own thing often and you're not able to keep it all, you know, in view.

This game in particular, you want to know what the units are doing. And not only that, but this res for me, I I don't remember what resolution you're playing at, but I'm playing at the the default. So it's a 640 or whatever. Same. Yeah. So it's really hard to see them anyway. And unless you're h hovering over them, you don't even know their level or their health or whatever. So

I really rely on audio cues to tell me what's going on most of the time in a given area. And it's all localized audio too, so it's like if you hover even over fog of war areas, you you will get some information about what's In that black area. Could even be their their dungeon heart. You might be able to find their dungeon heart and know, okay, they're, they're, that's where I'm going. Um

But just taking the imps as one example, like the sound of them taking territory is very distinct. And when you you hear it, you're like, okay, good. They're doing what I need them to do right now. I'm gonna go do this while they're doing that. come back over in a couple seconds and then start laying down whatever room, right? But you hear that it's a very positive sound. It's a very

bright sound and it and it tells you very clearly and nothing else sounds like it, you know. And that's a very simple uh action and kind of like a fundamental action of the game, but I think it's a great example of a really well done audio cue because it's so important. Cause you need to know. So like a lot of times I'm waiting, like I'm waiting with my cursor for them to lay, you know, to take territory because I'm ready for them to to to to I'm ready to lay the zone down.

Then the continuing with just the imps, like the audio for them digging in rock versus gold is different and you can hear the difference. Um them uh Walking, you know, and dropping the gold back. You're like, okay, they're putting gold, they're doing what I want them to do. But then you go across every one of the units. Um, oh, training is the other funny one because you can hear when they level up and each unit has their own voice cues or sound cues for when they level up. Oh interesting.

I haven't. Edded up on that one. Yeah. It's hilarious because they're obviously Definitely heard, but that I have not, so or maybe I haven't realized what it was, yeah. Maybe, yeah. I mean they're they're all positive sounds, of course. And they're all like, you know, they're all like uh bravado kind of, you know, kind of like, oh hey, you know, like I'm leveled up, you know, even like the dragon or whatever. So it's

But when you that's sort of another example of the matrix thing I was talking about earlier. When you start to understand and learn these audio cues and you're playing for a long time, you start just kind of you know, vibing with it. You like get the general sense of, okay, people are doing what they need to be doing. And then when you need very specific information, you can go over and listen for it and you get that as well.

So I it's just, you know, it's a it's a definitely a challenging discipline, I would think, for audio designers and an RTS to make sure that Everything sounds correct, but not But everything has to sound distinct from each other'cause it's all very, very gameplay focused, you know. And and also in this case it's the aesthetic side of it has to be good too, because like you said earlier, they've doubled down.

On what they're doing. And if if the audio didn't sound like you're playing the villain, um and that these were monsters then it would stand out as being something was wrong, you know? Um, so it's yeah, I I just um I've been really appreciating Like there's a lot of times when I'm almost playing the game just by the audio, in a way, if that makes sense. Yeah, I mean credit to um I d it doesn't look like they had a separate uh You know.

person for this. It they don't you know, there is no like audio designer, you know, kind of role back in nineteen ninety seven. Um, but uh Brussels Shaw, who also composed the music, is listed for both music and sound on this game. I do not see I'm just looking up in the credits. I don't see any I mean oftentimes they would do both.

Yeah. Yeah. Any other audio specific support. I mean I'm sure there is a gameplay programmer in here who who was part of that to say, Oh, this these events go to you when when these things happen, but that is not called up. At least for now credit Russell Shaw with that. Um good work. Oh, and the other one is just like picking up an enemy, and when you drop an enemy, they all have their own distinct sounds, and you're like, okay, because sometimes it's finicky.

Yeah. And I'm like, did I Yeah, I've also found it finicky, yeah, for sure. So the audio cues for me has been very helpful. Like okay, I did'cause you can't I guess you can't drop them on top of other units maybe or in certain spaces. I hate the cursor in this game and it's Yeah. All of the bullfrog games do this. Um XCOM did it as well. I just Ugh. The grid-based cursor thing is just laggy and Yeah, it's very hard to it's very hard to know what's gonna happen.

Just make it discr discreet. Like why is it yeah? Been a lot of times where I've been like, What just like, why did that not work? Um Yeah, there's a there are a couple of UI quirks that are like that. I I think also with picking up units from the interface, you have to click on the interface once and then the second and now when you actually click on it again, you'll start picking units, which

I sort of like I kinda get it was probably a solved for a different problem. Like, okay, well I guess we'll just make it so you select, now you get focused. Now you do a separate s you know, click to do that so you don't mistakenly pick up somebody but

Um, yeah, you're you've got a you're solving a problem there, but maybe creating a new one. So I'm I'm yeah, I'm constantly running into that where it's like I thought I picked up a guy and I moved all the way over the map, you know, and now I didn't. Um yeah.

Same same thing there. All right, let's let's call it there. We do have another topic we'll get to next week. Um next week of course we'll also do our takeaways. Hopefully I'll have moved beyond level eight, uh, and Tim will have moved beyond level ten. Um but we have an email sent to uh devgameclub at gmail dot com. Would would you read that for us, sir? Hmm, yes. What do we have here? From Dry Mistype Okay. Uh he's reaching now. I mean he's running out of Yep.

Hello, it's Ryan. An anagrams when you've got two Ys in there, you know, it's Yeah, you're pretty Hey Brett and Tim. With Konami Code turning forty last week, oh I didn't know that. It made me wonder about the role of cheat or hidden codes uh in games. Apparently it was originally created by a dev to help in um porting Gradius to home consoles and not intended to be left in. Happy accident then for many players, myself included, the code is some of Konami's notoriously difficult games allowed

them to actually be beaten instead of tossed in the closet. Uh speaking of the devil. The code then acted as a dungeon heart. In Zelda, okay, I'm riding this wave, mystery, uh, letting you choose your difficulty or see how few times you needed to use it. as you improved. I think codes also served a few other purposes. Word of mouth marketing for games spread on playgrounds, as rumors of secret codes passed around. Uh magazines sold uh by having verified secrets published secrets published.

for the first time and some codes brought longevity or variety to a game by unlocking harder difficulties or extra characters or modes. Do you have any favorite cheat codes or stories around them? Um Any you implemented yourself during development. Regards dry mistype. Yeah. For those not in on the uh joke there, that is uh long time uh listener and frequent email mystery uh mystery dip. Um

I mean certainly I've implemented some. In fact I implemented the system for them on uh Starfighter, which then was in Jedi Starfighter as well, actually. Um because we released a So the first Starfighter came out on C D, which meant it was just browsable on any PC. So all of our codes, which were just in text, you know, in text files, were or uh was that true?

No, I I don't I don't remember. There may have been some of them, but anyway, if you look if you opened up files, you could see the text. Um, if you just, you know, used it in a hex editor in some cases. I can't remember if some of them were in the code or some of'em were were elsewhere. But anyway, you could find the the code. So all of our codes were easy to find in that one. And then um For the for the SQL, I I went and implemented a thing where it would take the hash.

of the code. So it would run an algorithm over the over the string and generate a number. Um and then it would compare against that number. But That number could be matched by a number of a string. So there are actually technically more cheats that would be accepted in the SQL. that might not mean anything, right? It could be a random string and it just happened to work out to the s I think that actually somebody actually found that. Somebody found some weird string of letters that work.

um and did some other code for Jedi Starfighter. Um so yeah, um I've implemented both the system and of course a number of the codes. Um and my favorite of course and uh you know uh hat tip to our uh late lamented Belmont for entering my uh my one from Jedi Starfighter, which was Maggie, which uh you know, in both of those games I had a hello message to my sons, um, which would just print on the cheat code screen. when you uh when you enter the code. Um

But we did other things too. We did invincibility and and things like that as well. Um, I don't remember and and we did a bunch that did unlocks of various videos and yeah, things that were extras. um that we uh that you could earn through doing good progress on the on the missions, um, is my recollection. Might have also had a ship. I feel like we might have also had a ship that we unlocked. Yeah, because This is territory I cannot help you with. Yeah, you know.

I don't know. Like uh the only thing I remember fondly about cheat codes, I don't remember if it was Starfighter or Jedi Starfighter, was talking to the penny arcade guys about getting approval because we used one or two that were references to them or something. Um,'cause I forget they maybe it was in two. It was in Jedi Starfighter because they they that maybe reviewed or had some joke They they like this one? They like Starfighter, yeah.

So yeah, so we did an homage and we got we got uh I forget what the codes were, but it was fun to kind of Um but as far as like as a planner I remember what it did. I might have unlocked all the missions. Um there was a uh it was it was like P N Y R C D E or something like that. Um R C N Y R C

Um yeah, we did have some ships that we unlocked. Oh, we reversed the controls. Uh we had some things where we would turn on different, you know, God mode or like just the flyby mode for a level. Um yeah, so we didn't have that many. They were fun to do. I remember I remember it's kinda like achievements before achievements, right? It's like they're fun to design and think about and name and do all that stuff. Um And I don't I mean to mysteries.

point about their sort of whole mythology. I it is it looking back, it's sort of it's so funny to me that they were so mysterious and and no pun intended and s and so like locked behind Closed doors? Because I feel like at the end of the day, like who cares? Like, why that we talked about I hope we talked about this with Darren when we played Dark Forces.

But I think it was his call, right? Like he was sort of notorious about like putting those controls in the options. And that that carried over into Jedi Night and that carried over forwarded outlaws and everything. And it's like Just let the player do what they want to do. Like why? And I think for that reason, I as a player never, never use them. They're so I have no favorites because I'm like That's just not my thing. I'm not, you know, it's like if I don't if I hit a wall or something.

something. I I was watching your stream a couple of weeks ago. I saw you used to Okay, alright. No That's a different story. That was a different story, but that was to allow streaming to continue. But um Yeah, but but as far as the player, you know, like I I've always known they were there, but I never I never it was never my thing, that's all. Yeah, I didn't I don't I mean I don't remember them either. Um I mean I do remember the id ones were funny. Um one was like I D K F A um F.

Uh, that was that was one that might have been God mode or something like that. Um so they were kind of funny. Um We did actually have more of them on the first game which is a little bit more than a Which is funny, we had one that was I think a day where a whole bunch of people dressed up. Our our company president at the time would wear like a black turtleneck and jeans literally every day. That was the his uniform. I forgot.

Yeah, we had a picture of that in there. I'm looking at those as well. So we had we had some um Most of them though were things that you can unlock anyway, like you didn't have to do it. This was just a shortcut so you didn't have to, you know, um hundred percent every mission or something like that to keep it. Well you need a god mode to get through any of Troy's levels, so Oh they aren't as bad. They aren't as bad on uh on Starfighter as they were in uh That last level. Yeah, yeah, that's...

That's not his fault, that's my fault. Let's go inside an enclosed space. And have the AI try to figure that out. Um anyway. Yeah, I don't have a lot of uh glorious memories of of cheats um either. I can't uh I honestly can't even tell you the last time I've put in a cheat or even looked up a cheat. Um, although I will say I was tempted today with Dungeon Keeper. It's just like Maybe if I had more money to start. Um, but uh but I didn't, you know, in the spirit of the cast.

Oh it must be a cheat code for like Uh. Up uh all your that's probably the most valuable one. Yeah, leveling your creature version. Everybody up. like that power up does, but like doing it writ large, that might be good. Yeah. Yeah, that's a interesting. Um yeah, um yeah, it's not um I'm not saying it as a judgment for anyone who uses them. I think they're great. I just it just for some reason never was something that I even as a kid I was never

I think I never even thought to do it. The only one we talked when we played Adventure, the it was it's not a I guess it's not a cheat code, but that hidden thing. Well that's a credit. Yeah, that's the the first Easter egg. Yeah, that's a different thing. That's right. Yeah. So yeah. I mean, uh I think the using it in Contra makes a lot of sense because those games are are pretty ridiculous. Um Well, yeah. Look look chaos. No, it's you know.

It's hard earned. Maybe you use the cheat code to learn it though. I don't know. Um I can't say. He'll never say. He'll never say. Maybe a little Kaon, baby Kaon. Lowercase K On was uh was uh using the contra code left and right. Um well anyway, if you want to hear our thoughts on codes or whatever else, uh then you can shoot us email as well at devgamelclub at gmail dot com. And of course we'd love to get your reviews. I find the Apple ones, uh other ones

Uh I won't necessarily see, so maybe also shoot us an email and just let us know. We're on the web at devgameclub.com and my co-host here twitches at twitch.tv slash Tim Longo Jr. with a JR at the end. Uh last week you were hitting men, I think. What uh what are you thinking? We might try to do some multiplayer. We'll see if we can figure that out tomorrow. Uh Yeah, let's do that. But if not... Hilarious. Not el if not, what else is uh going on?

I don't know. I'm I'm a l I I gotta say I'm a little uninspired right now, so I gotta figure it out. Um my default tends to be Hitman'cause it's just one of my favorites and it I think it's just fun to stream it. Um'cause just I you know I know. Yeah. That yeah, exactly. I can kind of adapt. Like last week where I threw a banana at Bruce Lee's opponent um taking the taking the target out in mid fight. They were they were in the they were about to start their fight.'Cause this was the Bruce Lee

Um elusive target uh mission, and I was protecting him, basically. Uh so I threw a banana. Yeah. In apparently well, he was drugged. He was drugged his Okay. So I've had to throw a banana. Of course it didn't work out well'cause they saw me throw the banana. So Uh but I think uh I think Luigi uh clipped it out. Um I think it Anyway, um so let's see if we can get Dungeon Keeper going. When uh I actually to be honest, I really want to stream Majora's Mask.

Yeah. play finish the game that way, but I I I need to capture card. So Yeah, well it might be a good thing to find an emulator for. Like you've paid for the game. Oh have I? Yeah, you have. A Dar Nintendo. Yeah. Subscription. Anyway, uh we have a link uh to our community run Discord in the

uh end notes, the show notes for the show, uh if you'd like to join in and listen in there. Our intro and outro music was written and performed by the immortal Kirk Hamilton, commissioned by a friend of the guest Aaron Evers, and our logo, merch store, Discord, all sorts of things by Mark. Garcia. Have fun being unblemished of face and neck this week and good night. Gnight.