Just just talk, okay, go Project fire Escape Go.
Hello podcast. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the What Do It Again? Hello everybody, Welcome back to the fire Escape Cast. It is episode eighty eight. I'm Mike Maharty. Here's Always with Mary Kesh and Dan Riker.
I've been playing Yellow Taxi Goes Room.
Yellow Taxi Goes Room.
Ye, I know what a ding dong.
I love that. Uh, you probably didn't have to look very hard for a clip that made him sound stupid.
I did not.
That one seemed Uh, that one seemed like a good one though.
That's Jake.
Jake Decker editor.
Yeah, I'm here in the flesh.
Yeah, well, how many how many clips do you have?
How many clips too of Dan do I have?
Well?
I actually thought of this like four minutes before the episode, and then Mike was like, oh, I'm gonna be five minutes late, so I had time to get to one of the ones of fart Noise and the other was Dan.
All right, we'll use these, but.
Next time, next time I'm on I'll have a whole library.
Yeah. Dan's over at covering games Com for Giant Bomb and Cologne, Germany. I think Lucy and Tam are there GameSpot people.
Uh, it's a fun saw Minati in a in a picture in Germany, so I think he's there too.
Yeah, it was. It was a I did it once. It was a fun show. We talked. I know it's Dan's first time. Is it sunset in Portland? Are you melting?
I almost died?
Have you done?
Either of you done a games.
Comm I have not. I've wanted to for a while, but the stars have never aligned. I suppose same.
It's the one that eludes me. I have been to so many game conferences, including Tokyo Game Show, which I think is very difficult to get in, not.
Just like.
Logistically because it's very far away, but also you have to make sure you get your badge months in advance, and it's not just open to anyone, so you have to be like approved and stuff like that. So it I mean a lot of times you can't go just because you didn't go through all the hoops that they have. But I've never done games Com, which seems like basically a packs with pretzels.
No games Com is smells.
Games Com is like E three for all of Europe and pretzels A lot of people. Yeah, pretzels Curry brought a lot of kolsh a lot of salted meats.
Don't you buy like thirty sandwiches for yourself?
Oh? I was with Dave Jewett to more Lucy back when I was at Game Spot and we were staying next to this what was it? I don't even fully remember where, Like what kind of restaurant was? I think it was like a halal and I ordered. They didn't
speak great English, I didn't speak German. And I tried to order the number thirteen and I thought he was asking me to repeat it, but he must have been asking me how many number thirteens I wanted, So I said thirteen again, so he rang me up for thirteen number thirteen's And then when I pointed out the error, he, like the whole staff in Udison like threw up their hands, like like an Italian family in Brooklyn, freaking out on me. They did not like me in Cologne, those people.
And that's why you've never been back.
Yep, I'm not allowed to removed.
From Germany and not allowed to ever return based on ordering thirteen of the same sandwich on accident the war first uber delivery driver ever.
Yeah, they've done Germany has done some pretty bad stuff too. I'm surprised that was the thing that got you kicked out.
Yeah, that's where they draw the line.
They were projecting. Colonne's cool though. I like it. It was super fun. I'm curious. I'm curious to catch up with Dan to see what he thinks of it. Dan's been a decent number of places, Jake, you and Dan have you been on the show since you and Dan went to? Was a Ghent?
Yeah? I think last time I was on was because Dan was out for something else and I think it was you me and Vinnie and I.
Oh yeah, talked about.
I was gone.
Yeah.
I think I was in Europe too for probably Twitch Con Europe, That's my guess.
Yeah, what's what's shooting video with Dan?
Like?
Uh? It was?
It was fun because he Dan just talks to anyone he's got. There's not a lot of shame, so he can just go up to anyone, ask dumb questions, smart questions, all kinds of questions. So for me, recording was great because a lot of content you get out of it. I could not do what he does though. I couldn't just walk up to people and ask him what's this.
What's that He's just.
Not burdened by the anchors of dignity and self respect that so many of us are plagued with.
I mean, I wasn't gonna put it that way, but Dave Letterman said that Man on the Street recording is like the lowest form of art. Just let Dan know that when he's back.
I know, Dan, I think it takes a quick wit. I actually have a respect for it. I like watching tiktoks of street Man on the Street videos as long as they're not disrespectful. But you can be very witty with someone on the fly when you ask them questions and they don't know how to respond, or they've been drinking a little too much, and then the host has a witty retort.
Like.
I like that kind of stuff. I just don't like it when it's lazy, And it's often very lazy because you just ask people like a really spicy question and hope that they have like some kind of hawk towey answer. But the real meat of that type of stuff is the host being good at what they do.
Has the hawk Towey girl endorsed commily, yet I've been waiting if she did. I missed it. Uh Mary, she's.
At the DNC convention right now.
She's she's submitting the delegates for where she's from, Tennessee or wherever. Anyway, Jake and I were talking when you left the room earlier about Alien Romulus. I saw you saw it? Did you like it?
I didn't just like it. I loved it. I think it's probably the best sci fi horror movie I have seen in years. I am screaming this film's praises. I was freaking out in the theater. I hope I didn't disturb other people next to me, but I was like the person in the theater that was like, Oh, get the fuck out of here. That's so cool, Like I couldn't believe the shit they got away with.
It's people.
I think it's brilliant. I think it's a brilliant film. It is what the series needed. I think it is the best in the series after Alien. Yes, I think it's better than Aliens.
Really, yes, does any much a better movie or like a better horror because Aliens is more like action explode.
You know, it's it's not really horror.
I know. I think it's I think it's better at both. I think it's better storytelling. I understand that Aliens has its own place, and people will probably get really pissed at me for like coming at the series like this, But I think Aliens, a lot of people would agree, still has like a hokeiness to it, where they're just like, we're foregoing reality and we're just allowing us to have
fun in this space. I think Romulus does that a little bit too, but I think it does it better because it has a fresh faced cast of young adults, say young adults because they're not kids, but they're not experts. Every alien film is always about experts in the field. You have your uh, I don't know, the person who is an expert in the field for botany, right, or you have the guy who's like, I'm an army guy
and that's all I know. And then they come together and they fight, they piss and moan because they're all
the best at what they do. Romulus is actually about a bunch of young kids that are in an outrageously unfortunate predicament that has forced them into a bummer of a situation where they now have to figure it out for their lives and they are not sure how they do things like read maps, or work guns, and I think that's a fascinating concept, and I think it's more interesting for me to say, what would you do if you were young and just desperate and found yourself in
a life or death situation, as opposed to you got a scientist and you got a top Nutch army vet. And they both don't like each other because they're very different, but they're also really good at what they do. And it's like, I don't give a shit that some guys like really good at reading maps. I want to know what desperate people do in these situations, and they did
it with genuine heart. I cared about these characters. I cared about who they are, and I've never wanted a character to live more in an alien film in my entire existence. Outside of the Cat obviously, I wanted them to live. I felt sorrow when some of them met their end. I cheered multiple times when shit went down.
I will not spoil anything in this film, but there are multiple cheering moments where you will eke, you will say Jesus Christ, you will say yay, and you will say, oh, that's a bummer, and it just really invokes emotion out of these kids. I think it's just really well done. It's also expertly directed the first ten minutes. If it doesn't grip you in ten minutes, you suck. That's how I feel. It's really good. The visual dynamic of Old
Ships with CRTs. All the screens are CRTs, and all the buttons are square with pointy corners, and they're chunky, and all the doors are chunky, and the door systems also have that like weighty feel to them. One of the doors, the way it opens, it's not a handle, it's like a lever that you have to push up multiple times like shunk, Shunk shunk.
It is like airlock involved with it.
I don't know.
I don't know.
They didn't explain it, but I was like, that's sick door, you know, And like that happens a lot in this film.
Is that like an Chekhov's gun situation where you see someone open the door normally like that, and then at some point later they're being chased by the alien and they have to do that, and it's tense. It just seems like something they would do.
There's really good foreshadowing. I have to be very careful because one of the best foreshadowing is a character who reveals character stuff and you're like, that's gonna come up, and it absolutely the fuck does. There's also items in the film. This is very indicative exactly what you're saying, Mike, Very indicative of horror films where they'll be like, Wow, what a cool device. You see it does this, and then you're like, well, that's that's gonna be important later, and it is.
They have mostly The bond gets the gadget early on from Q and he's like, you probably won't need it, but the sink is actually poisonous and we'll blind someone if you press it.
Just like this, there's multiple There's only one instance where I feel like they brought something up and that just never came back again, which is a bit odd when any film does that. But maybe it's a red herring. I don't I don't know. I'm not an expert filmmaker. The lighting is fucking incredible, you know in old sci fi ships where they got the spinning lights the Wii WU situation to just increase the tension. I think they
do it incredibly well. It is not glaring, but it is frightening and the I'm gonna unfortunately I don't have my alien lingo.
But the Crawley face hugger face.
Face huggers, Okay, is that their actual name or is that just we call them?
I think that's their like colloquial name. I'm not. I think it's just like xenamore fetus, but I think I look it up.
Don't they refer to them as face huggers.
Call them? I'm not sure if like the scientists.
The face huggers do exactly what you expect them to do. There's multiple of them. This is in the trailers, so I don't consider this a spoiler. There's like dozens, and that's really exciting because you're you're dealing with an absurd amount of something where even one is extremely terrifying, and so to have that many.
They're really really I mean, they're one of the scariest like things monsters created in a movie. They they the face hugger is infinitely more terrifying than the xeno morphy. I feel I would rather, I would actually rather fight a zeno morph and get torn apart than in a face on the.
Instant you don't want to get impregnated, which is like one of the original things that it was kind of the inspiration.
Oh yeah, the whole the whole movie is like playing on the fear of rape.
Basically yes, of men, right, like of well, because anyone can have it now, right, Like we're all we're all up for grabs. We're at the bottom of the like this food chain. I wear an eyemask on my mouth to be safe. I don't want spiders getting in there.
I just suck on a pinky all night.
I mean I'll stop them.
No, I just I do that because my wife likes it. But face huggers are horrifying, and they are I want to see Romulus very badly.
Uh.
I'm one of those weirdos who actually liked Covenant. I know I'm in the minority, but uh, I enjoyed it. I don't think it was the best thing to ever happen. I definitely the first movie is my favorite by far.
Yeah, Covenant was okay, and I did not like Prometheus. I was my problem. The problem with Prometheus was it was like, We're gonna try and explain how life itself is created, and it's just like, but that's not what we're here for. We are here for the deaths of people and to watch them not suffer. But we're gonna figure out who can actually survive in this life or death scenario with a supreme being. That's why we're here.
I think that Romulus knows its audience. It's saying, you're here to watch some people live and some people die, or some all people die. Who's to say. But the point is is like, you're gonna watch them in these life or death situations against an ultimate, very smart being, and it's really cool to watch the evolution of the creature. We already know some of the things, so they do nice little advances on what your expectations are of the alien.
And again I'll be very careful to avoid spoilers, but they did enough where you know the sequel Aliens, they were like, what if there were multiple Aliens, and like, that's what's scary about it. This movie goes a little further. It found another way for us to be scared, and I think that's quite ingenious. I think it was a really nice twist. It's not hokey. I think it's a great evolution of the series. And it's not just because there's more of the thing.
Once it Like god, Ridley Scott's like directorial career is so fucking fascinating. Yeah, you can look at how many movies is directed.
A lot, a lot, a lot, twenty four, five, six, twenty seven, twenty eight, with Gladiator two coming up, that'll be twenty nine.
And I would say fifty percent of them are not bad movie or no, fifty percent of them are bad movies, like bad. But then he's also made Blade Runner, He's made Alien, he did Blackhawk Down Delma and Luise the Martian. I guess could say, I couldn't. I don't. The last time I watched a movie by him that I liked was Alien Covenant. I could not stand House of Gucci. Granted, and I haven't seen Napoleon yet.
I mean I heard Napoleon's pretty tough to get through.
I heard that. Even the trailer I think was like very odd. I didn't see it either, because the trailer was like one of the most famous, like ice scenes, but it was just taken completely out of context. It felt like it was not accurate or even pretending to be accurate. I understand that history movies are often playing with reality, but at some point I was just like, you guys are just not even trying.
It's about my favorite thing to come out of that movie, though. I think during an interview someone asked Ridley Scott, like, I hear the French people don't like this movie too much. What's your response, and he's like, well, the French people don't.
Even like themselves, and then that was it.
He I actually rewatched Gladiator recently and for like all of the hype that movie has gotten over the years, and as much as it's been like meme to death, it's still pretty good. Yeah, and it's funny. I always think he's Master and Commander before I have to remind myself that was what Daniel no Offsky, What the hell is his name? Black Swan Darren Aronofsky, Yeah, he was Master and Commander.
Darren Aronofsky did Master and Commander?
No he didn't. Noah, who didn't Master and Commander? They're both ships during storms?
Yeah, there you go. I don't know who did Matt Oh wait, I feel like I should know who did that?
Mastering Commander was I'm not even trying.
Mmm, yeah, I'm not googling. Mike's clearly googling.
I'm not going to go directed by Peter Ware.
Okay, Yeah, I wouldn't have known he.
Did Gallipoly, Oh he did Gallipoli, okay? And Dead Poets Society? Was Ridley Scott connected to it? Why am I associating Ridley Scott with Mastering Commander?
Did he do another boat movie?
Probably there you go, oh yeah he did a boat the movie.
Yeah.
But I'm excited to see Romulus. It's funny. The last time I think us three we're on a podcast talking about a horror movie was Dead Air, the podcast we did about horror at game Spot. Those episodes are probably still somewhere. I don't think we put him on. We weren't publishing on like Spotify or anything back then. I think we had that like embedded uh like SoundCloud player back that we in GameSpot stories. Maybe it isn't.
One of my fears is that a lot of my favorite memories and some of my straight up like hey, I put that in my reel. That is a part of my history is in game Spot's YouTube channel. And if game Spot ever, for whatever reason, was like I'm nuking it, I would lose so much of my history. I don't think they would, but it is something I think about.
Means are gone right now?
That one land I was going to say like Game Informer folks, I mean, anyone who's written there, right, Like a bunch of your stuff is gone.
Now no proof?
Now, yeah, did they did they new Game Informers YouTube channel though?
Or is that still there?
I don't know.
I think it might still be there, but I could be wrong. I know they shut down everything. Yeah, I think about that too, Like, I mean, I've had like reviews in articles and features and all sorts of stuff that was written for smaller websites that just don't exist anymore because the guy who's paying for I'm not paying for it anymore.
And then it just went up in flames.
It's like, all right, It's so crazy because like that's just so important. The history of it is important, right, and we're just not preserving that work. I think I just have a fondness for that. It makes me want to hoard digitally, at least anything I've ever touched, because a lot of my old, old old videos are the only place I can find them is on like a
Vimeo channel from like two thousand and eight. And I think that that's sad that I had to like make sure that I had my own shit, because now if I didn't do it, that way, it would have been gone.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's scary polygon stuff, all my polygon stuff, so up. It looks different lately, but it's still there.
My stardew Valley review was re reviewed, and now like it's kind of like my original review is gone, which I think is a bummer because I still find it game.
It's your review is not a games anymore.
There's a new review they like updated it.
Wait they replaced oh to keep the URL authority or the SEO authority.
They just I feel like also Mary, when you reviewed it, that was at launch and now like starting Valleys so different than it was back then. It's so different, but they've added so much more to it.
I mean, we did that, Polygon, but I don't we didn't. We wrote a new review. Are you saying they replace yours literally on on the like the same url. Are you saying it's been superseded in general?
I still see it. Yeah, I still see your review, Mary.
And I nuked.
I think it's just it's not the review when you look at the review anymore. Right Like now it's like this is the updated review, which makes more sense because mine's outdated. This isn't about a wrong that GameSpot did to me. This is about me selfishly wanting my review to be first and foremost.
It's all here. It's all here, your original review.
Goddamn right it is, and it should be mark.
Very kish right there.
I wrote it kind of, I mean I did, but I think Peter like had to rewrite a lot of it because I didn't. I don't know how to write. I could barely. I could barely form codes.
You can barely speak. Yeah, I know.
It's not my uh, it's it's my weakest thing. I think I'm really good in meetings. I think I'm able to be creative. I think if you just give me a pen and paper and say, write a three hundred word essay about what I learned in boat school, I panic and I can't do it. I freak out.
I feel like when someone tells you it's an essay too, it's like, oh, what you know?
I never got grounded. When I was younger, my parents, well my dad specifically would make assign me word counts and make me write an essay about what I did wrong, and the word count would be way too high to just say, like I shouldn't have thrown mud at my neighbor. I had to like write a thousand words about like the existential thoughts that cross my mind, like consequence and punishment, morality.
Do these do these essays still exist somewhere? No on a shirt? Who knows.
Yeah, we've seen how that happens. But yeah, it's like, of course I had to start like doing these David Foster Wallace digressions in order to fill space. I'm sure my dad got a lot of entertainment out of it. My dad also I might have talked about the on fire skate before. My dad was pretty creative. Not only did an apologies to all the five year olds listening, but my parents when they were still pretending Santa was
real when I was younger. My dad also invented like a whole bureaucracy for the North Pole, so I didn't write letters directly to Santa. He had a an elf who was like our family's delegate receive our letters and respond in lieu ofs like in Santa's place. The ELF's name was Flegal, and my dad was just wrote in character as this elf until I was like, however many years old I was and I found out.
Santa was fake, classic Flegal.
I haven't believed anything since then at all.
What do you think about the Earth? Is it round or flat?
Oh dude, I don't. I can't believe either one. That's how bereft of belief I am.
So then what is it?
It's I just don't believe earth. Okay, yeah, yeah, I don't. Yeah, it's crazy. I can't even believe. Like, Mary, what's your name? I don't believe you.
It's not it's my god given name.
Fred Mahardy for that.
Before I was a sandwich artist at Subway, I actually uh streamlined as a writer for Santa and responded to children just so that the parents didn't have to in what like for parents hired me to respond to a.
School or like a neighborhood.
Any any parents that didn't want.
You can give us a sample of like what you would have said.
Wait so yeah, oh wait sorry really before you go into specifics, I'm this is curious because that's kind of like instead of mowing neighbors lawns, you responded to their kids as Santa money.
I think she's making this up, like, because.
That's that's like a that'll make a sick movie.
It's not a bad way to make a book.
For like parents who are terrible at writing.
And just hate their children.
Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna dig into this deeper.
Uh huh, I'm ready.
Wait, let's improv one. Dear Santa, this is Caroline this summer or winter Christmas.
Sorry, kids, an idiot.
I'm an idiot. I got straight f's in in school. I punched Timmy Wiggins in the crotch. Uh I took. I clogged the principals toilet on purpose with silly patty. But I would also like a pony. Love Caroline, smooches Caroline.
Dearest Caroline, your behavior has caused us to purchase the pony and starve it to death. Out in the fields. Attached you will see a piece of fur from its hide. May this remind you to not put putty in the toilets, to be respectful of your parents, and to get at least sees, which, as we know, is the standard for all children to receive gifts. D as we know, is no gift and f is we will kill your gift. Tommy Higgins is my best bro. I'm sending him gold nuggets each shit.
Flagan, Dear Flagan, surprised, I love my bloated, farty, rotting carcass of a horse. I sleep with them every night. My parents hate the smell, but I refuse to let them get rid of it. And every time they come near me, I say, I'm the fucking lizard queen. Call me Caroline. This is my bloating, rotting, farty carcass of a horse, and I've named him Gretchen. So take that, Flagan. I'll find you and I'll kill you, and I love you and goodbye.
This is just you and me in different forms. You are Caroline, and we should really dial nine to one and then find out where Caroline is and dial one again because that's a psychotic child.
Yeah, I mean also bad parents who just leave a dead horse in her bed.
Well, she had it coming.
Jake, what have you been up to lately? Last time, Yeah, you were on the show with Vinnie and I. I forget what was going on then and when that episode was. But you haven't been on for a bit. Share news stuff, any news, exciting stuff.
It can't be more stuff now it's going to be boring because I've been stuck at home. My my partner broke her ankle, so I haven't been able to leave in apart from minor things running Aaron's, getting groceries, that sort of thing.
Like, oh like taking care of Yeah, yeah.
I guess I did go to ten o'conn recently.
Yeah.
Last time I was at ten o'conn was with you, Mikey, and we shot ocon Is war Frames, Convention, war fram and soul Frames. Now.
Yeah, yeah I was there. We were shooting in the little Ontario.
Yeah, we're shoot shooting some some some VIDs over there, which none of which have gone up yet. It'll probably be a while before they do, but uh, but yeah it was. It was kind of interesting going back because not much has changed with the war frame community, but at the same time it felt very different and also London was exactly as I remember it, even that little pub across the street from the hotel we went to. Mike, Yeah, still there. Uh super cheap.
Reminds me of it might as well be Syracuse. It reminds me a lot of where I grew up. What are you What were you shooting? Can you talk about it like like more documentary style stuff.
Or uh, I don't know how much I can say yet, but yeah, it was it was like documentary style stuff.
Is it gonna be better than the one I wrote.
It'll be it'll be very different. I uh, it'll probably be better. Yeah, yeah, better, you know, I was. I was thinking back to that trip. That trip was a lot of fun and doing a lot of the shoots we used to do, and that war frame one I think was one of our one of our best that we did. And that was a tough one because I remember that was just me shooting it, so it was like the two of us and I'm carrying around two cameras so we can get like two camera set ups
and trying to do audio at the same time. But yeah, I'm still happy with how that turned out. Yeah, we also likely to prove people wrong too.
You know.
People didn't think it would do well, and it did like half a million views from like by people, one person that frequently said I wasn't gonna say anything.
I talk not too secretly about that person a lot, as you've ever heard on the show. Yeah, because I remember, like the idea was that we would go I think we were basically trying to finish all the like a roll interviews that they they were setting up, which we realized was an inconvenience to them, But we had like built up a good relationship with Digital Extremes and reb and Megan and Steve, et cetera, and they were they were gracious enough to allow us in while they were
setting up like onto the floor. So we're trying to get all the interviews at like basically done the first day, and then we knew we wanted to follow back up with them. Then the last day. They always do the same meet up in a park where like they all get together and play magic and just hang out and decompress. So I was like, all right, those are the book ends. That's easy, of course, like as any video shoot will go. That didn't go according to plants, and we had to adapt.
And then I remember we were trying to what was it we had that that was like the days when you know, when we kind of we had like a not a dictum or anything or like a directive, but like we had bought a few a drone or two for game spots, so we're like, well, let's use them if we can. So I remember we were getting that drone shot inside the arena when they were starting. Yeah, and like I don't know that we were actually allowed well,
I mean Digital Extremes told us we could. We were fine to do it, but I don't know that like the convention center knew about it.
I don't.
I'm sure this is fine to talk about, but this was like five years ago. But stuff like that, and then finding places to interview them while they were just construction workers putting things together around us, like we were in rev and I were in beanbags at one point, which lent to a really like grassroots feel, which I loved.
But while we were shooting it, I was like, this could just be an absolute nightmare to edit, because by that point I was definitely helping you edit more, but you were still doing the bulk of editing.
Well I think we had we had Max help edit as well. Yeah, I think at the time. So yeah, it was, uh, it's quite the project. But yeah, like I said, I'm surely happy how that turned out, even if someone who like doesn't give a shit about Warframe and has tried getting into Warframe when back when you were trying to get me into it before that trip and I just just did not click with me at all.
But I still think like the story was there, it was interesting, and I think Digital Extremes was very honest and open, which always makes for good material, doesn't matter like whether it's for a documentary about games, movies, just any just honesty is always like what plays best for that And they're very open, and you know, like.
We've all talked to tons.
Of developers in like big studios, right, and a lot of them pr trained, and you just don't I don't know, it just always falls kind of flat, Like it just feels feels like they're reading a script and it's never fun.
I mean, like the main thrust of that documentary ended up being like how they how does something that successful, that's that dependent on this kind of community not end up resenting the community, Like I'm sure any creator in today's like on Patreon or YouTube can kind of attest. So like it was the fact that Steve it was Steve Sinclair who was the creative director of Warfare at the time and now is a creative director of the
upcoming Soul Frame. Before he passed the torch to rep forward to be director of Warframe, he was like, Oh, yeah, it's tough sometimes, like because like you give them new content and of course they just want more and they want it to be better. It's a hungry monster to feed.
And it's like the original name of the documentary was feeding the Monster, which I think was a very compelling name, and the actual documentary in the video was still called that on our title screen, but of course certain someone wanted us to change the name on YouTube, and like to their credit, I guess the video did do well, and the title I will admit on YouTube now is more like broad enough to draw more people in, like
people like you who might not Jake. You were saying, like, might not really play the game, but the artistic sensibilities and me wanted it to be the other title. I was probably wrong in this case, but yeah, I like that video a lot. Still. I still like the past couple jobs I've gotten. I put that like in my reel, even if it wasn't for a video position, it was good. I have, like I can't go back to Warframe because I know I'll play too much of it. I've missed the last like eight new frames.
The new nineteen ninety nine does seem kind of cool, but yeah, it's like, here's how you gotta do it. You got to complete this and this, and then you got to get to this point and then do this and then it's like and then they're like, it's like three hours of content and I was like, oh man, I'm.
Not doing that.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean anytime you want to get like do like the New War kind of storyline, it's oh yeah, like once you've done like forty hours and you've gotten you know, you've unlocked the whole star map and you've gotten this feature, and then you can you can cross correlate these abilities and whatnot. I was all in on it. But yeah, I mean, destiny players, any MMO players can probably sympathize empathize rather. But anyway, Glad ten o'conn was fun will be.
You started talking about playing video games?
Yeah? I know, yeah, do you want Do you want to talk about new games we played?
Yeah? No, okay, turn your light on. See you? You look like, uh are you Jon? Who's that guy you like? The Watergate guy who's like hiding behind it?
No guy, you always bring him up.
No I don't. I'm tenguing him out. Jesus, I'm talking about the guy who filled the beans on Watergate.
I just said that.
I didn't hear that. Yeah, I said, I thought you were just talking about you.
That is my nickname though, Okay, now let's talk about video games.
No break, No, I gotta get beer, getting beer, I.
Said, no break. On Sunday, I was like, that's so weird. My hip hurts, and I was like, I must have slept in the bed weird, And so I slept on my other side. And I haven't been able to go running for two days because my hip keeps kind of not popping out, but it's obviously not doing well. And I was like, what the fuck is causing my hip to be so weird? And I thought maybe it's the way I sit in my chair, because I do. I do sit like a shrimp, so like it could be posture.
You know, No, I don't. Why do you sit like that?
How do you think shrimp's it? You know what I mean? And it's just like if you gave them a little tiny business chair, if you gave them a tiny chair, how do you think a shrimp would sit in it. That's how I sit. And I very often I like raise my like I usually like kind of like hug my knees when I'm sitting. Anyway, the point is my postures ass and I thought that it was related to that.
And then last night, as I was getting ready for bed, I was putting on my j's and in the mirror I saw the biggest, blackest welt on my ass where my hip is and I was like, what the fuck? Where did that come from? And I obviously got I fell or someone punched me, and I have no memory of it. I have a huge welt in my on my butt.
Did Mike do it?
I don't know memory of this normal.
I have definitely had bruises before and been like, I don't know where that's from, but this is massive. It's huge, it's on my hip. It's like altered my hips, like they don't feel good. It's been a it's been a whole thing.
Sorry to hear that. Yeah, I'm just thank you. I just had a sore throat on Tomorrow's my last day of antibiotics.
That's nothing. I also, I know we're gonna talk about games, but I also tell you guys had this one. I went out boating with uh with Josh because he's got a little boat. Now. It's like a little tiny sailboat that fits like two people and it's meant for speed and it's really cool. And he was like, you gotta bring your selfie stick, and I was like, no, I have anxiety about bringing my phone on a boat that literally can fall over at any moment. This is not
a substantial boat. It can fall over very easily. And I was anxiety a sailboat.
Those don't really fall over.
It's called the quest if anyone wants to look it up. And it like it's small to the point where like and light you can tow it and it all comes apart fairly easily. We take it apart and put it back together in about thirty minutes that we can sail, and then we take it apart and then like he drives home with it.
Ques, Oh, it's like a sailing style boat.
Oh wow, Yeah, it's substantial, but it's small anyway.
Oh cool, my selfie stick.
He gives me like a little wet sack so that I can keep my phone dry. I'm putting my selfie stick on it. I'm getting the best footy you've ever seen, Jake. This is a video for the age. I'm getting really good footage of the boat, of the sails, of me being cool, and you know, like that caught that old trope on sailboat where it's like watch out for the boom. Well, he had to make a quick turn and the boom knocked my phone into the water and I lost my iPhone. It sank like a stone. You guys, Yes.
I thought you want it. I didn't know. I got knocked out of your hand by the boom on a training sail boat.
And the worst part is is like it's in the wet sack on at the bottom of the Willamette. So it is a functioning phone in a perfectly preserved.
Baggy scuba equipment.
It's gone.
How deep is gone?
I watched Poseidon to steal it from me?
How deep is the Willamette River forty feet near its mouth north of downtown for I could die forty feet and by sleep, I you want your phone back?
So sad, Yeah, go get me, like I.
Give you twenty bucks, and I'll go get it.
I would give you twenty bucks. I was really bummed because, like you know, phones are actually expected. I was like looking it up and I was like, holy shit, like iPhones are like one thousand dollars.
Yeah, like.
The wet sack expense sink. Anyway, Okay, this.
Is my fatal mistake, my fatal mistakes.
I want to call it right now. Wait is it still powered on?
I don't know, call it.
It's like blah blah blah.
Blah, fucking fish on the other end.
If like a sea creature, what if I'm down there? What if like a sea snake? Is just like it's.
It's down there right now. It's just kind of like this devastating thing. Because my fatal flaw was the wet sack that Josh gave me had like a band so that you could connect it to maybe like your neck or something like that. But I needed to stretch it out past the boat to get the footy. So I took the clip and I attached it to the selfie stick that way. Is it ringing? Yeah, Oh my god,
it's that's so sad. Yes, it's that's really sad. The phone is connected to the selfie stick, so that if the phone fell out of the selfie stick, I would still have it. But because the selfie stick got knocked out of my hand, the phone was connected to the selfie stick and they both sank to the bottom of the woodlammt.
Yeah, the boom swings quickly.
I know.
It's thousand dollars. It's very but I was sad about it, and then we both poured out a beer.
In No one's ever gonna see that footage.
It's gone. You guys are so awesome.
You'll have to get a new one and track in.
I'm never doing that again. And I looked at Josh too, because you know, it's like one of those things where it's like, obviously, it's my fault. I should have kept I should have I should have held onto that phone. I should have held onto that selfie stick, I should have connected it with a piece of string to my ankle, whatever the fuck I needed to do. It was my fault. And I look at him and I go, oh, bring your selfie stick. Oh, like, let's get sick footy on
the boone. And he was just like, not my fault. I was like, I know, I know, it's my fault. It's just trying trying to point the blame anywhere else. They felt so bad about it.
I just imagine like here on the one that uh I'm marry, that's Josh. We're gone super fast. Ah oh shit.
Was it recording when this happened.
I don't know. I don't think so. And the reason I don't think so.
Is so funny, dude.
I wish I could recover that footy because it's really good and it's the only it would be the only justifiable thing to losing my phone would be like, well, I have this really cool footage. It was worth the error that I had, But it's not worth it. Nothing was worth what happened I lost. I'm grateful that my phone backs up my photo so I didn't lose the photos of like my dad's seventieth, which I think would
have made me cry. But like I had everything backed up digitally except for the videos that I took on that boat. So I lost all my sick boat photos and videos.
Do you e a Do you find my iPhone enabled?
What do you want me to do?
Like Mike can get it, Like like's a diver diving lessons. You know the exact spot in the in the lake.
I could point to it from the river edge.
It would be fun. I can find out kinds of things down there. It'd be like the Sunny episode. May buy a boat. It's like there must have been some sort of civil revolutionary war horse massacre. The hell happened down there? What have you been playing?
I've been playing Yellow Taxi goes Broom didn't miss a beat.
We really should have like banked up a lot of embarrassing things, he said, for when he's not here.
Yeah, mentally, mentally note those and I'll, uh, I'll put them in my my soundboard.
I don't know that you need to comb through episodes to find dumb things.
Yeah, probably not just any random.
The wave for him when it gets really.
Talking.
I played steam World Quest two after talking about it last episode and how much I was sorry not Steam World Quest two. Steam World Heists two Steamer Old Quest is a game. Yeah, I like it a bunch. I like the first one. As we talked about last time. Used to be Image and Form. Now it's Thunderfold Games. They just make a bunch of different kind of games from a bunch of different genres, set in the same
steampunk kind of cartoony universe. But yeah, Steam World Heist two, I really like how they fleshed out, like that second layer above, the actual battles when you're building out the submarine, you're traveling through the world, you're actually getting into these kind of like naval light battles against other ships. That stuff's really fun and that's compelling. I also really enjoy the class flexibility between characters. Your class is based on
your weapon. They're the weapon the characters using, so you
can just swap weapons out. And then you spend these things called cogs to carryover abilities from previous class, and you could switch between them any time, so you could go with Once you build out your crew, you could have four characters and each of them are using the submachine guns, which makes them all reapers, which anytime you kill a character you then get a second follow up shot to try to kill another one, Which is all to say that the actual class progression and synergy are
really clever in that game. I consistently. Actually, I'm very much a person who in RPGs, when you get the ability to multi class, it kind of makes me anxious. I want to just keep that character in the category that I know them as, and I want to keep them being the healer. I don't want to fuck around
with them. Also, being kind of a DPS in this game, I'm actually like, all right, I'll give my sniper, who I have equipped with all this sniper equipment, I will give her the shotguns so she could be a flanker just for this mission. And then the abilities I get from ranking up her flanker tree can then benefit when I go back to sniper with her, because then she can move farther or get extra movement on a turn, et cetera. So yeah, it's fris like. I don't know
if you'd agree, Mary Jake. Have you played Steam Real has too? No?
I don't even know what kind of game this is.
Oh sorry, Yeah, it's like x Com esque two D you The first game was you are boarding these sci fi like outer ships in outer space and you are just going aboard these pirate vessels and naval vessels to rob them. And then I honestly forget what the strategy layer was in that game. You're building up a crew, you're going on different missions, you're outfitting them, ranking them up. It was definitely x Com inspired. This one, however, you're actual it's back in like water, so you're more like
pirate pirates. And one layer is those missions you're going and you're fighting the navy, which they're all diesel fueled robots and you're steampunk robots. You are robbing them of clean drinking water, ache or fuel for the robots. You're also getting renowned in these different parts of this world.
But the second layer of the game is this overhead top down of you sailing around islands as the submarine that you're also outfitting the submarine with like broadside machine guns and automatic turrets on top and better boosters, and you can dive longer because when you go underwater there's actually this like separate map that you can access secret areas with. So it has that xcom like. Half of it is the strategy layer, half it is the actual tactical fights, and I think it works really well. I
really don't care about the story. I would actually say the voice acting is actively. It sounds like they couldn't afford a voice actor, so one of the developers had to do it all. I don't mean that to be mean. It just strikes me as like it was a very budget voice acting kind of situation. But it doesn't matter. I still it's one of my favorite games of the year. I'm actively hooked on it. It's a good steam deck game. Yeah, Mary, I saw you were streaming it and playing a decent amount as well.
I've put some hours into it. I'm really enjoying the different character classes and how I can I've gotten a little adjusted I was curious who your favorite character is because I'm a Sola person through and through. I think Sola's really interesting and super fun.
To play is that the first character you have.
Sola is a robot and they have a laser that bounces like sixty times, and so you can like laser everybody in a room and it crashes, and so they're really fun to play, and I also really like playing It's a lady. I think her name is like oh because it's a joke off of Judy Dench. It's Judy Wrench and she has a really fun additional skill, Jake.
I think this one's really fun. It's just brate someone verbally for three health remove you don't have to even be able to see them, so like in theory, she's just basically.
Like shouting insults, well, bitch.
I'll fucking wreck you. You finding loser, nobody likes you, and then they just they just.
The spirit round.
It's so funny. It's really enjoyable to use these different character classes to your advantage and say, like I'm going to bring Judy Wrench for sure, because she just fucking mouths people to death, which is hilarious. And souls with their laser and Solas also can build defense in front of them, which is really.
Oh yeah, well that's the that's yeah, that's from the engineer class from using a equipping a pistol, so like you could give a pistol to Judy Wrench and she would have the engineer ability.
To build to build defences.
When you rank them up, they also get you can you can give them med kits and then they can use those for free and it doesn't cost an action, so they you can also become your medics support class.
I need a medic I keep losing people. I will say, Like, so, I'm not really versed in turn based and it tends to be my downfall that in games where you're only supposed to be sneaky, Yeah, those are like ones where I'm like, uh, I'm not going very very good at these game. I usually don't I usually don't read all the details. And when they tell me like there's like eighty different things that I could choose them, like whatever, I choose the first one. So yeah, kind of ham
fishing my way through this game. But I am getting decently far. It's not super difficult, but it's not easy either. What I really like is that you can change the difficulty at a moment's notice, and there's no punishment for losing. So if I take three people out on a skirmish and they all die, I do not lose them permanently. I do not take any hits. I don't lose anything.
You just don't get experience, right, or maybe you get a little bit.
I think I lost the hours that I spent trying. But you know, there's no aggressive punishment for being bad at the game, which gives me the flexibility to feel like I can try and enjoy it. And I also really like the naval battles Mike. I think that's a refreshing break from turn based actions, which I think could get a little exhausting. But it is very nice to be like, I just finished a long, forty minute turn based battle and now I'm going to run around with
my ship and just shoot people in real time. Yeah, and that's fun. So they did a good job with the balance this game. I do think it's very highly polished visually mechanically. The audio is very good, except for the voice acting, I guess, but like I think the music is really good. I'm really liking this game, and I do recommend it. I think it's worth playing. I've never played a steam World game before, and someone told me that one of them is a metroid Vania, and I was like, should I play that?
Oh?
Steam World, dick isn't isn't their whole thing? Like they just takes the world and then just play to a bunch of different genres. So I've played Quest, I think, and that was sort of like a turn based RPG building rpg.
Yeah, yeah, it.
Was so long ago though, I don't really remember it. But I've always heard good things about Heist, and I think game Spots review gave it like a nine.
The new one.
The old dig is really highly reviewed as well.
Oh you hadn't played Dig, Mary, you'd like Dig?
Can you?
Guys know?
I love I love metroid Vane and so like, I feel like I should play this.
Wait, no, sorry steam World. There are two SteamWorld digs, I believe, well.
Because one is like a mine not Minecraft.
But isn't there one? It's like you just did, It's not really a metro vania.
Less yeah, almost Minecraft. It's more almost Star de Light kind of. It's more resource gathering and farming, et cetera. Steam World Dig two, I believe is the one that went much more Metrodvana and that's a really good game. The most recent one before Steam World Has two was steam World Build, which is when you're digging for resources, but then it's also a city builder on top of it. I have not played since early access. It it was early access, so take this with a grain of salt.
I did not love it. It felt like city building was the first genre they tried to tackle that they were not great at, but maybe they fleshed out since.
Well, they can't be good at everything. I was actually just it's kind of crazy that they made a really good turn based and they made a really good Metrivanea, and they've made a really good city builder, Like you have to be shit at one of them.
Yeah, they're like small scale blizzards like every genre they tackle.
It's just I guess you can make that so inspiring. This company is really cool. This like dev team, and did you see that the dev team is also the same team that publishes it. Like they're just this unit, this absolute chunky unit that can do it all. They're like, yeah, whatever, we'll do all the genres, we'll do all the voice acting ourselves with Gary will publish it ourselves. We don't need fucking anybody. Like, how big is this company?
Yeah, Thunderful Games previous. I believe it's just one to one previously Image and Form. Let me look that up to.
Yeah, I remember Image and Form definitely published like Steam World Quest or developed and published it. So I don't know when they changed, because isn't there another publishing like indie publishing called Thunderful or something.
Yeah, they're getting Thonderful Group is the publisher Wonderful Games incorporating the former Thunderful had been found in twenty seventeen, incorporating Image and Form and Zoinc. So yeah, I believe it's it's it's like a small merger. But yeah, I mean they're they made a sequel to a game that Image in Form made, so they're continuing their legacy. But yeah, it's there. I we started. I don't know if it
was for reboot or what. No, it wouldn't have been for reboot, yeah, because I was in the game spot in New York office, and I think we're still we had I don't think we had been doing reboot by then, but we were still doing like video essays together every once in a while, Jake, But I remember playing steam World Quest and I had a video that we were like a video essay about just how agile they've been.
Yeah, I think, yeah, I think that's how I played it, And that sounds fimiliar. I think that's how I know a lot of not a lot, but I think that's how I know. What I do know about them is from that video.
Yeah, it's also just a great steam Deck game. I believe it's also on Switch, so I mean, like, if people are looking for a very good handheld game, thirty dollars well worth it. It's it's very fun. I like as opposed to Xcom two, similar to or No, actually as opposed to what the hell Mario Plus Rabids Kingdom Battle and whatever the hell? The second game was called a game, which I liked very much. That just the
subtitle escapes me. In those games, you have those like percentages that to hit, but it's like it's it tells you how much damage you're going to do, So it's not a percentage like yes, you will hit them if you shoot this, or no you won't. They're behind double cover. Xcom has the infamous percentages steamrollhis two for those who haven't played the first one. You get like a laser site from a two D perspective, and you're basically just trying to aim that at enemies' faces from across the room,
and you could pan with the right analog stick. Not every character's gun, some of them, like the pistol, unless you get an upgrade, will just be like two feet worth of a laser sight, and then you kind of have to line it up by by estimating snipers will the laser site goes across the whole room. And then it's also worth noting that because these are in confined spaces, there's ricochet involved, so you can like billiard bank your bullet off a ceiling above robots if they're behind cover.
So I like that there's some skill in like alignment involved. Where or x Com two my maybe my favorite game ever made the percentages don't it's less about you know, lining up. I mean, they're skill involved, for sure, but it's everybody's seen that like ninety five percent shot that missed and that was frustrating as how where a Steam World if you miss technically it's your fat's your fault.
Yeah that's cool.
I like that there's sort of a tactile aspect to the aiming. I think that I don't know for me, would make it not more engaging, to be honest, you.
Should check it out. I actually I also think the mission design is really good about keeping you on your feet. One mission will be an alarm just sounded, so you have to survive for the eight rounds of alarm, and you're trying to like balance getting your characters into a defensible position, but you also want to still try to kill enemies each round because if you don't kill the two that just came in on the last alarm, two more are gonna come. It just gets harder and harder.
Others it's like you have to get to because again it's still you're very much your pirates and you're like you're robbing the Navy. It's like you got to get to this loot this timed loot box before it explodes or whatever. So then you're similar to the Xcom two mission where you're going to save a hack a computer before it explodes, like you really have to move quickly, so it's like move quickly, but do it very very slowly. Yeah. I And some missions is like you can only take
one person on it. Others it's four. I have not gotten to a point where it's past four yet. Maybe you can increase your squad size to five. So far I'm still at four. But yeah, I mean the map. The map is also like. It's not the best looking game ever. It's kind of I don't know, if you played Monster Train. It's that kind of I'm not even sure how to describe it, sort of hand like cheaply hand drawn. But they they ring a lot out of
that stone here. So the like more tropical Caribbean looking map at the beginning is pretty good, like, but then you get to a part where you're in Arctica, which is and it becomes like more polar ice caps and barren arctic deserts off the water. Yeah. Great game. I can't say enough good things about it. Everybody should if you're into turn based games at all, or you're just didn't need a good Steam deck or Switch game. I
think it's well worth checking out. It's thirty dollars, it's well worth in my opinion, I would have paid sixty for this.
I agree. I think it's fantastic and absolutely worth playing. Jake, what have you been playing?
I've been playing a game called Natsuman twentieth century kid.
What that fuck?
Yeah? Oh if you heard of this mic, you're not.
It's the Isn't that like a huge thing in Japan that has not come over this way until now for a while.
Yeah.
So, I think the series has been around for a very long time, but I think this is the first one to make it over to the United States. And basically the whole premise of I think all these games, this one in particular. You play as a little kid in a world Japanese town during summer break and you have thirty days to just spend it however you want. You can catch bugs, you you can go fishing. There's a bunch of little quests that you can do.
It.
It's really interesting.
It it reminds me of being a kid in a weird way because it takes place at the turn of the century, like nineteen ninety nine, and I think the kid's supposed to be like eight or whatever.
And it's very innocent. It's very simple.
It definitely has some PS two gives us some PS two energy. It doesn't always look great, doesn't run great, camera's not great. You know, there's some switch, there's some issues with it. Yeah, I'm playing on Switch. I think it's on PC too, It's probably better if you play on PC.
It's on Steam. I'm looking at it.
Yeah, it's probably a safer bet on Steam. But yeah, I had known very little about the series, but I saw this was the first one to make it to the United States, and I was like, I should try this, and I'm I'm really liking it. It's yeah, it's it's interesting. It borrows a lot from Breath of the Wild in a weird way. I don't want to compare it to Breath of the Wild necessarily, like it doesn't have the combat, doesn't have that like that sense of discovery, at least
in the same way. But like there's a climbing mechanic that is very similar to what you'd see in Breath of the Wild.
Climb anything, Yeah, you can climb anything.
There's stamina that you improve by completing quests, and the quests are always just like the lighthouse owner is sad, go cheer him up and you go talk to him and he's like, oh, the lens is dirty, can you clean it for me? And then you climbed at the top of the lighthouse clean it just things like that. It's very simple, it's very interesting. The localization is pretty rough, but I almost think that kind of adds to the charm. Where a lot of the translations don't quite mean a
whole lot in English. Some of them just flat out don't make sense. But like I said, I think it kind of had adds to the charm.
Cool.
This looks actually pretty cute.
Like I said, it is buggy. It doesn't run great. I don't know if it's a merry game, but there is.
So many minigames, and I love minigames.
It does have a lot of mini games. There is I wouldn't say a lot of text to read, but there.
Is a good amount.
I would say there's a Dewey talkie scale.
I would say it leans more to Dowey than talkie, but there's definitely talkie there. And I think the talkie is like pretty structured, right, Like each morning there's a conversation that usually happens that progresses the story, and each night there's one, so like usually you get this chunk in between where you can just kind of explore do whatever you want.
What if I don't want to do the story, what if I only want to catch bugs for thirty days. Am I allowed to do that?
Yeah?
You can skip all the cuts scenes. I think you can skip all most of the cut scenes.
You just can I do the activities that I want to do.
Yeah, you don't have to buy like a bug, like a bugnet, or a fishing rod or a pick axe. You just have them, so like right from the beginning, you can just go to a pond and start fishing, or you can start catching bugs. And I think one of probably the most endearing things about it is the
main character has a little journal. So every bug he catches, he like draws a little sketch in the journal, and you can, like there's like a couple options of how you want to fill in that journal entry with dialogue, like or with text. It's like I caught this bug today. Apparently it's rare or there's a longer version. But they they're clearly drawn by a little kid.
You know.
It's like crayon and they're scribbled together. And it's not it's not great. It's very I think it's it's got a lot of heart.
It's got a lot of heart, but it is Uh.
I don't think it's going to knock anyone socks off, maybe unless that's the kind of thing you're looking for.
What's intrigued. Yeah, I like stuff like this generally just more worried about like how dewey it is. But if you think it's dewy enough, I think this is something that, like, I don't know, this kind of appeals to me. I love where it's like, hey, any day, you don't really know what you're gonna do because it's weird and the screenshots are so wild. Everything's so different. There's a screenshot of doing like, I don't know, yoga in a group in the middle of the town.
Hall, and so that's not a mini game.
That is like a three minute cut scene of them just doing. Oh you can skip it. I watched the first time and skip it every time. But I was like getting ready because I was like, all right, I gotta like move the stick in the circle or whatever.
But nope, you can just watch them do.
Yoga for radio, radio calisthenics or whatever for three minutes every day.
It is sweet. Obviously a sweet little game, but probably for a unique audience. Interesting. I've also been playing. Would you consider this wholesome? I would consider this quite wholesome.
Yeah, i'd say, I'd say it's wholesome.
I've also been playing a game that I think is pretty wholesome. Dan actually messaged me from Germany to make sure that I played it, which I think is very sweet. And usually when someone does that, I'm like, I gotta play it because they've pushed me to play it. Dan told me to play Fields of Mystery. I downloaded it last night. I've put not that much into it, maybe like six seven hours into it so far. But it's very, very, very much like Stardo, almost too much. But you are
new to a town. You get a plot of land that you can farm. You do ta asks for the farmers that increase your rank in the town. Right now, my rank is wood. I do not know what the next rank is, so I cannot answer that question.
Your rank as wood, my rank is woold. That sounds like something like Ken from the Barbie movie would say.
My job is farm and my rank is wood, and I am planting tulips to sell them. There's so much commonality. Right There is a mine. I haven't been able to get into it yet because I haven't unlocked that part yet. There is a sea and some lake space, and I can fish, and there is a fishing minigame. It is not the same fishing minigame. The fishing minigame in Stardu is kind of annoying, right, Like there's this block and you have to have a to raise the block, yeah, and you have to kind of tap it to make
sure that the block is in the right space. This one is just wait until the fish your bait, and the second they do, you have like half of a second to hit a to real am in and as long as you hit the button at the right time, you get them. I've been doing that a lot. It's interesting. It has more character development as far as I'm aware so far, in the sense that every Friday all the characters meet at the same lodge to hang out, and when I talk to them, they have stories that progress.
One night, all the characters were playing D and D. I had other characters that were playing poker and arguing, which was kind of neat, just like seeing them fight with each other. And one of the characters who's kind of mean to me, got too drunk and was like, I like you, that's pretty cool. I assume there's romance, but I haven't unlocked the ability to romance. Anybody. What I will say about this is in Stardo, obviously, romance is a huge part of it. You get excited about
romancing a character based on their personality. In Mystery, everybody is smoking hot. They are so unbelievably titty bang bang hot that I struggled to pick someone that I was like, that's gonna be my focus, because every time I met a new character, I was like, oh shit, they're hot, and there's like this anime style to them. They have a like eight bit Avatar or whatever that makes them
look more casual. But when they talk to you, it's a drawing and it's very uh what is it called, Like that dad Daddy dating simulator, It's got dream Daddy all over it where it's just like these people are. They've made them way too hot for this environment. No farmers should look like that. I was helping out a lady make potions. There's also like some kind of magic element going on to this town, and she had titties
pop it out of her turtleneck. She looked so crazy that I was like, I must be the slave to your bath house because she's just unbelievable. And I found myself struggling with giving her gifts that she liked. It's been a bit torturous to me. I don't know what to say. This is definitely for horny kids. Play it if you liked Stardoo and you want to like sweat on some unbelievable good looking people.
I've been I've been hearing a lot of people talk about this recently, and it sounds really good. I just I noticed it was an early access, and I in my head, I'm always like, well, I'd rather like I don't want to burn myself out before it actually comes out, you know, like I did that.
I guess started released.
It didn't release an early access, but like I feel like I played started too early seeing all the stuff they eventually added to it, and I was like, I don't know if I can go back to it, So like I'm my eye on it.
I'm just waiting for the right time. I guess.
Usually I also of an early access person. The reason I haven't played Hades too is because it's in early access and I prefer to play when they come out. Yeah, this is Dan recommended it. I couldn't help it. I do really love Stardu, so this is obviously up my alley. And something that I'm going to probably continue playing. It's funny I brought up Hades because it's kind of like got the Hades hotness, you know what I mean? You
know everybody was like playing Hades. The game is so well done, but you're also like, I can't not talk about how hot these characters are. Mystery is the same, very well made, Like this is an adorable game. It does what it's seeking very well. It has a couple deviations from Stardu just to make it not literally the same game. But you're ultimately anyone who liked Stardu, You're getting a very parallel experience with this game. But everybody's hot.
I just want to start started so got so much more going on. I played like six months ago, and I had no idea you had them any different starting areas and rules and modifiers.
The modifiers are crazy now when people are like sleeping with other people in that game, because that's new to me. Is that.
Penetration too?
Yeah?
I think it was what update two point seven that added penetration.
Up update six. Here's the twist. We show it. We show all of it. Staff lungering out in the fields, farming comes back, outrageous sexual experience on his young pupil I'm doing. It's always sunny, and it's just clarifying this isn't a fantasy I have.
This is your fantasy too.
Yeah, it could be both.
But the sex stuff in Stardo was that an update? Or is that where people are modding the game?
I think, well, I think it depends.
Like I think people mod it in some real weird ways and probably take it much further than the developer probably intended. Uh.
That said, I'm pretty sure.
The like like you, the whole like child raising stuff was like an update, right, I don't think that was you.
Can legit have babies now and start. Yeah.
I don't think they show them in life, No, I think I think they do show the full birth.
I think it's.
Here's the twist.
You have full crowning, you see everything. You have to cut the umbilical cord. There's a mini game for it.
Yeah, there's like you have to anytime they dilate more than six inches or whatever it is, you have to the analyt sticks like your hands. There's haptic feedback.
Pain modulator for men's bellies that you can feel what it's like to have a contraction.
Yeah, that'd a good use for the next switch.
Yeah.
I've heard that there's a thing that lets guys feel what cramps are like it cramps?
Wow?
Oh like yeah.
Interesting, but for your body.
I don't want to play that game.
Yeah, wouldn't it be nice to just not play?
Yeah?
One of the few times where being a man is easier than being a woman. One of the few instances I should.
Say, yeah, the one. Uh is this a joke? Why do you have Hollow Night on here?
Because I finally played Hollow Night?
Don't start with me, I swear I did.
You hadn't played it, par I tried it when it came out in twenty seventeen, but I didn't finish it, not because I didn't enjoy it, but because it was It came out in twenty seventeen, and there was I think it was twenty seventeen or I played it in twenty seventeen according to Steam. Uh, and there was just so much other stuff. So I finally went back and finished it. Gonna be honest, partly inspired by Dan a little well.
Dan never shuts up about that game, and he was trying to sell Mary on it for a while.
And I'm a little offended that Dan is what convinced you to play Hollow Night and not.
Okay, I wouldn't say it was Dan who convinced me.
A lot of people have been telling me to play Hollow Night because it's one of their favorite games of all time. I mean, you've said so much about it. One of my good friends I visited him in Colorado and he was just all he talked about is Hollow Night. Loves that game, one of his favorite games. So I came back from that trip and I was like, all right, I don't play Hollow Night. Conveniently, Dan was also playing Hollow Night, so he finished it well before I did
because he had surgery and everything. But I was chipping away at it. And it turns out people were right. That game's pretty good.
Great reason, tell us more about, like what you liked about it since your first playthrough.
I'm good, that's it.
That's it.
I've been playing Tavern Manager Simulator.
Nice.
Is that good?
It's actually fucking great. I don't play a lot of sim games because I don't know. They usually don't grip me. This is Tavern Manager Simulator the whole thing. I have to say that because I recommend it to a friend and they googled Tavern Manager and they got a completely different game. So it's Tavern Manager Simulator.
Okay, I see you.
You are the manager of a tavern in an RPG. It's very funny because you'll see people who are like, you know, they look like they came from like Wow, but they're ordering beers and sausages from you. You have to get everything. You have to order the wheat or whatever for your beer, the pops, and you have to order the sausages. You pour the beers yourself. There's mini game for pouring the beer perfectly. If you overpour it, now you've spilled on the floor and you have to
mop up the floor. There's a clean rating for your tavern, and if it gets too dirty, people talk shit about you, so you actually have to like mop the floor, get rid of everybody's like dirty ass footprints. You wash the dishes after people have finished drinking their ale, and they give you money for everything that they ordered, and then you use that money to upgrade your tavern. Obviously, so I got more tables, I increased the things that I
was offering. Originally it was just beer and sausages. But at this point I am doing steaks, soups, beers, and sausages. I got a lot of different stuff. I have a table for six, which is nuts. And then here's the cool part. Because it's set in like an RPG fantasy world, I can employ fairies. So I've hired a faerry to do my dishes, which is like my least favorite task, and I you know, no, it's just a wearing really
monotonous tasks. So as soon as I was able to hire my first fairy, now they do all my dishes and my dirty work, and I get to do the stuff that I like to do, which is usually serving people and kicking out the drunks. It's pretty funny, like they have said it so that like some people drink too much, they like ask for four beers and you serve them and then when they're done, they just flop over, but you have to physically pick them up and hurl them out the front of your bar and boot them out.
There's also an old lady that comes to the front of your tavern is just talk shit about you, and you get a pan to hit her over the head with it to get her out of your bar, which I think is very funny. People shit in my toilet and they clog it, and I have to unclog my toilet. I don't enjoy that mini game, but I haven't been able to assign a faery to unclog my toilet, so that one I have to do. I cook my own soup, I cook the steaks. It's all minigames. None of them
are extremely hard. This is not a difficult or complicated game. I actually really like playing it while I'm watching a TV show. I've been like watching Hacks a lot. I think it's very funny, and I can watch Hacks while I play Tavern Simulator. It's not too distracting. So, like, if anybody's out there who's like, I just want a casual game that I can like half ass play while I'm like watching TV or sitting on my ass or drinking. This is the one you do not have to like
pay attention. You do have to like function while you're playing this game, but you don't have to think very hard. This is like a casual enjoy pretending to be a tavern wench or wenchman.
My first thought looking at this on Steam is I feel like this would be a lot of fun in VR, like it's got that job simulator vibe. I don't know if you guys ever played jobs Inanda or whatever. I think they've made a couple of work simulator. I feel like that be a good time.
I think would be ideal in VR, especially like picking up the trunk and like carrying about hurling their fat ass.
Having that lady with a pan.
Hitting the lady with a pan is funny. So the very first time it happened, I gave her ten dollars and she goes away if you give her money. And then the second time the game was like you've unlocked pan, and I was like, oh good, so that I can make the sausages. And they were like, no, use this to beat the shit out of this old lady that's constantly begging in the front of your tavern and get rid of her. I could not believe that that's what they wanted me to use the pan for. But you know,
one hit and I couldn't quit. I'll never give her money again. I just beat her ass every time I see her tavern. So that's my new system.
I try this out. I what's the last like similar game no No. I played Barren Breakfast and I liked a lot of that game. I feel like it took too long to get to the fun points though I like the actual fact that you're decorating the the in But yep, again, I think it took to it didn't get to the actual, like compelling rewards quickly enough.
I want to get a bit of a slow burn too, like I will prepare you.
It's fine. It's maybe I'm probably phrasing it wrong. It's not I shouldn't say that. It's that Bear and Breakfast took too long to get to the interesting that. It's like, I don't think it pasts it out, So there's long stretches where I feel like I wasn't like doing much at all to like improve my place.
Good games should just really dole that out almost every day, so you feel like you're never doing the same thing. The very first day in this game, you're only pouring beers because you're learning and you're like figuring out the rules. I swear, by like day three, it was like sausages and beers. By like the first week I had soup. I mean, I'm definitely in it at this point. I've been playing for like a little bit longer. But I've
I have upgraded my kitchen several times. I have put up cactuses and beautiful wall decorations, and I've upgraded a lot of different companies. I've upgraded my bar so that it seats more people like I'm at this point, but I do think that you know, you're probably gonna have to give it four hours if you want to be able to play and upgrade like all the food and stuff like that. But I don't think that's a huge investment. And again, what I would argue is is, like everybody's different.
You can play simulation games however you want. But I have found this best on my Steam deck, casually playing this while I'm like enjoying other media, if that makes sense. This is not like Dodo, where I'm like, this is all I'm doing for the rest of the evening and I have all my Snacky's and my drinkies and I'm not leaving my computer. This is a like whatever, I will like casually play this for hours while I'm also talking with my mom on the phone, which.
I did do. Mary, what else have you played?
I have also played Dross. It could be Dross. I'm not really sure. I got this key were my switch, so I dust it off my Nintendo switch, which I have not turned on in a long time because I have a Steam deck now and I'm a changed person.
But the game Dross or Dross is a I want to say, it's like a light puzzler where you are a person in a Night's uniform, but you are also the Gou that is sentient that helps the person in the night armor, and you solve puzzles either together where the night Armor can cut things and open big boxes and is strong and heavy, or you are the goo. The Goo can jump, it's dexterous, but it's really weak
and it can't defend itself. So in a puzzle where it's like, for example, the first area is like a sewer, and you're like, okay, I have to get some machine parts. I need to get to the next portal, but I'm not heavy enough to open up the space. So I bring the Night to the I don't know, it's like a button that you have to stand on to open up a gate. Then I release my goo. My Goo crawls around and opens up a different way so that my Night can get there. It's just puzzle based activities
I don't think they're necessarily complicated. Something I found odd is that it's very much based on completion get a currency that you spend. If you get attacked and get hurt, you spend the currency to essentially like heal yourself. But you want to have enough currency that you get a check mark at the end of the level, so you
don't want to get too hurt. What bothered me about it is is I want to complete all the boxes, so I want to get all the currency, and I want to get the crystal shards, and I want to get whatever the secret thing is that they hide something in the level. But then the last one is time. And in a game where it's all about investigating and learning how to solve the puzzle and not taking too much damage and finding all the secrets, it also wants me to do it in under two minutes and thirty seconds.
So I'm never getting all the boxes ticked because I'm looking for all the secrets, which means each level is taking like seven or eight minutes and I'm totally blowing past the time. And maybe they want me to replay those levels, but I'm not doing that shit. So that was like something that bothered me about it, but it is nice to go back and forth between Heavy Night and Skinny Little Goo solving puzzles. They're simple puzzles, but
I don't know. It passes the time. I'm not mad about it, but I ain't fucking doing it in two minutes and thirty seconds. I don't know why they did that. I don't know why they added that part to it. But that's dross.
Is this?
Is this a first person game?
Uh?
No? You see them like pop down?
Huh?
Because I mean I searched Dross on uh Steam and I got like a boomer shooter looking game that sounds nothing like you just described. So that's kind of interesting. There are two games called DROs.
That's impossible. It's I'll send you the link.
Did I did? I? Maybe I misspelled it? D r O S S d r O S. Oh the odds.
That there's two. This is like the second time that I'm telling you, like, be careful because these games are like so specific.
Yep, Okay, I see the one you're talking about now that that matches more your description.
I yeah, okay, that's so funny. Uh d r O S. Yeah, you're like a little guy and there's an eyeball like sticking out of you. That's the goo, and so the goo is able to like go into pipes and go into tiny spaces. But again, the goo can get killed very quickly. The only thing that doesn't get held quickly is the guy in the night, and he also has a sort so he can like attack bosses and stuff like that, and eventually you get like two boss fight situations.
I'll probably keep playing it. I don't think it's bad at all. I enjoyed like getting through the puzzles that I played so far. My only gripe with it is like, I think it's confusing that you would ask me to solve and find everything, but then also give me a time limit. It's like, well, not a time limit, but they reward you for getting through it in a very short amount of time. And it's like, do you want me to find all the stuff? Make up your mind? Do you mean to do it quickly? Or do you
want me to do it right? So you know that, uh you know that like, uh, what's it called? What is it? When it's two circles and they overlap a little bit and then there's any Okay, it's like that ven diagram. That's about uh Art and it's like do you want it cheap? Do you want it quick? Or do you want it good?
I'm talking about Yeah, that's that's the triangle, right, the production triangle.
It's a triangle. It's been diagram. No, it's it's a triangle.
Yeah, because it's it's arguing with herself and that's.
Cheap and good. You can only pick two?
Yeah, you know it really sucks. Is I didn't know what the word for a Venn diagram is, but I know the word for a triangle, So I could have saved myself a lot. I could have saved myself a lot of hurt if I would have just gone with triangle from the beginning here. But yeah, so anyway, it's kind of like that. The game was like do it fast, complete it and don't get hurt too much, and it's like pick two.
Well, speaking of time limits, did either of you ever play the original Dead Rising?
Yeah?
Yeah, you did love it because I'd got a preview of the remaster a couple of weeks ago last week. But it's like all I've been thinking about love that original game. I think that is like one of the most slept on classics of that generation, super rough around the edges at the time, with that infamous time limit that I think a lot of.
People didn't like, or maybe they did. I don't know.
I don't think people liked it.
I don't know.
I honestly don't know. I think people who like critically people liked it, and people who were into that game were into it. But I think people just bounced off they didn't like it. I don't even know if this was an era where if people hated something they would just like review vombit.
Yeah, I don't think that was a thing.
I'm so wea what have they done with the remasters? Just strictly visual but they've kept everything?
Yeah?
Did they upgrade anything else or just visual?
Yeah?
So, I mean I've only played like the first day and a half, I think, because that was that was all I was.
Able to play for the preview.
They it's basically a lot of quality of life changes plus better visuals. Quality of life includes like better mission tracking, a compass that works better. I don't know if you remember in the original there was just that arrow that kind of floated around and kind of didn't really help much because it was hard to always tell which way it was pointing, especially when it like sporadically tell you to you turn or whatever.
The aiming is much better.
Like once again, I don't know how well you remember that original, but using firearms was almost kind of pointless just because of how bad that aiming was and you couldn't move it like took a page from ri E four, which makes sense at the time, whereas you aim and you just you plant your feet in the ground, don't
go anywhere, but in this you get to move. But man, I think that game holds up so well otherwise, like there are some things that are still kind of funky, Like pretty much every quest ends up being.
A a.
What's it called a mission where you take a person from point A to point B escort mission blanket on the way. And they they sucked so much in that original I remember, and this they're still there because they're so core to the game. But your companions are much better at fending for themselves for the most part. Obviously, every now and then there'll be someone who has like trouble walking or whatever.
You have to hold their hand or have them on your shoulder.
But yeah, I don't know, I'm playing it and It's like man, game design at that time was so much more interesting. I feel like because a lot of these like edges hadn't been sought off, it hadn't been like focus tested where it's like, yeah, we're gonna make every weapon in this every item in this mall a weapon, even though like half of them suck and they serve no purpose, Like you can throw CDs at zombies but
it doesn't do anything. And then like they also like, like the amount of zombies they fit on screen is still kind of impressive, and that was that time where like they're like, yeah, with the power of the Xbox through sixty, we can fit five hundred zombies on screen. And now they're like, yeah, the power of these consoles now, like the lighting looks a little better. And I'm like, I know, I want the days where it's just like
they cram as many zombies as the camp. But anyway, all that to say, I played the preview about a week and a half ago or so, and I can't wait to play the rest of it because game holds up games of classic Oh.
Cool, I love that game. I think that was like around when did that game come out?
Originally it was two thousand and eight or two thousand and seven, six six, it was the care.
Of Bully Oblivion. Yeah, a Company of Heroes half or Twilight Princess. Was that Twilet Princess on GameCube or the Wii?
I think they came out. It was the same time, right on both, but it was twenty you know, it was two. It was when the Wii came out two thousand and seven.
I thought it came out on GameCube first and then it came out on the Wii right after.
I think it was reverse okay, but.
Yeah, either way, Dead Rising was two thousand and six.
What a phenomenal game. I love that the imagery on the Steam page is there's a screenshot of hitting a zombie with a teddy Bear, which is so iconic to this original game because for anyone who did not play the original game, you get to basically make anything a weapon, a bat, a teddy bear, a hat. There's like lego heads that you can put on them.
Slam on zombie heads.
It is silly. It is a silly game, and it does it really well. There's an enemy, there's like a boss fight that's like a clown that's so crazy, with like just a wild ride of a game. And I think I'm really looking forward to an excuse to be in It's a mall, right, like to be in like a mall and just fuck around hours. Yeah, very George Romero, yea in this one? Can you make smoothies? Or is that the next one?
Yep, you can make smoothies. You can you take two ingredients and make a smoothie. And some make you run fast, and it just it looks stupid as hell because you don't actually sprint. You're just still walking really fast, but you zip around the map. There's just there's a charm to this this game that I'd like. I felt like they just kind of slowly kind of got rid of by the time BE four came around.
Yeah, but one is like it's so.
It's so bizarre, like that game would never get made today. Yeah right, I mean I guess it kind of is getting remade, but still.
Yeah, it's got personality and like, actually it's doing something different. Yeah. I want to play that remaster for sure.
Can't wait for that. That's really exciting. I'm glad that you got to play that. That's such a cool experience and memory for me playing that game for the first time, and you know, for its time, I think it was really advanced. I think it was doing things that a
lot of other games weren't doing. A lot of other games were very much keeping you on a path, and this game was like whatever, Like this entire mall is a playpen for you, and you can pick up anything and use it and throw it and hurl it and whatever you really want to do, and then there's just masses of zombies to kill. I think with updated graphics, it's going to be really fun to play. I think streamers are going to love this. I think gamers are going to love coming back to this or just playing
this for the first time. So good idea to make to remaster it and looking forward to playing it.
Yeah, I'm excited to play the rest.
I also like, God, Frank West is such a stupid character. I love him so much, like he and I feel like because they brought him back and forth and he was like I don't know, they like once again like kind of smoothed all the edges. They made him like handsome and like and like an action hero. And in the original he's just kind of he's kind of like a skeazy journalist who has got a weird looking face and like super broad shoulders, and they just it's just it's something else.
It's I can't wait.
To play More Cool looking forward to it. Do you guys want to do emails?
Yeah?
Yeah, okay. As usual, you can write into fires Kit cast at gmail dot com for questions for the show. Get more in. We're getting through a bunch of the recent batch of influx of emails that we got recently, so give us another batch to get through.
And no one's drawn my best friend.
Oh yeah, no one sent in the friend that Mary created from episode what eighty seven eighty six? I think go back and listen to that and send one in. I want to More's stomach, Timtry's chest, my hair, I think Lucy's neck, Lucy's neck. Yeah, it's not gonna make any sense unless you listen, so go back and draw that. We got two emails tonight, Mary, do you want to read this? First one from Alex from Australia.
Yeah, oh Australia, Hello escapers. Dan has told us all many times how cheap his dad is and how proud of that Paul is. But is there anything you're proudly cheap about? Personally? I use a safety razor to shave my head and the cost of that per year is barely north of five dollars, and given it's the cleanest, smoothest shave you can get, I genuinely feel like I'm cheating someone out of something. Love the show Alex and
Bendigo Australia. It's a really good email because I feel like even people who like to spend money, there's something that you're like, I am saving so many dollars. This is a good question. I got a noodle on it for a second. Underwear just don't wear it.
No, he's just been wearing the same pace since he was twelve.
Yeah, I've been going commando for years looking Calvin Klein is always mad at me.
But I always don't know what's worse of that or yeah, we're in the same pair of underway.
I just resell the pair I've had.
I bleach it now.
I'm one of those people who like waits till like the last possible minute to get new underwear, and then I buy like thirty new pairs and then it lasts another like six years.
That's a weird one.
What else I'm proudly I feel like I'm I'm surprisingly cheap about a lot of things unless they're tech related, right, Like I bought like a roadcaster pro so I can you know, do sound effects like that? Which was not cheap? But this sm seven b mic. But other than that, I try not to spend money on much else. Besides that cheap beer usually yea, but the thing is too in San Francisco, like even cheap stuff is usually fucking expensive.
So yeah, I despite my love of good wine, I actually do not spend much money on beer at all. When I get beer, I actually I'm not a verse to slamming some peace ebes. I like PBR. I wouldn't say it's like the most delicious thing I drink, but I'm very up for there's something like the Bat Blue and La bat Blue Light. Especially the latter are the best beer's ever made. I don't know how anybody would top them, So why would I spend more than thirteen dollars on a six pack of beer?
I think I can be cheap when it comes to food in general. I hate food waste, and I'm the kind of person that when I have six different random bits and bobs in my fridge, I will be like well, I'm making the weirdest curry ever, and I will just make sure that I use every part of it because I don't want to waste it, and I paid for it,
and so I feel cheap about it. But I'm also like very cheap about my produce the sense that, like, if green beans are on sale, we're having green beans, even if I did not plan for it, even if there's no reason to do it. I buy what's on sale at the grocery store. I it's ingrain in me. I think, maybe like from when I was a kid and I went with my mother. But like, if there's a bunch of different burger buns, I get the one
that's cheap and on sale. That's what I do. I don't care if I don't have a brand of bagels that I have to have, I buy the one that's cheap. It's fine.
I like to push that too far sometimes where I see something at the grocery store is on sale, Like I had no intention of eating fucking uh like mangoes that week, but they're on sale, so I'm saving money if I get them, like I do out of mind.
You can't afford not to get mangoes.
Yeah, I'm saving four dollars if I buy mangoes compared to the usual zero that I usually buy.
Uh.
Speaking of which, like getting the sales is, I've just bought a frickin' freezer. This is something I think adults do in their adult life, but I finally purchased a freezer for my basement so that when meat is on sale, I can buy it in bulk and keep it in a freezer, and then I can get out my fucking cheap ass two dollars chicken that I bought on super
sale in bulk. I'm also like probably gonna get a Costco subscription because now that I have this freezer, I can buy Hamburger patties in bulk and get a really good deal on Hamburger patties. Like It's just it's always been a part of me, and I've always been limited by my freezer capacity and not anymore. But that purchase is very strictly cheap related, because it's about buying cheap meat in bulk.
Yeah, Meat's not something I'm I skimp on. I don't want to buy.
Cheape I'm a free I will even uh you know, like where they'll they'll put meat on super sale because it's like, hey, you got to eat this, like probably in the next two days. I buy it and then I'm just like, I'll eat it tonight.
Yeah. I like if I see the like red meat, is like, hey, this is on sale and you know, it looks fine, and then I open I smell it, it's fine, I eat it. Chicken, I'm much warrier about I'm risky.
I'm risky with chicken too, but I won't eat if it's gone bad. But like if it's on sale and they're like, you know why it's on sale and like whatever, I'll just eat it immediately. I'll just eat it as soon as possible.
Yeah. I there's like I really really like and I'm not really proudly cheap or with coffee. In fact, I really value like good coffee. Most of the time. On Saturday mornings, my neighborhood has a farmer's market, and I've started getting my coffee from there because this local company brings their coffee, so I get it from there if I can. However, I'm definitely not my palate for coffee. As much as I love it is not that discerning. So if I go to as long as I'm getting
whole bean so I can grind it here. That's my only nitpick, Like I want to be grinding it here. It takes way fresher when you do it yourself. I'll get fucking dunkin Donuts if it's on sale. I love dunkin Donuts coffee. I am pretty proud of Dunkin Donuts. And that's a Northeast thing I think it is. But Starbucks is dogshit dunkin Donuts. I'm proudly cheap about that that I get. Actually, I am pretty proud of that. But otherwise I'll just go for the on sale coffee.
Like if it's like seven dollars for the U, the hole beans perfect, They'll last me a week.
I like good coffee. That's where I that's where I break. I like to have a good cup of coffee. But like I said, like there's certain things I just don't think I can tell the taste difference with, you know, like like bread, I usually just buy whatever is cheapest. Or pasta, you know, like the box pasta.
Yeah that's like eighty five cents or whatever.
And yeah, the cheapest.
Fucking pasta shells you've ever seen in your life. I will buy that shit. It will be Kroger brand. I do not care. It's fine. I'm putting sauce on it.
Like, I don't know why you'd get pasta that's expensed, like unless you're a restaurant, of course, but like at the store now, you're just gonna get the cheapest pasta you can't.
Yeah, this is sort of a roundabout way to answer the question. I've actually been trying to diy more foods, and I don't mean cooking. I cook a lot. I've been trying to make my own Like tonight, for instance, for dinner I made, I had leftover. No, I don't pickle things yet I will at some point. I'm sure I had leftover, like a half of a baguette that we weren't going to eat and it was going stale. So I was like, oh, I'll make my own creutontons.
I've been doing that. Yes yesterday I made what may have been the best meal I've made, if not in my life then in a very long time. The farmer's market again where we have started trying to get most of our groceries because they're all literal people from around here. It's also just cheaper than kings, which if you live in New Jersey or around here, you know, kings can get stupid expensive. In the produce we got like this Chilean sea bass. I was trying to create the dish
from my wedding. I don't know if you guys ordered that. It was like my favorite thing ever, Yeah, it was. So I made miso glaze Chilean sea bass on bosmadi rice, and I made using that same baguette before it went stell, I made my own like parmaganado. I think it's called. It's the breadcrumbs that you'll get on pasta to add texture, like the crunchy texture to like angel hair or any
kind of pasta, I guess. And I put that on the fish with and I just cooked down the marinade from the fish kind of to a reduction bosmadi rice. I looked up how to like make it like that perfect sticky texture. You do one and a half cups water to every one cup rice, and it turned out incredible. But it, like to your point, Mary, of not wasting anything, I'm kind of proud. It's like, oh, okay, so now I know what to do with like stale bread now or I know what to do so I don't waste
all of that marinade. And I know this is these are not these are not like the newest revelations ever. But it's like I'm definitely getting to a point where I'm more confident, like uh, making more use getting a lot out of one ingredient as opposed to just dumping all that marinade down the sink. Once it's done, the fish is done, sitting in it over there.
That's probably what Paul does too, you know, because he's like known for being really cheap, and I bet you he.
Like makes marinate. It makes he doesn't want to make the mirror the sweet wine vinegar. Yeah, it's a very Paul vibe I'm channeling lately.
That's a good one. I think. The last thing I'll say is like, I also am a sucker for deals when it comes to eating out. So usually when I go out to eat, I am paying attention to sales and deals that restaurants do. And one of my favorite things that I like to do is there's a restaurant that I like. It's just a cafe and it has avocado toast and coffee, and on one day of the week, you can get avocado toast a little cheaper, and it's
two pieces of bread with avocado on it. So if me and my partner go and we have two coffees with one avocado toast that we split, it's a seven dollar breakfast, baby damn with tip. You can't get a seven dollar breakfast in the fucking city anymore. That's crazy. That's crazy.
Can't get that anywhere, I'm telling you, Yeah, that's That's another thing. I'm very proudly cheap about diner food, Like I fucking love diner that's I would. I would pay a lot of money for diner food because I just a good diner is like one of the best things in the world. It's up there with dive bars in terms of like just pure things that I never want
to lose. But it's usually not too expensive. Like when I go back to Syracuse when I'm visiting family, there's a couple of diners that I try to hit up all the time, and they have shitty coffee most of the time, and I like.
Shitty diner coffee that I accept. I don't think that that is comparable to like making yourself a sad cup of folgers, like going to a diner and having just diner coffee.
A happy cup of Folgers.
Yeah, that's right, it was made with love.
Bye.
Yeah, but Donda, I.
Was gonna say, I hate paying full price for clothes, like I That's what I'm always looking for sales on like I just ordered the only thing the only exceptional make is usually like Levi's because I have a size and style that fits and I just buy that every time one wears out, which, to be fair, takes a while. But Levi's just had a big sale where they were like selling jeans for twenty dollars and I was like, yep, this is my this is my moment, yeah, closer, big one.
A lot of the shirts I wear are free.
I got them from events or other stuff, except concert shirts. Sometimes I'll splurge on a concert shirt, but those that don't even wear a whole lot because I don't want to ruin them, which is stupid, but you know.
Yeah, there's definitely there's definitely things as as people know that I like don't skimp on. But I'm I'm just as likely there's certain things I really don't care to spend money, and I'm the same way, like I'll go on the same three websites to say, see what they have on style clothes wise, it was.
Say functional stuff like jackets and sweatshirts, mostly jackets like that I'm willing to spend a little more on because I actually want a jacket to work well.
You know, suits, etc.
Like things you need to Yeah, that's sort of stuff that's like has more of a purpose.
But like there's like things that should be expensive because the labor involved with making like a good version of it. Like I don't want to be paying just like one hundred dollars for a suit that I need to be wearing to weddings and potentially funerals and whatnot. Like I don't that's in that middle ground where it's like I might as well splurge because otherwise I'm paying, like I'm going to get what I pay for. But yeah, anything
that's like it can be under fifty dollars. I don't mind going as low as I possibly.
Can, I will say kind of in response to this email right here, I spend a lot of money on haircuts. I still go to the same place, Mike that the people's in on Polk Street, and I think when I first started going there, around the same time you went there first.
You told me about it. Haircuts are forty dollars.
Now they're like sixty five seventy dollars and that's been what six years or so. Yeah, and I what am I going to do? You know, like I don't want to change my heart?
Yeah, that's a kind of place where they give you a drink.
They do.
And I abuse that because it's free, because they can't actually you can't actually like they can't.
Well their facts are alcohol, right, Yeah, but I'm sure they're factoring the price of the haircuts into like the the stocking of alcohol and whatnot.
Yeah, I don't, well, they're averaging it and they're assuming you're not going to ask for four beer.
Yeah, that's when you get them. It's like, that's how you get your sixty five dollars worth of a haircut, is you have slam a sixer right before you get it.
Cheer.
I check in and I walk away from the fridge with just six.
Beerd just even go back to the office.
Oh yeah, sorry, I got my hair cut last week. I'm just.
I'll just do I'll just do a quick trim. Cindy. She does trims like just one side, you're like, okay, that's good and beer. Yeah, yeah, there's I also don't spend much money on razors, but I also don't like I have an electric razor about a while ago, so I don't really shave with other razors. I'm just mentioning, like what Alex and Australia said. Thank you Alex for writing it. Jake, do you want to read this one from Josh?
I'll try. I can't read out loud, but we'll see how this goes.
Are you serious?
I'm really bad at it, so bear with me. I'm writing to you for career advice. As devastating as it was to see Game Informer go, it was great to hear you reminisce about your experiences at the company and talk about the early days of your careers in games media.
I'm twenty three years old from.
Maine who has worked in theater for the last couple of years. As someone with the intention to pivot into filmmaking, I got to ask, how do you find the courage to make the big first move. It's amazing and terrifying to hear stories of people my age taking big risk and getting great gig gigs in the media industry. What advice would you offer to my cohort of ambitious upstarts.
Thank you for the wisdom, josh.
Oh I think that's really sweet. This is a good question. And I actually I just had a call with a nephew of mine who's also early twenties, graduated from film school.
He is in the Buffalo area, and we had this call about like what he wants to do, and he would like to get into film and asked me for some starting tips and tricks of like what I did when I graduated from a video production background to get my start, And the advice I gave him was that you should be joining groups and social clubs and events that will get you around other like minded people that are passionate about film and video because that is where
your job will come from. It is very unlikely that sending out your resume a thousand times, no matter how much you fine tune it, is going to get you
the gig that you're actually looking for. What is more likely to get you that gig is going and doing a forty eight hour game jam with other people who are passionate about film, and one of them also knows somebody who's interested and works in the industry, or you join a group that meets once a month and has coffee and talks about the projects that they're working on. Join clubs, join social groups, find other people that are really passionate about what you do, and go do it
with them. I don't care if it's for free. I am a subscriber of being able to just do it even if it doesn't pay anything in the beginning, just to get your hands dirty, just to get your feet wet, just to get in there. My first job, like legitimate job, because I was a waitress after I graduated college for several years. My first job job was an unpaid internship at a film company. And I got the contact by going to film groups and film clubs in Ohio. That's how I got it. And I said, I will answer
your calls, I will answer the door. I will show up every day, and you don't have to pay me. And they were like fine, And that's how I got my in. Obviously, like there's a long road, and I wish that I could have just gotten a paid gig immediately, But the truth is is that me doing it for
freeze how I got my foot in the door. And so I worked for a film company from nine am to four pm every day, and then I went from my free paid intern gig to my paid waitressing job from five until like nine or ten, and so I essentially just worked double shifts for like six months. And after six months or eight months or something like that,
they were like, we're gonna start paying you. And I still did the uh waitressing job because I needed the money, and so I kind of just kept both for a while until I was able to pivot those resume builders into a job in games media. So, like I do think it requires being hungry, especially and it's in a creative industry because I think they're very competitive because they're fun and beloved. So if it's something you're really passionate about, I would say, like, have some grit and be willing
to do whatever job is offered to you. Not any job, but like a lot of them, for a little bit of pay or even no pay, just to meet the right people and get in the right circles. That's my genuine advice to get started.
Yeah, I'm very much bearing in mind like if not everybody can make huge changes right away, I think it might help. It will help to have a plan, Like Josh, you were saying that you've been working in theater, but you want to transition into filmmaking. Yeah, finding the courage is one thing, but like if you know what you want to do, and like the courage I'd find for most people who are really inspired to make a change
is not the hard part to come by. It's like if you can make some sort of a plan to to Like I don't want to say mitigate risk and just completely like bail on your dream if like there is any semblance of risk, because I think there's always a semblance of risk and nerves anytime you make a
big change. I think having some sort of plan like foundation before you launch wholeheartedly into something like Mary was saying, I think if you can have some sort of structure where you're still working in theater and making like decent money, but you're also like spending some social time and free time getting into these circles and why filmmaking for Addy and slip there like filmmaking and around people who want to make film, and then maybe the opportunities will pop
up there as opposed to just being like quitting your job one day and being like, you know what I'm done. I'm going to go to film school. I'm gonna pay ten thousand dollars to do so, I'm going all in. That can work for some people that have certain like safety nets, et cetera. And like I've made some in retrospect,
I've made some like pretty drastic changes. I made some pretty I took some pretty drastic chances to get into games media, and I was I worked hard, but I was also just lucky enough and in the right rooms and met the right people where it all worked out.
But I would say if you can like keep keep like a foot in in the you know, like this more stable side of things, if you've established yourself in one industry but while you're kind of phasing over into the next, I think that'll make things a lot less hectic.
And I say that as someone who just like the last few years of course, like when I left at Games Editorial that I was very much like, all right, I'm not at a point in my life where I should just like ditch everything on this side of the fence, jump over and then see kind of what's going on Before I really have a plan, you know, there's always going to be some risk, so I guess it's just like you know, approach it. If you're the kind of person who needs like some structure and like planning ahead
of time, like I usually am. I've found that that has helped to like I'm not like a two year, five year plan kind of person, but I have found that it helps to write like a long term to do list, Like like when I was leaving games, editorial was and I still work in games, and like my you know, my editorial skills have translated. So this isn't completely but it sounds like theater into filmmaking would be something similar. Like it's not completely you know, they're adjacent industries.
It's like my long term plan, this is hypothetical. It's like, all right, well, going to keep doing what I've been doing for the past twelve years for a while. But in the meantime, I'm also going to be like, you know, seeing so and so as often as I can at these trade shows. I'm going to be you know, making inroads like with different people on different whether social media or LinkedIn or whatever, and then kind of just get a viable what's going on over there, and then you know,
be asking the right questions from these people. I think it's just a matter of like I think there's this like romantic idea of dropping everything and then like risking everything, and Mary and I have talked about how that has has worked for us. But again, at this point in my life, with like what I know now, if I, like my twenty two year old self was about to do that, I'd be like, you're fucking stupid. Don't do
things like that. It just happened to work out for me, like if you're passionate about something and no one's going to stop you from making that jump. But I do think it's like it pays to have a stable foundation. I think it'll also just help your personally speaking, I think it'll help your mental health to not have every single thing in your life riding on this change. That's my two cents.
At least.
Both of you guys had really good advice. I think, uh, both of those really resonate. I think particularly like finding a group of people who are also interested in filmmaking or whatever your passions are are super important because that will mobilize you, that will encourage you, that will that will drive you. I also think, like with filmmaking in particular, I wouldn't say it's gotten easier, but I do think the tools are like right there in front of you.
And especially if you're if you've worked in theater, you probably know actors. Like I just I don't know exactly what you want to do in filmmaking, but I just write, write short scripts that have two people in them. Get your friends together, shoot it on an iPhone if that's all you got. But if you've got DSLR, if someone's got a DSLR, like just shoot stuff.
Shoot as much as you.
Can, write as much as you can, but write in a way that you know you could film it. Because just practicing, like just working, like exercising that muscle is super important because I think, especially with film, a lot of people are like, yeah, that's what I want to do, but then they don't actually act on any of those ambitions. But like, especially you know you're twenty three, you've got actors nearby. Usually finding actors can be pretty tough. Doesn't
need to be crazy productions. Just make a five page script and spend a Sunday making it. Post it on YouTube, post it on video or on vimeo. Hell, if you're happy with it, send it to film festivals. I guarantee you their film festivals that will accept it, like you know, if it's five minutes, if it's if it's coherent, if it has some sort of direction to it, some sort of artistic flair to it, Like there's probably an audience for it, and you may not find it right away, but probably out there.
Yeah.
I mean, like I got, i'd say incredibly lucky as well. Like I went to film school, but I went to community college, which apparently means a very different thing outside of California and California are community college is usually pretty good, but I hear outside of California, community colleges are kind of shit. I don't know if that's true, but that's what people have told me. But anyway, I didn't pay
anything for that because it was community college. I lived in the area, I had financial aid, And I think the most important thing I got from that is just meeting people who also wanted to make films and short films, and even like I just raped production or I just rap post production on a short film I did earlier this year, and like the person who produced it, I
went to school with the assistant director. I went to school with the cinematographer I used to work with the editor I used to work you know, it's just like it like I had an entire group of people to pull from and it was all just people I knew, and a lot of them were from school, you know, a lot of them were just people I met through work. Some I didn't even know we're interested in that sort of thing, but they were. And you know, yeah, that's I would say, just start doing shit.
Yeah, you've been doing more fictional filmmaking lately than finding some success and doing some exciting shit, which I'm excited to see.
Yeah, just finished the short film that we sent to a bunch of film festivals. Have not heard back from any, so we'll see how it goes. But but yeah, and that was just like that came about because a friend of mine who I met in school, wrote a script and he was like, hey, you should direct this, and I was like, I can certainly try. And you know, we got in touch with my friend who was a producer, and like it just it just spirals. It's spirals, just
based on people, you know. So if you don't have that school connection, like Mary was saying, like go to clubs, I mean, fuck it. I hate Facebook, but like, there's got to be a main filmmaker.
Are usually based on you know, like your local city usually will have some kind of club that helps. Sometimes LinkedIn has them, but I find LinkedIn so gross. Sometimes I'm just like, I have a hard time recommendation anymore. It just doesn't feel genuine. Every time someone posts, I just feel like they're straight up lying.
There's a lot of.
Market lie on LinkedIn.
Yeah, it's it's largely like cmos and bizz dev. People use it for their like for their companies, like my wider company uses a lot it's. It's it's almost less less social media and more like an extension of the marketing arm for each company. So yeah, it's got a It's got a different sheen to it for sure than
like Instagram or Twitter is gonna. But yeah, I found a lot of I've been like looking for like wine tasting group in New York, and there is a surprising number of like Reddit threads for other people looking for it. I think there's always gonna be someone else looking for the same thing. You are, You're you're not, You're never gonna be the only person with an interest in your area. I feel like unless you live in like Greenland than in which case, how are you listening to podcast?
I would say, like in terms of courage, like I like, I think what Mike said speaks a lot to that, where it's like, if you're kind of taking a measured approach to it, you don't necessarily need courage, you just need a plan.
Yeah, thank you for writing in, Josh, And that's our show. Like I said, everybody rite in. We get more questions that the getting through that was eighty eight. We just warped in the Dolore in this episode. Yeah, Dan is gonna. I think we'll be back next episode. Jake, always to have you on for anybody who might not know. Jake is the lifeblood of the podcast and does all the production for it and make sure it, make sure it sounds good, looks good, gets up on time. Jake, What
do you have going on outside? I know you talked about warframe stuff, but what else is going on at game Spot and film stuff?
Oh god, I mean I have this short film that's.
Supposed to go to some film festivals later this year and then hopefully I'll release it to a you know, Vimeo, YouTube or whatever, probably.
One it is it just you. Is it a small crew? What is it?
It's like thirty people. There's a cast of six people. Cast is kind of cool. Actually, one of the guys was on, uh No, one of the guys was on I think you should leave though, oh neat, and then someone else was on curb your enthusiasm, and then yeah, we had like a full crew. Andrea was the cinematographer.
I love Drea.
Yeah, former spot.
Often Drea and twitch. I hired Drea as a videographer or cinematographer for a lot of freelance stuff. And what's really fucking crazy is that there was like a couple opportunities where we were like, hey, I think this could be a full time role. Andrea would be like, no, I only want to work freelance so that I can make my independent films. I don't give a shit about anything else. I will do this because I need the
money and the work and it's good for me. But ultimately, she's been put on this earth to make her independent films and I respect that so much that I like love working with her.
Yeah, she fucking rules.
I mean she came and clutch many times throughout that production, like had connections to get us a nice camera, like just all once again, like just connections.
You never know where these connections are going to come from.
But yeah, that short film, I would say. Game spot wise, Yeah, I don't know. I'm sure there's some shit coming up.
Mary, what about you?
Same as usual right now, I'm just streaming every Monday. I've been streaming a lot of the games that I'm talking about. So if you want to get a first look at what I'm thinking when I'm playing these games, check out the twitch. Honestly, I think that's it because I'm preparing for twitch Con in one month. It's literally four weeks away, so that's where all my energy is going. But I will be in San Diego in four weeks for twitch Con.
And I am just here in terms of forward facing stuff. All my other day job stuff now is behind the scenes. Well cool as usually. You can go to firescapecast dot com if you want to be a patron and get ad free tier episodes or video vers of episodes, or if you just like what we do and want to contribute and treat it as a tip jar so to speak, to fund our bonus episodes, but especially our end of the year Game of the Year extravaganza that we've done for the last This will be our fourth this year.
But inspired it all as well, because we wouldn't be here without the Christmas Special, because that's kind of.
What the first thing we did was the halfway through twenty twenty, wasn't it? Oh?
I thought it was the Christmas Special. We thought that was like this very first time we all got together as.
Oh yeah, I thought you meant the whole thing that inspired fire Escape.
Well, what I'm saying is that the first time we all got together is kind of what led to fires in correct. I also wanted to say we also had a new episode of Kanini, So if anybody likes watching me and Mike play Resident Evil once every three months, we've released a new episode and it's pretty good.
Are you guys almost done?
They have to thank episode us You're about to kill Fight Krowser. Two episodes Max left.
We got to.
Yeah, go subscribe to a firescape cast YouTube channel, just so you see that when they come up and we put our bonus episodes there, you're not going. If it's a patron bonus episode, you won't see that. Those obviously go up unlisted and you put the we put the link on Patreon. But if it's just a if it's a bonus episode for everybody, or rather just a public episode for everybody, will go up on that channel. You can also go to fireskate merch dot com. You can
get the summer stuff is still there. That's at that's at fourth wall, I believe. But Fireskate Merch. Go look at our Patreon, our Instagram. You can find our merch links and go buy some cool stuff. Don't buy the Star Wars scroll mouse path. Sorry, don't buy the sci Fi scroll mousepad or the shirt. No one wants to see that in public. But anyway, thank you everybody for joining this episode eighty eight. We're getting toward one hundred.
I think we did the math. It'll be like February when we do one hundred, figure out something fun for that and then yeah, we'll start talking in the next month or two about what we're gonna do. End of the year wise, I'm sure will be fun and dumb. I still have like four big games I need to catch up on so I can be all of you in an argument about all of them. So it'll be fun. But in the meantime we'll see everybody else in two weeks. Until then, have fun, be good, see y'all.
See y'all, and thanks again for having.
Me see you. Stop Stop