Free Play Podcast - podcast cover

Free Play Podcast

Love Thy Nerdwww.lovethynerd.com
The Free Play Podcast, a conversation between a Southern Baptist, a hippie emo father of millions, and a retired Disney princess about the Love Thy Nerd community, the games they play, and the world of gaming culture at large. Part of the Love Thy Nerd Podcast Network.
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Episodes

Free Play Special | Mac & Cheese Queen

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! Help Support LTN in 2025: lovethynerd.com/give As a part of the LTN Giving Tuesday Ex-Stream-aganza, Kate returns to reunite with Matt & Bubba to talk about what they've been playing, reading, watching in nerd culture, learn some weird fun facts, and debate Thanksgiving side dishes.

Dec 06, 20241 hr 49 min

Free Play 186 | Game Over (The Series Finale)

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! This podcast has been going for 6 and 1/2 years and today is the final episode. So what are our hosts doings? Basically flying by the seat of their pants like the good ‘ol days. They talk about nonsense, have some laughs, and play 2 games that Radio Matt put together. Thank you so much for giving this show a great run these past several years. Everyone involved had a blast with all of you and can’t believe you actually listen to and enjoy this hot mess of a s...

May 22, 20241 hr 30 min

Free Play 185 | Most Iconic Video Game Characters of All Time

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! In the penultimate episode of Free Play, Bubba, Matt & Kate go through the BAFTA list of the Most Iconic Video Game Characters of All Time and see if the list lines up with their opinions. Who's in the number 1 spot? It's not who you think.

May 08, 20241 hr 8 min

Free Play 184 | Outgrowing Nerdiness

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! Do we ever truly outgrow our nerdiness or is it a “once a nerd always a nerd” type thing even if you’re not actively engaging in anything nerdy? The power of nostalgia is more real now than it’s ever been and people are coming back to their old love of games and nerd culture, but what about the ones that don’t?

Apr 10, 20241 hr 15 min

Free Play 183 | Kate Said What?

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! On this chaotic installment of Free Play, the gang get to play a special game created by the one and only Radio Matt, where they take a deep dive into the history of Free Play to remember Kate's quotes from past episodes.

Mar 13, 20241 hr 21 min

Free Play 182 | Ask Us Anything 2024

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! We gave you, our dedicated listeners, the chance to ask whatever questions you wanted as part of our final season and the things you submitted were... Let’s just say “on brand”.

Feb 28, 20241 hr 17 min

Free Play 181 | Halftime Heat (Final Season Premiere)

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! On the Final Season premiere (yes... final, we’ll get into it), Bubba, Matt & Kate bring even more chaos and unhinged vibes to kick things off for the 10th season! They recap what they’ve been playing throughout the season break, what’s next for them, and their deep-dive random thoughts into the Super Bowl, half time show, commercials, and predictions for 2025’s halftime show....

Feb 14, 20241 hr 32 min

Free Play 180 | Reboots: Do We Need 'Em? (Season 9 Finale)

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! In our season finale, Matt, Bubba, and Kate end Season 9 with the usual foolishness and introduce a new segment called “Do We Need ‘Em?”, where they look at some items and decide if we need them or not. Today, they’re looking at reboots of Harry Potter, the original Star Wars movies, and the concept of a new Marvel movie featuring original cast and characters that may no longer be part of the Marvel universe if you know what we mean. Matt is back on Twitch! T...

Nov 29, 20231 hr 32 min

Free Play 179 | Matt & Bubba Go To War

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! In an episode that is unhinged chaos, even more than usual, Kate updates us on the latest challenge issued to Matt and Bubba from her uncle’s nerd friends about a Dice Throne competition.

Nov 15, 20231 hr 24 min

Free Play 178 | Dice Throne Family Feud

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! This week’s episode is jam packed with even more chaos than usual. Drama arises between Kate’s uncle, Matt, and Bubba over a single game of Marvel Dice Throne that took 4 hours to complete. Is it fine to just let someone play a game even if it's not correct or when gameplay is stalled by analysis paralysis?

Oct 18, 20231 hr 25 min

Free Play 177 | Better Late Than Never (Season 9 Premiere)

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! It’s been a wild summer and the gang is so glad to finallyyyyy be back at it on the illustrious Free Play podcast which will be more unhinged than ever this season, guaranteed. Matt, Bubba, and Kate catch up on what they’ve been into, the art and value of collecting nerdy things, the new direction of this show, and of course, the chaos that usually occurs when they try to do anything....

Oct 04, 20231 hr 24 min

Free Play 176 | PiiU-S5 (Season 8 Finale)

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! In the season finale of Free Play, Matt & Bubba talk about the PlayStation Showcase - and the Handheld that is much more reminiscent of the WiiU controller than the Switch.

May 30, 20231 hr 22 min

Free Play 175 | TOTK First Impressions

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! Tears of the Kingdom is out and making waves in the gaming world. Matt & Bubba give you their first impressions in the penultimate episode of this season.

May 23, 20231 hr 17 min

Free Play 174 | Twitter Blues

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! Many odd things have happened since Elon Musk took over Twitter. The latest has been the upheaval of the verification system which had really helped in separating the trolls from the rich and famous. Now…. not so much. When you have verified accounts tweeting about Russia/Ukraine bombings and celebrities trying to get rid of their blue checkmarks, you know things are going off the rails. Is verification something really worth having? What was the point before...

May 09, 20231 hr 21 min

Free Play 173 | Deep-Faked Drake

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! What if I sent you a link to an awesome song that was just released on Spotify by Drake and The Weeknd. It sounds just like their voices and just like their production. Turns out, it's a song created by an AI who has been trained to emulate music by the two artists and Universal Music Group is rallying to get it removed from the interwebs. If a song is created completely by an AI, then who owns it? The people it’s “inspired by” even if it’s not them singing?...

May 02, 20231 hr 18 min

Free Play 172 | Zelda Hype

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! Tears of the Kingdom is releasing in a few short weeks and Free Play is discussing Matt’s hopes, dreams, and fears about this long awaited experience. There are so many theories about what this game will mean for the Zelda franchise when it comes to story, gameplay, and beyond and no one wants to miss out on the hype. Kate also put together what she thought would be a fun segment at the end of the show that she will never repeat: Zelda trivia....

Apr 25, 20231 hr 22 min

Free Play 171 | Mario Movie: Better Than It Had Any Right to Be

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! With Matt out of the office for the day, Bubba and Kate chat about reading people’s texts over their shoulder in airplanes, if deviled eggs are good or not, and most importantly: their thoughts on the Super Mario Movie and the brilliantness of Jack Black. Also, do critic’s thoughts matter about the movie if they literally have no idea about anything Mario?...

Apr 18, 20231 hr 19 min

Free Play 170 | Super Nintendo World

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! There is a lot happening in the world of Free Play this week. Matt recaps PAX East and his disappointments with Nintendo’s lackluster Zelda presence. E3 is canceled. They’ll talk about the new Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios and throw together some ideas for a Zelda theme park that are pretty dang good. Matt and Kate also introduce a new segment about celebrity coffee orders that blew Bubba away....

Apr 04, 20231 hr 18 min

Free Play 33 | Lost Episode | Game of the Year 2018

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! In this lost episode from the earlier days of the Free Play Podcast, Bubba, Matt & Kate discuss the contenders for Game of the Year for the 2018 VGA's. The likely reason this never made it to the podcast feed was due to the length, coming in at just under 17 minutes, recorded after multiple failed attempts from computer issues.

Mar 28, 202317 min

Free Play 169 | The Last of Us: Season 1

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! Season 1 of the HBO adaptation of The Last of Us wrapped this past week and as fans of Naughty Dog and Sony’s original games, Bubba, Matt & Kate wanted to chat about it. HBO really set the bar high for future gaming IPs turned into live action shows and movies. They cast some ideas for seasons 2 and 3 of the show, the possibility of a Last of Us Part 3 game, and how much Pedro Pascal is TOO MUCH Pedro Pascal. If that’s even a thing....

Mar 21, 20231 hr 17 min

Free Play 168 | LTN Turns 5

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! We’re celebrating LTN’s 5th birthday and can’t believe how fast the time has gone. So much has happened in the past five years and looking back brings up a lot of memories. Kate took the time this week to come up with some hard hitting questions to interview Matt, Bubba, and herself about LTN’s future and some things that they hold near and dear to their hearts from the past five years. HBD Love Thy Nerd!...

Mar 07, 20231 hr 24 min

Free Play 167 | Netflix Tabletop Games

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! Every once in awhile, Bubba sends something Kate's way that she's actually interested in. This week, it was a link to The Last Kingdom Board Game Kickstarter from Gamelyn Games. The Last Kingdom Netflix series is one of Kate's favorite shows, so she was super pumped to see this even though tabletop games aren’t her area of expertise. That got them curious about other Netflix IPs that have been turned into tabletop experiences....

Feb 21, 20231 hr 17 min

Free Play 166 | E3 Without the Big 3

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! E3 has had a rough time the past couple years with cancellations and the event held online. 2023 marks a return to in-person for both the press and the public but Nintendo, Sony, and Xbox won’t be attending. Without E3, these big companies have figured out that releasing their announcements on their own schedule without relying on a once a year expo probably works out way better. What will E3 look like without the Big 3? Is this marking the end of this expo a...

Feb 14, 20231 hr 15 min

Free Play 165 | Non-Linear Streaming

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! Welcome to Season 8 of the Free Play podcast! During the break, Bubba, Matt & Kate watched Kaleidoscope, Netflix’s non-linear streaming experience where you can watch the episodes in any order, except for the last one. Netflix automatically randomized the episodes based on viewers location. Engaging in non-linear storytelling isn’t exactly new to us as nerds, so what makes this experience different? Plus, catch up on what's been going on over the break an...

Feb 07, 20231 hr 16 min

Free Play 164 | Nerds of Christmas Past

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! Free Play’s “cut-man”, CJ Burroughs, suggested Bubba, Matt & Kate chat about some of their memories about nerdy Christmas gifts that they received as young nerds way back when. They also want to cover the 2022 Game Awards Game of the Year nominees and throw their guesses out ahead of the award show next week. This is the Season 7 finale!

Dec 06, 20221 hr 17 min

Free Play 163 | Who Doesn’t Love Killer Microwave AI?

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! Some people, like Bubba, look upon the impending era of our AI overlords with excitement and joy. Others, like Kate, are a little unsure. And stories with headlines like “Someone turned their imaginary friend into an AI microwave and it wanted to kill them” do little to change her opinion. This story was submitted by community content producer Ryan Eighmey and sparked a conversation about whether or not the experiment was real or a cautionary tale about our A...

Nov 22, 20221 hr 16 min

Free Play 162 | Our Biggest Gaming Disappointments

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! Have you had a disappointment in the game space that really bummed you out? Never fear, the Free Play Podcast is here to help you recover and move on. After Kate had an underwhelming God of War Ragnarök release day, they’re talking all about gaming disappointments they’ve had and how we can all get to a better place.

Nov 15, 20221 hr 24 min

Free Play 161 | LTN Con 2022 Recap

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! LTN Con is one of our favorite weekends of the year here at Love Thy Nerd. It’s a time of coming together as a community, playing games, and learning how to love and serve our nerdy neighbors better. We had some incredible keynote and breakout sessions, vendors, and opportunities to extend our online relationships into real life. Bubba and Kate were there, had an absolute blast, and wanted to recap the weekend with all of you. That’s what they want to talk ab...

Nov 01, 20221 hr 18 min

Free Play 160 | The Super Mario Movie Trailer

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! Nintendo finally reveals a teaser trailer for the Super Mario Movie at New York Comic Con. Fans are protesting online about Chris Pratt’s performance (even with barely a sentence uttered). Bubba and Kate nerd out about what we loved from the trailer, what they’re looking forward to with the movie, and speculating about what some of Nintendo’s goals are along with the partnership with Illumination and Universal....

Oct 11, 20221 hr 15 min

Free Play 159 | Did Twitch Mess Up?

Join the Kickstarter for Botch Dice! Twitch has taken creators by surprise in a bad way with their latest announcement. They stated how revenue splits for bigger streamers will go from 70/30 to 50/50.This information has the Twitch community up in arms. As it should because this information isn’t exactly fair. Will Twitch’s mistake be the first step in leveling the playing field for competition and innovation for streaming platforms?...

Oct 04, 20221 hr 16 min
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