A Warg is hunting the podcast for food! Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Rimworld, a colony sim strategy game. Rimworld is one of those games that you probably either already love or have never heard of, which is to say, it is exactly what its audience wants it to be, but appears absolutely inscrutable from the outside looking in. In Rimworld, your goal is predominately just to survive by collecting resources, managing colonists, and handling combat, all of whi...
Aug 11, 2023•1 hr 44 min•Ep. 154
Oh no! They podcasted the building down! Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Chop Goblins, a surprising-in-many-ways FPS by David Szymanski. Chop Goblins is short, with only five levels and five weapons, and can be beaten for the first time in two hours or less, but because of this it never overstays its welcome and keeps introducing new things over the course of the game, including new enemy types. The titular Chop Goblins are not a design that is easy to take se...
Aug 05, 2023•43 min•Ep. 85
Next time we meet, I’ll have lived a good full podcast. Welcome back to the finale of Spooktember in July! Today, we’re going to be talking about Ghostwire: Tokyo, a first person shooter game from Tango Gameworks, the developer of The Evil Within. Ghostwire is a sort of a horror game, but with an emphasis on magical first-person combat and Japanese culture, which makes it sort of an odd experience because of where its priorities seem to be. The open world parts of the game are in a lot of ways b...
Jul 29, 2023•1 hr 32 min•Ep. 153
If this is podcast, we never should have climbed down from the trees. Welcome back to Spooktember in July, the month where we barely even know what’s going on anymore. Today, we’re talking about Ghostrunner, a first person platformer action game where you have to execute difficult platforming while avoiding bullets and doing cool cyberpunk sword tricks. It is a categorically awesome concept in all the ways that games can be, really. The obvious first comparison to make is to Neon White, which we...
Jul 22, 2023•53 min•Ep. 84
How dare you talk about saving your podcast when you’ve murdered mine? Welcome back to the podcast, and to our delightfully themed Spooktember in July. We’re concluding our first set of games with Resident Evil: Village, currently the latest main series, non-remake Resident Evil game, and one that received a lot of hype prior to release thanks to a marketing strategy that involved a nine foot tall vampire lady. One of the first things you might notice in the game itself is how it relates to othe...
Jul 15, 2023•1 hr 49 min•Ep. 152
“Fun” rhymes with “podcast” for a reason, stranger. Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about the Resident Evil 4 Remake that was released this year. Why are we talking about this game on Pocket? Well, we wanted to squeeze it in closer to its release date and the focus of the episode is mainly going to be on the way the remake differs from the original, rather than our typical beat by beat discussion of the game itself. This resulted, of course, in an hour long Pocket e...
Jul 08, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 83
Expand-a-band-band, podcast stash! Welcome back to the podcast! We took a bit of an extra long time with this one, but if you’ve played this game, I imagine you’ll understand why. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a massive open world game and the sequel to Breath of the Wild, the game that some people said redefined what open world games should be. To an extent that is true, and we have already seen a lot of its impact on the genre, but Tears of the Kingdom adds a pretty significant ...
Jul 01, 2023•2 hr 2 min•Ep. 151
One whiff of this and you’ll have your throat slit over the last tin of podcasts. Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket! Today, we’re going to be talking about The Bunker, an FMV adventure game with a surprising level of production value. We chose to cover this game partly because we had played it before, and there are several other things coming up that are going to take up a lot of our time, and also partly just to expose ourselves as people who keep really hoping for an FMV game to really knock our s...
Jun 10, 2023•42 min•Ep. 82
It is decreed that one shall pound the podcast. Welcome to the 150th episode of NOCLIP! Today, we’re celebrating, in a way, by finally talking about Super Mario 64, one of the single most defining video games of all time. Platformers, and probably games generally, were changed forever following the success of Mario 64, and that influence is impossible to deny. We’re going to be looking at that influence, and specifically, the problem solving that went into making this game work as well as it did...
Jun 03, 2023•1 hr 54 min•Ep. 150
Why is every podcast fish? Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket, and our final episode from Mystery May! Today, we’re talking about Octodad: Dadliest Catch, a game about an octopus doing his best to blend in with human society. The game is straight out of the Goat Simulator era of physics-based games, and owes a lot to all the QWOP-inspired physics hell games that came before it, but what makes Octodad stand out is that it’s just much more playable than most other games in the genre. In Octodad, you co...
May 27, 2023•40 min•Ep. 81
What is love known by? When it hurts to say “Welcome to NOCLIP.” Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we are doing as the dice instructed per the rules of Mystery May and playing Child of Light. Another game that’s been on our list for a while, Child of Light is an Ubisoft developed RPG that showcases the studio’s “UbiArt Framework” engine that was designed with the intention of being able to develop with artist’s ease of use specifically in mind. As a result, Child of Light is a game that has an...
May 20, 2023•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 149
Take out the reptile, first of all. Welcome back to the podcast! For our first Mystery May title for Pocket, we managed to roll a critical miss, forcing us to do an epilogue episode on Rascal, probably the worst game we’ve covered for the podcast. What started as a joke episode based on a history with the game became probably the podcast’s most enduring reference point for things being done badly and given how old the episode is, it probably was high time we took another stab at it. This episode...
May 13, 2023•51 min•Ep. 80
All those years ago, Tim had left the podcast behind. Welcome back to the podcast! For our first episode in Mystery May (but with rolling dice instead of solving mysteries), we’re going to be talking about Braid! Braid, as honestly you’re probably already aware, is a puzzle platformer that received a massive amount of recognition and acclaim when it launched on the Xbox Live Arcade way back in 2008. Far more puzzle than platformer, in Braid you use standard platforming controls and the ability t...
May 06, 2023•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 148
Podcasts that are once lost cannot be reclaimed. Welcome to the very first (kind of) NOCLIP Epilogue! On this series, that we’ll come back to every once in a while, we’re going to be revising some of our earliest episodes to rehash our discussions but with more media literacy and higher quality audio. For our first formal entry in the series (not counting Undertale, which we did as a primer to the Deltarune series, which, you know, we’ll get back to at some point), we’re going to be covering Sha...
Apr 29, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 79
Not bad for a dead podcast, huh? Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Neon White, a first person platformer with a little bit of shooting in it. First person platformers aren’t exactly rare, per se, but they’re less common than the majority of other types of games in the genre, and so it’s worth considering the intentionality of its choice when a game comes out that uses the perspective. Neon White is maybe one of the best uses of the genre that I’ve ever seen. Bec...
Apr 22, 2023•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 147
At least I’m not ugly and annoying! Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket! Today, we’re talking about Perfect Tides, a point and click adventure game in true throwback fashion. With a pixel art style and several ways to interact with your environment, you explore the island of Perfect Tides solving puzzles and picking up inventory items. Yet, this isn’t really the draw of the game. It can be, if you’re looking for an adventure game that’s like the classics, but more forgiving, but the character work is ...
Apr 15, 2023•47 min•Ep. 78
Close your heart to it. Welcome back to the podcast! Today we’re going to be talking about God of War: Ragnarok, Santa Monica Studios follow up to 2018’s God of War. And honestly, you in all likelihood know what this game is all about, so let’s just jump into it. Ragnarok is a direct continuation of the events in the previous game, and more than that, it almost feels like a direct continuation of the development of that game. It builds entirely off the systems that existed in the first game but ...
Apr 08, 2023•1 hr 51 min•Ep. 146
If you need me, I’ll be in the podcast cellar. Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket this week! Today we’re talking about Jazzpunk, an unorthodox adventure game from 2014. When I say unorthodox, what you do in the game from a base mechanical level is pretty normal, moving around and interacting with objects and your inventory to solve puzzles and progress, but the logic of the game and the scenarios you play through are all pretty surreal and feel designed around the question “why not.” The game isn’t t...
Apr 02, 2023•43 min•Ep. 77
[Cross-post due to scheduling issues] Welcome back to FWTBT, where we eulogize empanadas and bereave burritos! Today, by popular demand we’re going to be going over the Loaded Griller trilogy and breaking down Taco Bell’s breakfast menu to see where it went wrong, plus so, so much more. So buckle in, because this episode is going to be XXL Stuft with historical menu item content.
Apr 01, 2023•25 min•Ep. 41
This is a podcast that is actually a podcast. This is a big step for us. Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re talking about Shadows Over Loathing, a turn based RPG and a follow up to Kingdom of Loathing and West of Loathing, the latter of which we’ve covered on the podcast before. The Loathing games are all RPGs, but the combat isn’t really the part of the game that should draw you in. It’s pretty unbalanced in the player’s favor, and you shouldn’t have much trouble making it through no mat...
Mar 25, 2023•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 145
Thank you, but the podcast is in another coffin. Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket! Today, we’re talking about Vampire Survivors, the game that seemingly everyone has played. Vampire Survivors released in a form of early access on PC and mobile, and grew a pretty large player base by the time it hit its official release last year and has since popularized a genre that it has become the blueprint for, coincidentally similar to its main inspiration, Castlevania. In a Survivors game, the player defeats...
Mar 18, 2023•57 min•Ep. 76
Adds one podcast every one week. Resets on shield break. Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re finishing up our listener suggested games for Fanbruary by talking about Gunfire Reborn. Gunfire Reborn is a co-op first person shooter roguelite title with an emphasis on multiplayer play. This is a very mechanics focused game, with the primary enjoyment coming from the loop of gradually improving your character abilities, finding new and better guns and experimenting to see what works. As such, b...
Mar 11, 2023•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 144
You’ve been cursed…to podcast. Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket, and our final Pocket episode for Fanbruary! Today, we were suggested Cursed to Golf, an indie roguelike golf title, which is just the kind of genre fusion to get you excited. Cursed to Golf uses what has been established as the “golf video game mechanics” where you play a timing minigame to set your shot power and the angle of your shot and then the physics system takes it from there, but places them within something akin to a precisi...
Mar 04, 2023•49 min•Ep. 75
An enemy wizard is approaching your podcast! Welcome back to the podcast! Today, for the first main episode of Fanbruary, we’re going to be talking about Sacrifice, an RTS title from 2000. Sacrifice is billed as an RTS game without a bunch of resources to manage, and it in fact does have only three: your health, mana and souls, the resource you use to summon units, but this did not stop us from being overwhelmed and bad at it. If you are looking for nuanced discussion of the game from seasoned R...
Feb 25, 2023•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 143
Dangerous podcast grows in the northeast. Keep it secret. Welcome back to NOCLIP Pocket, and to Fanbruary! We’re back from our time off from the podcast and are diving into games suggested by listeners, the first of which is Strange Horticulture, a plant-based puzzle game that tasks you with identifying supernatural plants and using them to fulfill requests and solve puzzles. That’s the type of description where you’re probably either grabbed by it or not and it exists to fill that particular ni...
Feb 16, 2023•55 min•Ep. 74
Beep beep! Welcome back to another, uh, sneaky episode of NOCLIP Pocket! Today we’re talking about Hidden Folks, which is a hidden object game and the first game in the genre we’ve talked about. Spurred by a conversation from an earlier episode, we tried finding what a majority of people would consider the “best” game in this genre, as it’s one we have functionally zero experience with, and Hidden Folks was suggested by a pretty large number of sources. And honestly, I can see why. If you have a...
Jan 07, 2023•34 min•Ep. 73
For accomplishments in ball smashing We are closing out yet another year, and like your New Year’s resolution or the mirror in your bathroom the day after a New Year’s Eve party, it’s time for some necessary but unwanted reflection. We had a year of pretty diverse games this time around, and so we have further complicated our awards, giving them inscrutable titles and measuring more abstract criteria than ever before. Not to say we don’t weigh in on quality, as our best and worst of the year are...
Dec 31, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 2022
Podcast Kids 2! Welcome back and happy holidays! We decided to look back to our own childhoods this month, and to cap it off appropriately during this year’s very unfortunate winter cold snap, we’re going to be talking about Snowboard Kids 2. This is an N64 kart racer, but still not the one you think of when you hear someone say “N64 kart racer.” And also there are no karts. And your snowboards evidently don’t need snow to function. Snowboard Kids 2 is an enigma. It’s a racing game, featuring po...
Dec 24, 2022•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 142
Podocasta. Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re talking about Gorogoa, a puzzle game centered around manipulating the four discrete sections of the screen to progress. While not being too difficult a game, as many dedicated puzzle games tend to be, the depth comes from the sheer number of creative ways they use the core conceit. You can shift quadrants around, which can sometimes uncover additional tiles, create a transparent layer to overlay on another tile, or align two tiles showing disp...
Dec 17, 2022•41 min•Ep. 72
That’s a hit podcast for groovy cats. You just don’t dig it. Welcome back to the podcast and to the final month of the year! Today, we’re going to be talking about Space Station Silicon Valley, a fairly strange puzzle platforming game from 1998 from a developer that would go on to become Rockstar North. When I say “fairly strange,” I’m predominately talking about its concept: you play as a robot’s CPU and are able to jump into and control a variety of robot animals which you then use to accompli...
Dec 10, 2022•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 141
