Guys, you ever stop to wonder with all the things happening in this globe, in this world, maybe we're just part of one big simulation game. Simulation games. Today on welcome, everybody. Another episode of press be to cancel. We're back again this week. This week we're talking simulation games from the Mimi games to the serious ones. Yes, it's Germany's favorite podcast. We're in the top 100 somewhere. It's also their favorite genre. I am your host this week, sick Jake. But I'm not alone. No. I'm joined by some good friends of mine and a special guest, starting with sister. Sister. How you doing this week?
I'm doing well. How are you? It's. It's good to be back. I feel out of practice. I got Covid, and it blew all this shit up.
Well, you had Covid. I was in Florida for a while. That felt like a whole other simulation right there. So everybody's been kind of off their. Off the game this summer. But it's okay. We all survived Crab week. For those who watched the Alan Wake episode, you know what Crab week was and what a fun time that was. We're also joined by a werewolf. Wolf, how you doing this week?
I am doing well. I picked up a new record just the other day and had a parent teacher conference with the kiddo, and his teacher kept getting distracted by all the stuff in my background. She pointed out this record, that record. She's like, oh, that takes me back. That's why I always blur my background. I had the same issue with work because I have all this stuff behind me, and if I don't hide it, people just point it out, and it just. Yeah. Attention.
It just. It felt great being the one to not be distracted while talking to an instructor.
So it's great when you can. You can be the adult in the conversation, and the teacher is the one who has to pay attention. All right, I did say there's a special guest. It's. Well, listen, you know us. We're all a bunch of nerds, and we're always knee deep into the latest technology and the latest, you know, things that come out, come out in the cloud, and it comes to AI. I'm pretty excited with it. I mean, obviously, AI has some, you know, caveats and some issues we don't like, you know, but there's chat. GBT had a new thing announced. I think they call it strawberry. It's their new model that has reasoning capabilities. So I thought, hey, I got a few hours. We'll say. It was that long to put together something using this new AI algorithm, and I made a simulation. I made a simulated host. So we're gonna say hi. Pull him up here. Pretty handsome devil, if I may say so. Welcome, special guest. Who are you?
I am Sinistar. Oh, okay. Any relation to Arsenistar? No. Oh, okay. Well, are you different than him, or are you exactly the same as ar. Sinistar? Yes. Oh, so you love circus Charlie, don't you? Yes.
Oh, that's. That's great to hear. You're gonna fit right in on this podcast. I'm gonna just stop and say, for those listening the audio episode, take a peek at the video. I put a lot of work into the simulated sinistar, complete with a toaster background. It was well worth my time, Sinbot, wouldn't you say that's well worth my time? Yeah, that's never going to get old. Ever. Ever. All right, so this week we are talking about simulation games, and this is a weird genre. Like, I was looking at my catalog of games that I like to play, and I was trying to figure out, have I actually played any, like, what counts as a simulation game? Because when I looked up at the wiki, I was getting results back, like Stardew Valley as a simulation. But I don't really want to mention that one because I think we can do an episode on Stardew Valley. But then I'm like, go ahead.
I would say farming games have kind of spun out into their own subgenre, to the point where I think we can remove those from this conversation specifically. Yes. Okay, I agree. Okay. Because they're generally, like their own format of farming sim and life sim, like, together. Right, right.
Okay, that makes sense. So then not farming sims. And I was looking at, well, you know, I like racing games quite a bit, and I used to love Forza, so I went back and looked at Forza on the Xbox 360, because that's the one I played. Then I realized the parts of that game I like are the arcadey bits, not the simulation parts. So I'm taking that off my list. Then I'm like, what else I got left? So it's not a whole lot, but I do enjoy the genre, and there's games that I had on the list that I know you guys have played. So I wanted to spend some time this week talking with you guys on what simulation games you guys play and, like, and maybe I should check out. So I know some of these are kind of like real simulation games, and some are a bit memey, but maybe let's start with a serious one. How about we start with truck simulator? Is that okay?
Absolutely. Okay. Somebody's gonna explain this one to me because I've seen it. I've seen people wearing the trucker hats and the little tracking dot for the movement of looking at windows. But. Wait, you mean how involved is this forehead? You mean the IR tracker for turning? You mean. You mean this? So you actually have. I'm glad. I'm glad you have that. I'm glad you're that one. No, and I want to talk about that. So that's a good segue. Can we.
Can we talk about that for a minute? Yeah, go for it really quick. How about I give a description? Um, yes.
I think I have the most experience with these, but maybe. Maybe wolf competes with me. Um, so there's a couple of them. There's european truck simulator, and then there's american truck simulator. Um, they, uh. It's. It's funny because when I first saw these, I was like, why would I ever want to do that? Like, I get flight sims. I can't. I can't go get in a plane and fly, but I can go get in my car and drive. Right. But there is something to this, um, aspect of, like, how long is my trailer? And I. And, you know, what's the distance I have to travel? And, oh, I have to pay attention to speed limits, and I have to, you know, all of these things. And so it's literally a job simulator. So you go and you get jobs. You have to drive a trailer or more than one, depending on your. Your, uh, job that you're doing from point a to point b, and you can do different lengths and different, you know, daytime, nighttime, all of that stuff. And then you earn money. And then basically the whole premise is you start out essentially driving other people's trucks, and eventually you buy a truck, and then you can upgrade your truck, and then you can buy a fleet, et cetera, et cetera. Go ahead.
So, I've not dug in that far, but I did, at least in american truck simulator, which I have now exclusively only played on the steam deck. I've had it for a while, but I've never played it on the PC. I've only played it on the steam deck. I took a loan out right after my first driving job to buy my own truck and not have to worry about that. So it lets you do that really quickly. Yes.
Which is actually pretty cool, I will say, for all the things the truck simulator gets right? And I've played, like, it looks like I've played 24 hours of Eurotruck sim two. Okay.
That was all on PC because that was way before I had the steam deck. And I. It's hard to say I truly enjoyed it. It's more of like a. It's sort of that drip feed of like, yeah, I did it. Yeah, I did it. Yeah, I did it. But it's not exciting. Right. I'm sitting here at this point when I'm playing it this week, I'm listening to an audiobook. I don't have the game sound on at all. I'm just playing an audiobook, playing the game, watching the traffic rules. It's easy because that's how I drive. I listen to an audiobook. So, yeah, it works for all the things that this is that gets right, which there's more I want to experience with this, because apparently, like, you can put on a VR headset for tracking as well.
Yes. And then you can hook up a steering wheel. It's carrying one of these. And steering is not exactly steering. Right. Right. With a handheld console in your hand, it's not the same experience as driving with the steering wheel. Sure.
So playing on a steam deck, then, wolf, do you take advantage of the gyro? Because I've been using the gyro a lot on my steam deck. For certain games that we're aiming can help because you get the subtle movements, or you can do the gyro to go really to the left or to really to the right in extremes. Would that be something you would try? Nope, I didn't do that. Okay.
I didn't. I didn't know I could. But the right analog stick lets you move your head around, and there's a reset button to where you can put your head straight back at, you know, 12:00 position while driving, so that way you don't have to fumble to get back into position to see straight ahead, which is nice. That said, for all the things this does really, really well, and it does a lot, I have a couple of gripes, and one thing that absolutely did not nail it for me. The first job I took was from Chula Vista to Barstow, California. I have never made that drive with no trip, with as little traffic as I saw. And for those of. If anybody listening is familiar with southern California, the Cajon pass, there is never not traffic. It can be 01:00 a.m. and traffic is backed up going out north on the Cojone pass. I was through there in no time. It made no sense.
Yeah, I mean, well, and to talk about that as well. There's an aspect as well of the game absolutely compresses time. Like, for a four hour job, you're actually going to get done in about 20 minutes. Um, and so I purchased my local map, my local state, and I drove from city that I live in to other city. Um, and the, the biggest piece that I noticed that was like, okay, this is super compressed, is basically I left, like, further away from my house and made it to a well known city in about two minutes. And that's about a 23 minutes drive in real life.
Yeah. And I get that it's compressed. I don't mind that. Yeah.
But it was just the fact that there was absolutely zero traffic. I maybe saw three dozen cars that whole 250 miles drive like, what is this? There's. But I also have a suspicion that maybe the game, as you level up, the game starts to introduce those things a little bit to let you get used to them because you know that you start at level zero or one or something. I'm at level nine now. I do see a lot more backed up traffic. I do see closed off ramps and junctions. Yes.
You see accidents on the road. Now, I wasn't seeing those in those first few drives, so I do suspect that it's a bit of, you know, now that you've been playing for a while, let's throw more at you. So maybe that's all it was. But I felt silly making that drive with no traffic whatsoever. I know that drive well.
Yeah. So I do want to throw out a couple things here. First, real quick aside, Linus tech tips did a video where they built a, you know, a whole rig, a driving rig for truck simulator. And so they took, instead of being like a race, a race car, where it's like right in front of you, they put it on the floor. And so they have to, you know, drive, like, the steering wheels down here. They even put in like, the air compressed seat and the whole thing. Oh, wow.
Yeah. It's a fun video to watch. And, and we'll probably talk flight sim here in a minute. If I hadn't already bought a very nice hot as system, um, hands on throttle and stick system for, for flight sim, I would probably be thinking about getting some real pedals and, and one of the, you know, they have those force feedback controllers now that are fantastic looking. Um, and so that would be fun to do. But the other thing I kind of want to talk about, because you brought up traffic, I agree with you that the traffic is not realistic, but I'll be honest with you, if I dealt with realistic traffic, I'd probably never play this game, because if I were driving a truck, I'd be like, fuck you. Fuck you. I'm just going to drive into you and take the dollar hit for wrecking into a car because I'm never going to get into traffic otherwise. Right.
Well, so I actually have some firsthand experience on the road in the southern California area in a big rig. Okay.
I worked with my father who was a car hauler for many years. I helped him out in the early, early months of my kid's birth. Wife was off from work, so I was doing that to bring in some extra income. And you see so much traffic in all these places, and it is very. Just painful sometimes. But the thing is, there are actually other people on the road in this game who tend to piss me off. And I saw that stuff a lot. For real? Uh huh.
And it's to the point, like, it's weirdly accurate and frustrating. I'll be going to make a turn, like a left hand turn at a four way stop, and a car that over here just pulls up and then decides he's going to pull into the intersection. Right. While I'm in the intersection. So now it's either I have to do a big old song and dance to get around him, or just hit them and take the hit on the cash flow, and it's like, you're an idiot. Stop.
So this is a game then, basically, where even bad eye AI is probably still great AI. Cause it's realistic with idiots on the road.
Yeah, there are definitely bad drivers on the road with you. There definitely are. So I have also, you know, pulled in, as I should, into the right lane so the people can pass and someone will come screaming up on the left side and try to beat me into the merge. Right. And so the only option I have is either I go into the shoulder or I hit them and take a money hit, or I. Or I slam on the brakes. Now, I'm going to throw this out. The brakes are not realistic in this game. You can stop on a dime in this game. And if you. If you did that in real life, you'd lock those wheels and you'd be careening into the intersection, right?
Oh, yeah. There's absolutely no going from 50 to zero in 12 seconds. Yeah. When you're hauling 70,000 pounds, it doesn't happen. Right. So now, that said, I mean, I think that these are. These are creature comforts that they've put in because they want you to play the game right.
Yeah. They want it to feel realistic without feeling. Without feeling too frustrating. And for me, I think the most frustrating thing is sometimes I don't know where the exit is on the navigator, like the little nav screen, and so I'll miss my turn or something, and that's frustrating. Or, you know, I'll realize it and I'll be like, I guess I should. And then I just slam right into the divider instead of just going straight.
You play without audio and do audiobooks. I actually turned on the voice navigation, and it actually helps a lot with that. There is voice navigation that'll be like, stay to the right. Turn right, you know?
Ok, so I got. Okay, so I have not played this game, really. I've only watched clips of it. I've been watching the YouTube video as you guys were talking about it. I'm trying to. I'm trying to find the fun here. So I'm skipping through the YouTube video, and it's a lot of the same roads and a lot of the same driving. Oh, yeah. Is there collisions, like you guys say, taking the dollar hit when you hit a car? Is there actually collisions?
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Yes. To the point where one of my earlier sessions, I accidentally flipped my truck. Okay, good. Upside down. And it was like, all right, you need to call a tow truck. And I was like, I don't know how to call a tow truck. I'm on a steam deck. I don't have a keyboard at hand. I don't know what pushed. Where's my tow truck button?
Yeah, I looked around for five minutes in the venues and stuff to try and figure out how to call a tow truck. Couldn't get it. So I was like, I guess I'll just load up a previous auto safe. I've also on. On ramps or turns when I've had multiple trailers, I have jammed my, like, a trailer into, like, a barrier or something. And you can't move, you get stopped. Right. So, yeah. Is it like a quick reset button to orient your truck, or is that like, starting the mission over type of situation?
No, you can. I mean, basically, you either work your way out, you call it tow trek, or you. Or you restart from your save.
Okay. All right, so there's. There is realism there. There is actually the simulation behind. Behind the memes here. Okay. What about, like, truck customization? Cause I. One of my wife's uncle used to be heavy into truck customization. Like, he used to do competitions where people would do, like, marble floors in the bottom of their trucks. The led lightings, the disco balls, like they used to go crazy with it. Can you do customization?
There is some cab customization, like internal cab customization, but the majority of the customization is outside lighting systems, wind resistance changes, mirrors for. Yeah. Engine upgrades, tire upgrades, wheels to look just prettier. And there really are people who, they drive their trucks and they like to buy all the fancy stuff. They'll spend $25,000 on lights to line their trailer, you know. Yeah, that's a lot of money on lights.
So you bring this up, and this is a good segue because I have argued in our discord, and I'm going to argue in our discussion here that this game is an rpg. And I'm going to argue that because a, you are playing a role ro le. You are a truck driver. You gain experience. There are unlockable skills with the experience, and there are items that make you better. What items? Well, we were just talking about them. Engine upgrades.
Instead of buying armor, I'm buying an engine upgrade. I mean, you know, can I go. Into a virtual 711 and get an energy drink? Is that something I can do? Like, is there oceans? Kind of. There are. You do have to pull off the road at rest stops and sleep. You do have to get gas. You go to the garage and do upkeep on your truck. Yes. If you damage it, it require, it requires more upkeep. You actually get fines at a way station if your vehicle is too damaged.
Yep. And you know that the, the golden rule of a JRPG is you have a silent protagonist, which I think applies this game because you're playing that protagonist. Yes. And I guess the NPC's and the battles of the cars you have to fight with in traffic when it shows. Up or, or the, or the. The closed exits or the car wrecks or, you know, I mean, yeah, I have seen police. I've never been pulled over, but there is. It does definitely give you a warning when you go over speed.
It tells you. It does tell you you're speeding. You're generally just like, in real life, you're safe. If you're going just over five. Yeah. Like within 5 miles over the speed limit, you're generally safe and not going to get fined. You don't get pulled over. But a cop car near you will be like, oh, we're speeding. You get a fight. Okay, which way? Less hassle. Way less of a hassle than in real life. I will give it that.
The cop system working. Like, do you actually see an NPC cop come to your window or is it just like. No, no, it's. You'll just see highway patrol or police cars on the road and you kind of know. I see it. I see a black and white. I should follow the rules a little tighter. That sort of thing. No, it'll just pop up and say, like, speeding and give you a fine. Like, it just. Okay.
It's a little pop up and has a nice little cha ching anytime you get charged. Like, if you. If you collide with another vehicle, it's like collision. Chi ching. Yeah. $450 fine or something. Uh huh.
Okay. So the other part of this kind of game that might appeal to me then is how much variety is there? And that's kind of weird to say about a truck simulation game. But is there a lot of cities to go to? Destinations? Like, it's not. You guys said compressed time. It's also compressed maps, too, right. It's not a full drive across California, right? Yeah.
Right off the bat, they have already made a bunch of this, a bunch of the maps, free dlC. So there is a large swath that you can drive without having to purchase additional maps. And then there are additional maps for, like, $12.
Buying the game right out. You have access to California, and of course, if you get the free dlcs, you have California, Utah, or. No. California, Nevada, Arizona. Is that the only three? I think California, Nevada, and Arizona. I think that's it. Utah is purchasable. Colorado is purchasable. Wyoming, Mexico, Texas, Texas, Washington, Oregon, Oregon, Idaho. Like, there's a lot of them that are purchasable. Texas is actually. Go ahead. I was just about to say most states are $12. Texas is like 20.
Yeah, but it's. If. If you've driven through Texas, and I know as a canadian, you probably haven't, it is actually longer to drive from north to south in Texas than it is to drive from north Texas to Canada. It is actually longer because it's a huge state. Yeah, it's massive. If you. East to west, that's a 900 miles drive. I've driven twice. Okay. Yeah, I drove in real life, not in the game. I don't have.
I drove from where I live to Houston, and we entered Texas, and I'm like, sweet, we're in Texas. And then I was like, are we fucking there? Oh, we're still in Texas. Oh, yeah, we're still in Texas. I know I was going to Houston, which is in Texas, but it got to the point that I was like, can we be done with Texas?
Where's Houston? Where'd they put this place? Yeah, that's kind of how it was when I drove across there. And then I got to like, oh, man. The next day when I got to Louisiana, I was so happy, and Texas just seemed never ending. Got to Louisiana and then all of a sudden I'm in Alabama. I was like, what happened to Mississippi? Yeah, right.
It's one of those things where, like, if somebody says, well, how about we go drive across Canada? And I'll usually say no, because. Because when you're going across the prairies, and I'm sure the prairies is a very lovely place with lots of tourist places to go to, but when you're driving across the highway, across the prairies, it's very dull, it's very flat, it's very boring. It's a lot more entertaining to drive across the US because every state is a little bit unique, a little bit different. So I can imagine.
I can feel it for you. Once you. If you take the ten from southern California to Florida, you're not going to see a whole lot of difference until about the middle of Texas. I have driven a good portion of across Canada, by the way, we went from Manitoba to Alberta is the furthest west we went, but I believe. So, yeah. We went to Jasper and Banff. So we went from Manitoba to Jasper and Banff. So, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like BC's. BC is wonderful. There's a lot of great scenery in BC, and Ontario is very varied. And when you drive across Ontario. But, yeah. All right, so american truck simulator. And, Wolf, you said you played european. Truck simulator, as if I. That's actually where I started. Yeah. Go ahead. How different are the maps between the two? Like, how different are the two games? Right.
I would say american truck simulator does feel a little more varied and detailed. And I think part of that comes with the fact that they just had more funding and more bigger team to actually create the variation. A lot of what was in Eurotruck simulator two seemed like it was mostly flat and not, sometimes it would be really windy, but most of the time, nothing. And most of the cities seemed very. Just get off the freeway like it's at the off ramp and that's it. And it's not much more than that in american truck simulator. Like, most cities might have two, maybe three off ramps attached to them, but you do. You can do a little driving around in areas.
And I will say, when I played Euro truck simulator, I did have a lot more times getting on ferries because you would be like, say, going from, like, you know, Britain, the british isles to somewhere else. Right. And then the other thing that was definitely varying was you had to figure out, and sometimes I had to use traffic to figure this out, which side of the road you drove on because. You'D literally differ in some countries. Yeah.
Yeah. You'd literally change a country and you'd be like, oh, oh, fuck, there's a car coming head on. That's funny. Yeah.
So one of the reasons why I asked about that, they're just like a real side tangent on another game. So I've seen a lot of clips of truck simulator, but when I'm, like, browsing tick tock, I see another game. And I thought it was a mod of truck simulator, but it's actually its own game. And the reason I'm asking about the difference between Europe and the US because I know that the. The roads and highways are very different in the different continents, but the game that I found, actually what I was watching was Indonesia bus simulator. So I want to show that real quick who people who have not seen that one because this one is pretty interesting. So Indonesia, I guess, is well known for lots of crazy slender roads and hillsides. And I guess the meme of this one is people have modded it to make challenge maps. So for those who can't watch the video, it's. It's like a two lane highway. And you are a very long bus and you're going through traffic and there's parts where there's cliffs on either side of the road and there's dozens of vehicles in front of you as you try and navigate. And it's. It's hilarious to watch. I want to get this. I think there's a mobile version, this game, but I've seen people play this with the full steering wheel set up and whatnot. And I later found out it was actually an Indonesia tick tock guy. And this is what he does. He just plays Indonesia bus simulator on tick tock and he does these challenge maps like they're nothing. Like it was a daily morning commute. And it's wild to see a giant bus that has no give, somehow navigate across these sharp turns to get across. And it's funny as hell to me. So this is like the more meme side of it.
I have seen something like that where it was just this long, stupid long level of just like, steep inclines and curves and then steep declines and back and forth. And it just looked like this whole region was just made of cartoon hilltops where the road just rolls over and over and over every once in a while, you see a bus on another road just ever so slightly trying to make its way around.
There was a bit that I was watching because I'm watching the video. There was a bit that looked like, honestly, in Glacier National park in the US, there's a road called the road to the sun, and it literally goes along a mountain they have carved this road in. And I just watched that and I was like, that's how that looks.
It's. It's wild to me, like, so when I think of, like, games like this, like, truck simulator. Bus simulator, I think is where I would have more fun, where it's the stupid, weird roads, exotic locations, trying to take a truck through. But it's probably a very mundane and normal commute for the average person in that country. But for somebody, like, from here, where we're used to eight lane superhighways, we'd have a hard time. And I think it's funny. So, yeah, when we said truck simulator for this episode, this is. This is the game that my brain went to.
Well, we should shift gears here. Oh, that's a good segue. Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to talk about the another bus game briefly as a joke, or do you want to move on to a different type of similarity game? We could just at least reference it. Yeah. So when we talked about simulation games, one game that we kind of had to talk about was Desert bus, I think, sinister. You're probably more familiar with the history than I am. Do you want to talk about it?
All I know is that Penn and Teller made it as a joke. And basically, I don't remember where you originate, but you. You terminate at Las Vegas. I think you start in LA or something and you. It's. There is no time compression. It is literal time. You basically have to drive the whole time. And the problem is, is the bus drags, right? So you can't just like, get. You can't tweak it until you're aimed perfectly and then walk away. You are constantly recorrecting. They did this as a joke.
Yeah. I don't know why they made this decide to make this game, but I do. I do know that it's definitely satire on video games and the idea of taking just mundane things and making fun video games out of them. And this is, this is the. Literally, the mundane topic turned into a game. And it's just. It's wild to me that it's like a full, I think, 16 hours drive to Nevada and it's the same road, the same desert scenery, there's nothing to look at. I don't even think there's music in this game. And you're forced to focus on it. And I only know of it because for a while there, this was the fun meme game to do at Speedrun. Charity runs. Right? You do charity, raising money, and you'd be forced to play desert bus as a joke. So, yeah, this is a fun one. This is a Sega CD. I think it was only Sega cd, probably. It's wild this exists and that we can play this today I thought was fun.
Yeah. So that's actually. Go ahead. Has since remade it in VR. So there's desert bus VR on. Oh, no. Sounds like good time. Well, this is a good segue because you said, you said take mundane and, you know, turn it into a simulation. And I think that's a good segue to power watch simulator.
Sounds good. So this is another one I have not played, but I've heard that it's got a lot of fans who say it's oddly relaxing. It's kind of engaging. They kind of get into a groove with it. But for me, it just. It's power washing. Right. Like, what makes this stand out?
I streamed this for multiple weeks. I streamed this game. Yeah, I basically referred to it. I think I titled all of my streams as Power Wash and chill because, uh, it. It is, it is. Honestly, it is. It is one of the most chill experiences, but it is also incredibly rewarding. They took that whole endorphin release thing and figured out how to make it perfect. And the reason why, because, you know, some people play, um, willy nilly, go find the dirt and spray it. But there's a bunch of us, me included, that like, to do lines and, you know, make sure that it's, like, perfect and clean and blah, blah, blah. And there's a button that will show you how much dirt is left and where it is. I hate using that button because I want to find that little bit.
No spoilers. You want to find the dirt on your own. Yeah, yeah.
And then when, when you clean an area, basically, like each area is, is there's a little completion bar in the upper left that'll say what you're spraying, and it'll tell you how much is left. It gives you a little completion bar, and when that gets to a certain percentage, I think it's like sub 5% or something. It will mark it as done and it gives you the ding. It is a ding. And it is like, it's, it's. Oh, the endorphins just go, you know, squirting through your brain. So, yeah, this.
I've watched a fair amount of this game. I've never played it. I probably wouldn't, because I feel like I would become addicted to it while not getting a ton of excitement from the gameplay. Oh, no. There's so much excitement. It's. It's. It's fantastic. And then you much like truck simulator. You earn money. You earn these. You know, you earn stuff as you go, and you can buy different nozzles, and you can buy different cleaning solutions, and you can buy extenders, and you can buy. Okay.
All of these things. And so, yeah, it. It is. It is glorious.
Okay. Sincerest in chat says the ding is like getting a multi chest in vampire survivors, which, if that's the case, I might be in. It is. And I'm looking at the video of somebody playing through this, and they're power washing an entire backyard patio, which is absolutely God awful. And I like to say, I would like to think that I would never have a backyard that bade, but I might have a backyard that's bad. Mine might be considered practice. Yeah. So different nozzles, extensions. There's unlockables. Is this also a JRPG, or is this an RPG?
I don't think you get experience, and so that. That would probably disqualify it. So I think the backyard is the second level, technically, right? Because the first job is cleaning the van. So you can go into business.
You. You get. You get. You get options. You'll. You'll get, you know, a couple. A couple that will call and say, hey, I need you to come clean this. And so you get to pick which ones you do. And by the way, there is a story. There is a story to the whole main game, at least. I don't know about the dlcs, but there is a story, okay? You. You get hints through people, like, giving you messages, and you're. You're going the whole time. You're like, why is this as absolutely scummy as it is? And there is a story.
Like you said, you start off by clean. Power cleaning the vans or power washing the van so you can take on jobs, I guess. How many environments are in this? I'm scared to ask. Oh, well, they keep adding them. So I think in the main game, there's probably 30 different areas between. Probably. That's insane. I'm just throwing that out there. But. And that's without DLC.
Yeah. Yeah. And if I remember right, most of the DLC is free for this game. I think most of it's free. Yeah. Cruise ship, sun deck, a bunch of others. Cruise ship. Yeah. That's wild. Yeah. The two. There's a tomb raider pack. There's a midgar pack. Okay, so. Hammer.
Wow. Okay. Okay. So that's. I didn't realize there's a warhammer one or an Alice in Wonderland, because why this hit my radar this week is that. And I wanted to talk about simulators in this game, particularly, is because they announced a Shrek DLC, which I'm gonna pull up the trailer for when we talk about it. And I thought that was gonna be, like, really oddball, off the. Off the wall thing for this game. But if there's already a warhammer one, I don't think it's going to make much of a dent in the weirdness factor. So they're releasing a shrek DLC for power wash simulator.
Yep. Okay. Oh, it looks glorious. It looks glorious. Oh, it's all sparkly. It's sparkly. Puke on shrek. Like, oh, I love it. As you're cleaning the shrek swamp, you're literally going to swamp and power washing the rainbow color puke off his. Of his. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't realize the game went that crazy with the. The environments. I thought is literally cars, maybe a house, backyard. I didn't realize they went. I didn't realize they went two places. This is pretty funny. Yeah.
Hey, SpongeBob DLC is coming as well. Oh, SpongeBob was a paid DLC. Well, yeah. Mix midgar. Midgar is free. Midgard is free. Okay. That's a weird one. Back to the future one where you do, like, the clock tower, the Josh. Yep. Alice in Wonderland. This is great. Oh, man. What have I been missing out on? You get to power wash, the train time machine. Uh huh. Oh, okay. It might be in.
And this game is not only mostly, it is overwhelmingly positive. Like, they don't even have to call. They don't even have to qualify, like, recent and all time. It is just overwhelmingly positive. And honestly, having played this, it's true. Now, I think that this is. Isn't this some steam deck verified? Yes, it is. Yes, it is. So. Uh huh. I. Now I'm curious. Why is the back to the future DLC mixed? What?
Probably because it costs money. Because they. Because you get so much free that they're like, we don't like that. You have to pay for this one. I don't know. Yeah, the SpongeBob is also mixed. Hmm. Yeah. But Alex, it might be a thing about pulling the newer buyers I know, like, from another game I was playing the other week was coast, what you call it? Park similar. Ghost museum, park simulator. No, what is it called? Park similar. Planet coaster. Planet. Oh, yeah, Planet coaster. Yeah.
Yeah. So I was playing that the other week and a little bit, and there's a, there's a Ghostbusters DLC for that one. And the reviews started getting bombed because they announced they're yanking it from the store because they don't want to pay the renewal for the IP license, so they're pulling the dlc. And that's kind of the risk with these kind of games. Like when they come out for the lulls and a little bit cash grab, they'll use ips like back to the future and Ghostbusters. But then I always worry two, three years later, you know, play that or whatnot.
The thing is, steam has continued to. If you bought it, you own it, so you won't lose it if you buy it, you'll lose the ability to buy it if you haven't bought it later. Yeah, right.
Um, and by the way, sinsters points out, I didn't, I didn't know about this, but there are Easter eggs if you wash on a soft level first. Like, there's graffiti and stuff underneath the first layer. So. Yeah, okay. Um, yeah, it's. And, and sinsters is right. Not only are do they add DLC, but in the main game, they keep adding levels as well. So this is, this is almost a story like no man's sky where, like, you buy it once and you keep just getting more as it goes.
The no man's sky of simulation games. Power watch simulator. Exactly. I mean, arguably, no man's sky is. A simulation too, so there's, there's that as well, too. Yeah. This is wild. I didn't realize that this game got that in depth and actually kind of, I actually kind of want to pick this one up. I might pick this one up. You will not be sad, much like when we told you to buy a steam deck. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I should have bought one of those a year ago. I'm telling you to buy power simulator.
So. Yeah. Okay. So that one sounds like a solid game to play. I actually just thought of a simulation game while we're talking about power wash simulator, and it actually fits this episode really well. And I don't know if you guys played it. I think I've mentioned it last year, arcade paradise. Have you guys tried that one? I haven't. I haven't. But I have not played it. That's the one where you own a laundromat. Yes. And you want to convert it into an arcade or something?
Yeah. And it's very much a simulation game. Like you literally start out as you're a guy and your dad, who's voiced by Doug Cockle, who does Geralt from Witcher three, he's the voice of your dad and he calls you and says you're going to run the laundromat and make money for them. And you start with the laundromat and you notice as you're doing laundry that there's a couple machines in the back. So you get the idea that you could make this into an arcade, but the core loop of this game is very much. Customers are dropping baskets of laundry off. You have to wash it, you have to dry it and fold it and it gets picked up. And if you do it timely, you get bonus money from doing it properly. But as you're doing that loop every day you get enough cash to start unlocking arcade machines. And they're totally playable. They're, they're unique to this game. Some are better than others, but they're, they're unique mini game arcade machines that you build into the back of your laundromat to get cash. Let's see if I find footage of the machines.
By the way, sisters pointed out, I saw it to old school PDA action. I was going to call out specifically, it's got a palm pilot in it.
Yes, it's very much a PDA. It's, it's definitely like an eighties aesthetic for most of the games as well. It's just wild though. I have not, I have not beaten it. There is an end to it. But I do understand that from the end of the game you end up unlocking a second building on the street that you're on and you can fill it with machines and re watching the video. This is a fairly early on arcade where you have about a dozen machines. And when I say simulator, I mean it. You actually have to collect cash from each of the machines every day. You got deposit in your safe, putting your code in the safe every goddamn time. You have a web, a little work office PC and you have to check your emails and buy machines and talk to your buddy. There's like an AOL instant messenger chat with your friend as you discuss how you're going to make this laundromat a killer arcade business and how your dad doesn't understand you, the whole works. But like, you walk in, you walk into the arcade in the morning, one of the first things you have to do is clean up the trash. And you get the trash bag, you have to walk it out to the back, and there's like a short little tiny button press mini game to throw the trash in the. In the bin. And if you nail it purposely, purposely, you get an s rank. Like, everything's ranked. Like a video game should be. Right? Like unclogging the toilets. You have to unclog toilets. I got an s ranking machines. Yeah, I got literally. Yes, that's exactly what it is.
I didn't spray shit anywhere. Oh, man, I gotta play this. All the shit stayed in the bowl. I got an s. Yeah.
And like I said, for a simulation game, the core loop is actually pretty rad. It's fun to play the simulation aspects. And if you ever want to break, you can literally walk up to any of the arcade machines and play them. Um, you have controls over how much they cost, the time, the difficulty. And if you change the difficulty in the settings for your customers, it also affects when you play as well. Like, it's. There's a lot of detail behind the scenes in this game. I was not expecting. I want to say this was almost my game of the year last year, or almost a runner up, but I never put the full amount of time into it I think it deserved. But it's pretty solid game. So that's arcade paradise.
Very cool. This is also a steam deck verified. Yeah. Oh, it runs great in the steam deck. Yeah, absolutely. Runs perfectly on there. I think it was. Go ahead. For those listening, you may think that we're steam deck fanboys, and you're right. It's not wrong. Yeah, I'm just looking. Still the game, they've added DLC with new games. I have to check those out because there's busta moot, like a busted move or puzzle bobble flown here. Yeah, that was not at release.
Yeah, I was just watching. Yeah, it's wild. Anyway, that's arcade Paris. I love that one. So that's, that's a simulation game I have played recently. And I do like. So what else we have that we want to talk about simulation game wise? I played some PC building simulator earlier this week as well, for the first time. And I played that as well. Yeah.
Oh, it is a thing and I've watched people play it. I did not realize just how tedious it feels when you start it. And at first you've got one, maybe two jobs a day, so it doesn't feel super overwhelming. But as you get further in. You're getting requests for, like, upgrade the gpu. I need more ram. I need the benchmark to hit these numbers. Figure it out. Funny. Okay.
Yeah. Here's my budget. Make it happen within this budget. And then there's. What was the other thing? There's not just the benchmark, but also, like, a. Can I run it analog? Uh huh.
So you can see, like, you have to. You. You have to buy access to all these softwares to use them on the computers as you do more jobs. So that way you can do higher tier jobs that require more of you. And so you. Literally, when you take apart a computer, if you need to change a motherboard, you gotta open the case, unscrew every screw on that case, remove all the cables, remove all the pieces. And by removing the ram, I mean, you got to take the little toggle above the ram and below the ram. Then you can remove the ram.
There's no two fingers like I do. Yeah. And, you know, you pull out the process. You open. You pull off the processor cooler. You open the little hood for the processor. You remove the processor, you unscrew every stupid little screw that the motherboard has in it. Remove the motherboard and then remove all the little things to attach the motherboard to the PC tower, then put in the new motherboard. Well, and go back in.
You can forget to put on, you know, thermal paste. You can forget, like, all these things. And then plug in a fan. Gosh, it's like the story of my life. Last time I built a computer, I screwed up the. The pace, and I also forgot to plug in a fan. That's. This is too real. This is gonna be PTSD trying to play this game. And I've only played the first, and it sounds like Wolf has only played. I've only played first two of these. Now, is there really? Yes.
I thought it was brand new. I didn't realize it was a franchise. No, the game. The original game, I think, is from 2017. Yeah. All right. And, you know, it's got different workshops in it that you can build in. So it's got, like, a couple of custom workshops made for the game, but then it's also got, like, major PC supplier workshops that you. The kinds you see streaming on, like, Twitch and YouTube, making PCs. And they licensed those into the game or got permission. Yeah. NZXT is one of them.
That'S on brand for them because they sponsor everything now. That's. Yes, they do. Okay. All right.
That sounds funny. I love how genre this is. Kind of taking things to the next level with the memes. Right? Because, like, it's very much a genre that's popular in Europe, right? Like, we. I mean, I don't think we played it, but there's farming simulator, and along with trucking simulator, it was a very serious genre in Europe. And that now, because it's a meme status when it got brought over to the west, now you have crazy ass games like this, like PC simulator and whatnot. It's fun.
Car mechanics simulator. That's another one. That one, yes. Gas station simulator. Yeah. Oh, that one. Simulator. Oh, holy shit. I have watched. I've watched seamstress play gas station simulator, and that is like a nightmare of minutiae. I watch that and I'm like, no, no, no, no. I just need to go drool in the corner. Just watching you play that. Are you guys familiar with the term go ahead?
Go ahead? Oh, I was gonna say, that's the one. In that one, you have to, like, throw away every single little piece of trash and, you know, fix the building up from the ground up because it's all just basically, it's, well, tear down status. You're running over and you're changing tires and then you're running over and you're filling gas and then you're running to the register to charge people money and then you're like. It is like, oh, yeah, yeah, that sounds funny.
I was gonna ask, are you guys familiar with the term raw dogging? Not in the dirty way, but raw dog. Raw dogging a flight. Yeah, I know about dogging a flight.
Yeah. So the. For those who don't know the term raw dogging a flight, which I just heard because I was going away recently, it's where people, as a half a joke but half as a personal challenge will sit on a plane for as long as the plane ride is staring straight ahead. No electronics, no in flight movie, no bathroom breaks. Just sitting in your seat staring ahead blankly for how many hours your flight is and people half joking, half seriously boasting that they've managed, you know, cross the Atlantic and playing raw doggy and whatnot. Yeah, it's funny. And I only bring it up because where is it? Here it is actually a raw dog simulator, by the way.
I want to throw this out there since we're talking about it. Don't do this. Like, no, I'm not kidding. Yeah, it's proven to be bad for your mental health. Multiple health groups have said it's better to fall asleep on the flight than to do this. You are basically guaranteeing that you are going to get thrombosis in your veins, which means blood clots. Don't do this. This is fucking stupid anyway.
Yeah, it's stupid. So play the game instead, which is equally as stupid that somebody took this dumb meme and made it into a game for further memes. I thought was pretty funny as you're just basically staring straight ahead. But, yeah, absolutely. Stand up. Take breaks when you're flying, too. Like, I only bring it up because I was on a flight to Florida recently, so. And it was like a midnight flight, and you're just sitting there for 3 hours going bonkers, when. Because I didn't have wi Fi in flight. So you're like, what the hell am I gonna do for 3 hours?
I think jake just admitted that he raw dogged his flight to Florida. Well, he has. I'm sure he was distracted. No, I mean, this is the funny thing. You said you didn't have Wi Fi. How long have we had Wi Fi on planes, and how long have people been flying?
So that's the thing, is it used to be banned for the longest time. Right. Even though, you know, studies show there was not an issue having your cell phone open on a flight. But it's only recently, at least up here, where you could use a wifi on a plane, but they still charge you through the nobes for it. That's why I didn't have it. I didn't want to pay the $10 for the 3 hours because I thought, it's a 09:00 p.m. to midnight flight. I thought I would probably sleep, but I have kids, and I was sitting next to my two year old, and she was not sleeping at 11:00 p.m. on a flight. She was dancing in her seat, so I kind of had to stay awake.
Preventing thrombosis. Yes. There you go. No, I used to fly internationally, and I would actually get up every, I don't know, 45 minutes to an hour and actually walks. Yeah.
Yeah. When I went to Japan, I made sure my daughter and I stood up at least every hour just to kind of stretch the legs a little bit because it's like a 14 hours flight, and you have to. Otherwise. Otherwise you are going to, like, not be able to get off that plane. It's. It's crazy. Especially if you're like me and we have tall legs, so it's crazy. I don't know anything about being tall. No. All right. Was there any other games we wanted to talk about this week?
I mean, the simulation world is huge. So, yeah, like I pointed earlier to, you know, Simcity behind me, we could have talked about it, but I mean, that's probably actually an episode of its own, like the whole Sim City franchise, I think. But honestly, I would just, I mean, if we want to talk about other things, cool. But my kind of final statement would be pick up some sims because they are, they're mostly just kind of like thoughtless. Like, hey, I just need to play something and I'm going to spend a little while.
It might also serve a good. I've read articles. This is sort of getting off topic a little bit, but I'll bring it back, I promise. I've read articles that people working from home, the fact that they don't have that liminal space of the drive to or from work to decompress. One of these simulators might fill that role for you to start before and after your work. Give it, give yourself ten to 20 minutes doing this just to sort of ease into the idea of I'm going to work and then ease out of I'm coming home from work. Even if you're just at your desk, it might be something good for your mental health.
I have missed losing my, my commute because I work from home. I have missed that. And what I do is I scroll the Internet now for a little while as, as basically like don't, don't start working. Hold because my, you know, my response used to be open my phone and check my work messages and this, that and the other. Right, right. And so now I force myself to like doom scroll, which is bad. Yeah, that's not exactly bad. So honestly, pulling out truck sim and being like, here's my commute.
Yeah, give yourself 1520 minutes before work to just sort of like, all right, I'm a drive to work today. I work in Renoir.
15 minutes and hit traffic and I'm done. The fact that you could walk away from traffic is pretty appealing. No, we, we go, I go in once a month now currently, and, uh, it's transit and I do not miss that hour and a half commute at all. I'm, I'm good. But the idea of taking 1015 minutes before and after work is incredibly important. The problem with like, you know, like even in the podcast, this is also the same room that I work in. And one of the reasons why I got that steam deck is because I didn't want to play games in the same places that I work. I get, I get tired of staring at these four walls. So it's nice to be able to compress and walk away or take a break. What I've been doing is playing a tabletop solo rpg called Kirnathus lately. And it's just like I sit over a table, I sit down or I sit on the bed and I play that for 20 minutes and that's how I try and I try to unwind because I had an issue with doom scrolling as well. That's the kind of the type of that four year cycle where doom scrolling is not good for my health.
And you, you don't even live here anyway. Yeah, I know. Maybe, maybe I'll fly to work sometimes. There you go. That's one of the nice things about these simulators is they are sort of like, turn off your brain to your problems and just do this task. Yeah.
Like, I could see people doing this with PC building simulator, truck simulator, flight simulator. Like, there's so many of them that can fill that role of just, you know, the bridge between home and work. And, you know, I might be talking out of my ass. It might not work, but at the same time it might just because you're giving yourself that cushion to sort of get in and out of the mindset.
The one thing I might like for my truck simulator in particular is even if I don't get the steering wheel, I might like getting some pedals. And the reason why, yeah, is because with the steam deck or a controller, the problem is, is when I'm driving my car and my nose itches, I can take one hand off the wheel. Right.
And the problem with control, well, no, there is, but the problem is, is those trucks are so fucking slow, the more often than not, you just keep the gas on, like, yeah, usually just. Holding the thing like this driving. And then every once in a while, once you hit five over, you just go, you're good again. But, yeah, when I need to scratch my nose, I'm like, uh huh, yeah, don't do it on a third, having.
The pedal, you know, because then I could just like take one hand off and steer and still like, yeah, yeah.
There definitely is something about having like the steering wheel and the pedals. Like, I, I've almost dived into that. I would probably do more. The what? You have the hotas, right, the, the stick and the rudder. Like the game that I almost got that for was elite dangerous, which is also kind of a simulator, even if it is science fiction. But that's a game where if you have the actual desk set up with, with the stick in front of you, feels really fantastic. I played it in VR years ago with an early headset and it was just a blast to play that. Where you're looking around the cockpit, you're hitting the right buttons, you're very carefully trying not to crash into things as you try and enter a space station. It's very much a space sim and I loved it for that. But the physical stuff would be a big part of that.
Fun bit of sinistar trivia. I actually, brother of sin and I built out of PVC and printed mounting brackets and like MDF wood, we actually built a, like, entire surrounds out of PVC and stuff. For elite dangerous, specifically. Yeah, that'd be a blast. Yes.
I even, I even had a curved monitor in front of me on, you know, on purpose. And, um, and the great thing about the hotas is, you know, I'm spinning off. But in particular with elite dangerous, by default, it flies like a plane. So like, it always, you know, it, it basically, instead of like, you know, you always fly the direction you're going and then you steer in. But if you think about space, that's not actually how space works. And there's a button where you can set up a button and with the hotas, turning that off and just doing an invert and immediately jetting felt so good. I mean, it was just. Yeah, yeah.
One of the, the first memories I have with VR, it was Yochula's dev kit and which was a janky screen door if ever saw one. But I had some folks over, friends from work playing it, and somebody wanted to play lead dangerous, and back then it didn't have any sensors or hand controllers. It was just an Xbox controller that came with. But anyway, he sat down in a chair, he had the headset on, and he hit the. There's, it's, I think it's the inertia button you're talking about, where you turn off the inertia, which makes it very much like you're realistically in space. And he accidentally hit that button and started to spin and couldn't stop. And he was spinning so bad, dude. He almost puked on my floor and legit got sick and had to rip the headset off and fall to the floor and just head between the knees and breathe for five minutes because it was so nauseating. As he spun 360 constantly and he couldn't come out of it. I thought it was hilarious.
Yep. I should really give that game another go. Yeah, it's pretty fun.
Yeah. Elite. Elite dangerous. Honestly, I felt like they, they took it too far with the missions and then the whole, like, chasing down like the, you know, the ultra rare elements to like, make your gun do this or that. And I kind of felt like, hey, it went from a really cool space sim to like every other, like, mmo where it's like, I've got to go find this thing and I've got a min max my ship. Like, you know, it felt like that. And so that's when I stopped playing. But otherwise, it is one. It is. It is probably the best space sim I've played.
Yeah, it's definitely up there. Like I do. Although I do appreciate no man's sky. When I come across a space station, it tractor beams my ass into the station and lands me automatically because I can't count the number of times I've crashed into something and leaked. Dangerous just trying to frickin land. Okay, pretty awesome.
One more quick little story. Brother of sin and I used to play elite dangerous. And you like the tractor beam. Brother sin and I liked manual landing in the. In the space stations because we'd see who could do it the fastest, which often meant we wrecked into things. I don't know. Yeah.
Anyway, well, there's. But wait, like, I mean, this goes to show you how, like you said, this is a very wide genre with so many types of games, right? Just everything from, if you like city building or amusement park building, to driving truck cross country of all things, or washing the dirt on a deck. And like, even the games that are more meme ish or jokey or satire can still be pretty good. Like, I'm gonna say it again, arcade paradise. Even though it's satire and jokingly you're doing laundry for most of the game loop. It's actually pretty and fun. How they game gamify, that whole thing. Picking chewing gum off a seat of a machine can never be more satisfying in the video game, I tell you. So it's definitely a fun show.
Nice. Yeah. We didn't even talk about flights of the military. That's probably a whole other episode. And the new one. The new one's coming out, so maybe that's the time that we should talk about it. Yeah, I think it's even getting Dune DLC for some fucking reason. Wait, what? Ornithopter in flight simulator? Yeah, it's just. Yeah, I both love that. I both love that kind of hate that. Didn't they put some of the halo vehicles and older ones probably. Yeah. The plain one makes sense.
It's crazy. I think one to come back to, for sure. Yeah. I have the current one, and it seems like none of that's in there, so that's fine. Okay. All right. Anybody want to shout anything out? Anything they're playing or have been doing or streaming? Sinister, are you still streaming the DJ thing? Yeah, I'm most. Most Mondays and Tuesdays over on DJ Spin a star, and then when. And then Saturday is over on Solarcake's channel. Good. Okay. Yeah. Wolf, what about you?
No, I don't have anything going on yet. I keep saying I'm going to record stuff, and it's on the back burner because, kiddo, school just started now and it's been hectic. But I will at the very least, get Okami up on there at some point because I'm really dying to play through that now. I just got to get a couple things out of the way, and then I can start recording those.
Yeah, I know, I know. Since I beat my. My sisyphean game, I've had a moment of, like, I can play anything I want now and not hate myself. So what have I chosen to play? Warframe. I'm playing Warframe again because that's a. That's a great use of my time. Every few years, I pop that one up, you know, give that a go, and I realize every time I install warframe, I don't know how to play Warframe. I never know what to do. It's just a learning experience every time. It's just wild. But it's canadian company, so I feel like I'm obligated to check in once every few years. It's like a canadian tax.
Nice. Canada's most successful video game ever. I've got those. Yeah, go ahead. No, no, I was just gonna say, for those who are in our discord, I recently had a chance to go to Disney World with my kids, and I took a bunch of pictures, mostly of food, because look at me, I love food, and Disney's got a lot of amazing food. So if you're interested in what I saw in Disney, there's pictures there in.
Our discord, I've kind of gotten a hankering to play, like, an rpg again. So I actually reinstalled. I never completed this. I played this for hours and hours, but I never completed it. The fourth game in the bard's tale series, barrows deep. I recently reinstalled it. I'm trying to get it working on the steam deck because I have the GOG edition, and it's a little wonky. But. But, yeah, I've been. I've been kind of hankering to play that again.
Good. Yeah, that sounds like a good one, too. It's like I didn't realize how many are in that franchise. Okay, Sinbot, we haven't heard from you the entire episode. Are you doing okay? Oh, is there anything you want to shut? Are you on Twitch? I am Cinestar.
Pretty sure that's not your channel, but we'll go with it. Please. If you are listening to us live here on YouTube, do drop us a like and as follow follows here are free or follow us on Twitch. We appreciate it. And if you are listening to us on YouTube on the Vod, you can also catch our audio version of our podcast released on Mondays. You can find that on iTunes. It's not iTunes. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, or whatever the hell Google calls itself now for their podcast. We're everywhere. Or you can check us [email protected] or pressbe.org, thanks to chard. So not, not. We can't afford that one. Forget that one. Just. But presby.org is a pretty solid one. I might keep that one. But again, we are press me to cancel. Thanks for listening.